Dan Lambert plans $500-a-month endorsement deal for every Miami Hurricanes football player on scholarship

Dan Lambert plans $500-a-month endorsement deal for every Miami Hurricanes football player on scholarship

Michele Steele reports on NCAA athletes to profit off of name, image and likeness deals and talks to Wisconsin QB Graham Mertz on the subject. (1:56)

The owner of a Florida-based chain of mixed martial arts gyms unveiled big plans Tuesday to try to help Miami Hurricanes football players take advantage of new rules that allow them to make money.

Dan Lambert, the owner of American Top Team and a longtime Miami football fan, has offered each scholarship player (90 total) on the Miami football team a monthly payment of $500 this year to advertise his gyms on social media. American Top Team is the home training facility for more than two dozen professional fighters, including Jorge Masvidal and Amanda Nunes.

Lambert’s offer to the Hurricanes – which could add up to as much as $540,000 this year – is the largest reported sum for a college sports endorsement deal since new state laws and NCAA rules opened the doors for players to make money last week.

“I want to help the kids. I want to reward them for what they do, and I want a better product on the field, too,” Lambert told ESPN on Tuesday. “I want to improve the reputation of the school and the team I love so much. I think it’s a cool opportunity to get involved and make a difference.”

Lambert said the offer is the largest marketing effort his MMA business ever has made. He says he’s not sure he’ll continue to offer the same deal to Miami players in future years, but he already has bigger plans in the works to create a consistent way to provide some money to every player on the Hurricanes' roster.

Lambert has also started a corporation, called Bring Back The U, that will be solely focused on putting money in the pockets of Miami football players. He said the company will attempt to rally support from local businesses to hire the players as spokesmen. He says he also plans to host fundraising events and then donate the proceeds to any local business that agrees to use the donation to pay for Miami players as spokesmen.

Lambert said he has had multiple conversations with the school’s compliance department to tell them about his plans. He also has hired attorney Darren Heitner to make sure what he was doing didn’t violate new state laws.

“There are improper ways of fans supporting their players, and now there is a legal way to do it,” Lambert said. “And if there is a legal way, and you can dot the I’s and cross the T’s, I’m going to do it.”

Heitner helped craft Florida’s new name, image and likeness law and has consulted with several athletes and businesses looking to use college athlete endorsers. He told ESPN that Lambert’s fanhood and previous donations that he has made to the athletic department do not prevent him from creating a company that facilitates endorsement deals for Hurricanes players.

Heitner said Florida’s law only prohibits an entity that has directly supported the university or the athletic department from paying or facilitating these deals. Lambert’s new corporation has no relationship with the university.

“There’s no prohibition on an entity who may have a booster as a member,” Heitner said. “The only restriction is if the entity itself supports the institution or the athletic department.”

Many of the state laws currently in place have similar language addressing booster involvement. The NCAA rules, which dictate what is allowed in the 30-plus states that don’t have NIL laws in place, also have no restrictions that would make an effort like Lambert’s against the rules.

Lambert said he has already had several inquiries about Bring Back The U from other local businesses since launching his new fundraising company on Tuesday morning. He does not have any plans set in stone yet for their fundraising event, but he said every dollar they make will eventually land in the hands of a Miami football player.

“I’m not looking to profit from this,” Lambert said. “I want to try to bring people together and make our team better. I’ve got too many Gator and Seminole friends that have been s—-ing on me for the last 20 years. I want to reverse it.”

COVID, Gillum, and Eviction: Top News Stories in Miami in 2020

click to enlarge Illustration by Jessica Lipscomb

click to enlarge Photo by Karli Evans

click to enlarge Screenshot via NBC

click to enlarge Photo by Michele Eve Sandberg

Courtesy of the Andrew Gillum campaign

click to enlarge Photo by Nadine DeMarco

click to enlarge Screenshot via City of Miami Beach

If aliens land on Planet Earth in 3020 and come across this list, they’ll be able to deduce a few things about readers of this fine newspaper. Y’all hate hurricanes, love feet, and enjoy dunking on Jacksonville almost as much as The Good Place Yes, 2020 was a year of never-ending misery, but you managed to find a little joy by clicking on stories about foot fetish parties and that lady at a presidential town hall who told Donald Trump that he was handsome. On the other end of the spectrum, you furiously Googled COVID-19 test sites and information about how to avoid being evicted.readers have always contained multitudes.Without further ado, here are our top ten stories from 2020. Eyeballs are the metric here — these were the most-read news stories on our site this year, per some detailed analytics.Thankfully, Tropical Storm Eta heeded our advice and stayed the f away.Lots of you read this story about the Footnight parties that, pre-pandemic, took place monthly in South Florida. Lots more of you seem to have Googled “foot fetish” and found our story during isolation. Woman Who Likes Trump’s Smile: “I Wish He Would Smile More and Talk Less.”

Bottom line: Paulette Dale voted for Biden.Back in March, when the coronavirus was still new to Florida, many of us received news of layoffs, business closures, and pay cuts. Hundreds of thousands of you searched for information about how to pay your rent. While some protections still exist for tenants and homeowners, advocates and attorneys fear an “avalanche” of evictions could be filed in 2021 This asshole again.reported the story about former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum’s drug-filled encounter at a Miami Beach hotel on March 13, the first day our editorial staff began working from home because of the coronavirus. It was an insanely busy, news-filled Friday the 13th we hope to never repeat. That Jacksonville Lady Wants You to Know She’s “Not a Moron.”

