Six ex-FSU players sue coach Leonard Hamilton over $250k NIL promise

Six former Florida State basketball players filed a lawsuit against head coach Leonard Hamilton on Monday, claiming they did not receive the $250,000 in name, image and likeness compensation Hamilton promised them.

The 20-page complaint, filed in Florida’s Leon County court on behalf of Darin Green Jr, Josh Nickelberry, Primo Spears, Cam’Ron Fletcher, De’Ante Green and Jalen Warley, accuses Hamilton of reneging on a promise to give them to pay a fine. a total of $1.5 million in NIL money from his ‘business associates’.

Spears, Fletcher, Green and Warley all transferred after last season, while Green and Nickelberry exhausted their college eligibility.

The filing claims Hamilton promised compensation to every member of the 2023-2024 team, a vow that enticed several players to transfer to Florida State. The complaint includes a series of text messages, including one detailing the players’ boycott of a practice and their plan to boycott a Feb. 17 game against Duke. According to the filing, Hamilton forced the players to go to court with the promise that the money would be in their accounts the following week.

The Seminoles finished the 2023-2024 season 17-16 and 10-10 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They are off to a 9-4 (0-2 ACC) start this season and will play at Syracuse next Saturday.

The 76-year-old Hamilton is in the final year of his contract with Florida State, where he took over before the 2002-03 season.

The lawsuit is the latest in a growing number of legal battles by NIL.

Matthew Sluka, a starting quarterback for the UNLV football team, left the program after three games in September because he was never given a $100,000 NIL deal. Former Florida quarterback Jaden Rashada, who now plays at Georgia, sued Gators coach Billy Napier last year over an unpaid NIL $13 million deal. And several Tulsa players claim they never received thousands of NIL commitments from former coach Kevin Wilson.