NCAA rules that Donald De La Haye is the only person who can’t make money off Donald De La Haye

Former University of Central Florida football player Donald De La Haye has been declared ineligible for the upcoming season because he was doing exactly what the school’s football program, the American Athletic Conference and the NCAA were going to do: make money off De La Haye playing football for the Golden Knights.

After refusing to let the NCAA decide what he can and can’t use for content in his YouTube channel, Donald De La Haye has lost his football scholarship because the NCAA rules dictate that players are the only people who can’t make money off their own athletic performances.

De La Haye explained his side of the story in a recent upload to his channel.

The NCAA issued a statement about the situation, found in an article by Nick Martin of Deadspin. The statement explains that the NCAA told De La Haye that he could continue to make content for his YouTube channel, and profit off that content, as long as it was “not based on his athletics reputation, prestige or ability.”

The biggest problem with the NCAA’s logic is that the only reason De La Haye was able to monetize his channel was the fact that he played college football. If De La Haye had accepted the NCAA censure, regardless of the fact that he would have hypothetically left football out of the content, his reputation as the Knights’ kicker would still have existed. The problem is amplified when other facts about the situation are considered.

The fact is that the UCF football program, the AAC or even the NCAA itself could have made the exact same videos featuring De La Haye on YouTube, monetized them to an even greater extent than De La Haye did and it wouldn’t have affected De La Haye’s eligibility or his scholarship whatsoever. On the contrary, that scenario would have had all those parties pushing De La Haye to play even more.

Next: 25 Ugliest Alternate Uniforms In History

It could be argued that the videos, De La Haye’s monetization of them, or even De La Haye’s status as a football player weren’t the reasons that De La Haye has now lost his scholarship which paid for the education that the NCAA says is the just compensation for the football players that it makes millions of dollars off. The real problem is that De La Haye, not the NCAA or any of its invested parties, was making the money.