Wendy Diaz does a Duval impression better than anyone else we know.Remember all those fun times waiting in line to get a swab stabbed up your nose?Ricky Arriola started off 2020 crazy and only got crazier An incredible investigation by staff writer Alexi C. Cardona showed that Norwegian Cruise Line, which is headquartered in Miami, pressured its salespeople to continue selling cruises to unsuspecting vacationers, despite the risk of grave illness or death from the coronavirus. Shortly after we published our story, the Florida Attorney General’s Office announced it would open an investigation into Norwegian.

New Bills From Florida Republicans Target Transgender Athletes

click to enlarge The proposed legislation comes amid stark changes in U.S. policy on gender since the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term. Photo by Delia Giandeini/ Unsplash

Amid a growing national push on the part of conservative politicians , Republican Florida elected officials have introduced proposals at the state and federal level to limit or outright ban the participation of transgender students in school athletic programs.In January, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube of Central Florida reintroduced the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, a bill that would require athletic programs to determine an athlete’s gender based on biological sex. Steube introduced the same bill last year, but it died in the House Committee on Education and Labor.In a written statement, Steube said the bill is meant to ensure that women in sports have a “fair playing field” in competitive sports by preventing individuals who were born male from competing with them.“By forcing biological female athletes to compete against biological male athletes in competitive sports, we are taking away women’s opportunities on and off the field,” Steube said in the statement At the state level, state Sen. Kelli Stargel of Central Florida recently introduced Senate Bill 2012 , known as the Promoting Equality of Athletic Opportunity Act. Stargel’s proposal would require the strict separation of male and female sports teams in public primary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, and it would also require trans female athletes — those who have transitioned from male to female — to submit to monthly testosterone-level tests in order to determine their eligibility to participate on women’s sports teams.Under Stargel’s bill, trans female athletes whose testosterone exceeds a state-mandated level would be suspended from competition in women’s sports for 12 months. The provision follows an oft-cited argument by opponents of transgender sports participation that higher testosterone levels make trans women better at sports than cisgender women, giving them an unfair advantage. (Though many lawmakers point to testosterone as an important benchmark for excluding trans women from sports, there is some debate over how it figures in to determining athletic ability. The bill also creates a path for cisgender students to seek legal action if a school violates the law by allowing a transgender female athlete who does not meet the testosterone requirements to compete.Similar bills limiting transgender athletic participation have been filed in dozens of states , including Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Mississippi . Many specifically target trans women participating in women’s sports while making no mention of trans men participating in men’s sports. Similarly, Stargel’s bill regulates athletes who transition from male to female but it lacks any similar conditions for athletes who transition from female to male.Transgender-rights activists in Florida have blasted Senate Bill 2012, calling the proposal transphobic and potentially harmful for young trans people.Former Florida House candidate Elijah Manley, who identifies as nonbinary , says he’ll be traveling to Tallahassee in the next week to fight the bill when it reaches committee hearings.“This bill is harmful. It will directly impair the ability of trans youth to participate in sports,” Manley tells"This only adds to the stigma that trans youth face, and it’s unnecessary.“Manley fears the bill, if passed, might jeopardize the mental health of transgender youth who want to participate in sports, pushing them to either not affirm their gender identity or not participate at all. He also questions the potential economic burden the bill would place on Florida students or schools, since the bill is unclear about who would pay for the monthly testosterone tests for trans athletes.Stargel did not respond to an email fromseeking comment.Senate Bill 2012 has also come under fire from Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy organization that tracks legislation that would affect LGBTQ people, including transgender youth. Joe Saunders, senior political director for Equality Florida and a former Florida state representative, says the Florida bills are part of a coordinated national effort by right-wing politicians to push back against LGBTQ protections.“This is a moment when LGBTQ youth are under siege in the Florida Capitol,” Saunders says. “This is an overt, coordinated, multistate attack on the most vulnerable young people. Trans youth are most likely to be bullied and marginalized because they are misunderstood.“Saunders says Equality Florida has plans to combat the Florida bills regarding transgender athletes, as well as a bill by Republican state Rep. Anthony Sabatini that would make it a crime for healthcare professionals to perform gender-confirmation surgeries on transgender minors. A similar bill Sabatini introduced died in committee last year following strong opposition from LGBTQ advocates.

“Stopping these three bills is the most important priority for Equality Florida in the 2021 legislative session,” Saunders says.This latest round of legislation comes amid stark changes in U.S. policy on gender since the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term.Last May, under Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. Department of Education held that civil-rights protections against sexual discrimination under Title IX apply to people based on their biological sex . The decision came after three cisgender high school athletes in Connecticut challenged one of their state’s policies that allowed transgender athletes to participate in sports according to their gender identity. The Trump administration held that Connecticut’s policy violated federal law — but last month the Biden administration withdrew federal support for the Connecticut lawsuit The U.S. House of Representatives under the Biden administration has also passed the Equality Act of 2021 , which would prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The Equality Act passed the House with some Republican support and now awaits a vote in the Senate.