Donald De La Haye, a junior kickoff specialist at the University of Central Florida, was recently ruled ineligible by the NCAA after it was discovered that he monetized his YouTube channel. De La Haye’s YouTube channel has 90,000 subscribers, and almost five million views total, but the NCAA had an issue with the advertising revenue the kicker was bringing in. He was asked to stop making money from his sports-related videos if he wanted to continue playing football for the school. UCF even went as far as lobbying on behalf of De La Haye to continue making money from his YouTube, as long as the videos were not related to sports.
The NCAA went along with UCF’s plan, but De La Haye did not agree to move his sports-related videos to a YouTube account that was non-monetized. As a result, UCF suspended the kicker to avoid a major conflict with the NCAA. De La Haye spoke to Sports Illustrated and said “I feel like it’s about time for things to be changed. The times these rules were made weren’t really up to par with what’s going on in the real world today.” De La Haye noted that he would not be shying away from his confrontation with the NCAA.
Source: si.com
