College football player signs NIL deal with private jet company a month after NCAA got mad at Nico Iamaleava for flying on a private jet

Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart signed an NIL deal this week with Nicholas Air, a private air travel company.  Dart's deal with Nicholas Air comes a month after news broke that the NCAA opened an inquiry into the Tennessee Vols' NIL dealings. At the center of the inquiry, according to the New York Times, was a […]

Zach Ragan Tennessee Volunteers News Writer
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Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart signed an NIL deal this week with Nicholas Air, a private air travel company. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C320BgGOod4

Dart's deal with Nicholas Air comes a month after news broke that the NCAA opened an inquiry into the Tennessee Vols' NIL dealings. At the center of the inquiry, according to the New York Times, was a trip that Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava allegedly took on a private jet for a recruiting visit. 

From The New York Times: The investigation is focused in part on the use of a private jet by a so-called donor collective to fly a high-profile recruit — now the school’s starting quarterback — to campus while the university was wooing him.Having the booster group pay for the trip by the quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, would be a violation of N.C.A.A. rules. The inquiry comes after the N.C.A.A. penalized Tennessee for different recruiting violations and signals the N.C.A.A.’s growing concern about the scale and influence of the money being injected into college sports by donor collectives.

What kind of bizarre world are we living in at this point? 

It's not that I think Dart should be in trouble at Ole Miss. That's not the case at all. Go make your money, Jaxson. You've earned it. 

I just can't believe the NCAA's logic. Players are signing NIL deals with private jet companies and yet the NCAA wanted to hammer Tennessee over a single flight! And don't give me the line about Dart being a current player and Nico being a recruit when his flight on the private jet happened. We all know what's happening here. Players are getting paid to play at programs. And the NCAA has been going around trying to punish programs that didn't do a good job of exploiting the rules (though it turns out that Tennessee skirted the rules just fine). 

Fortunately, the NCAA is about to be permanently powerless when it comes to enforcing NIL rules (because of Tennessee). 

Dart's deal shouldn't anger anyone. It's just a hilarious reminder — especially for Vols fans — of the absurdity of the NCAA.