KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The University of Tennessee approved a plan on March 1 to create a nonprofit foundation that could change into a fund to pay salaries to student-athletes.
Donde Plowman, the chancellor of UTK, proposed the plan and said that the university needs to focus on changes coming to college athletics. The Board of Trustees approved the plan after the chancellor spoke about the dozens of other Southeastern Conference schools that already have a similar foundation in place.
Plowman said if the National Collegiate Athletic Association changes the current rules and requires the universities to pay the salaries in-house, it would need a fund for the payments.
These advances come soon after the state of Tennessee and Virginia's legal battle with the NCAA over name image and likeness deals, which is how the students make money. The NCAA also announced on March 1 that they would be pausing any investigations involving third parties participating in NIL activities.
The investigations in question were opened after the then-state attorney general filed an anti-trust lawsuit challenging the current rules.
According to the NCAA, the first NIL lawsuit took place in 2009, after former Nebraska football student-athlete Sam Keller filed a lawsuit against the NCAA. Another lawsuit involved Electronic Arts Inc. over student-athlete likenesses being used in archival footage, as avatars within the NCAA video game, in photographs and in promotions.
This created a ripple effect of numerous lawsuits being filed from 2009 to 2015 according to the NCAA.