Georgia's athletic department is headed to court to try to obtain $390,000 in damages from a former standout defensive end who transferred from the school after his sophomore season in a potentially precedent-setting case.
The Bulldogs have asked a judge to force former defensive end Damon Wilson, currently the top pass rusher on Missouri's defensive line, to enter into arbitration to settle a clause in his former contract that serves effectively as a buyout fee for exiting his deal early. Wilson played for Georgia as a freshman and sophomore before transferring to Missouri in January, two weeks after signing a new deal with Georgia's Classic City Collective.
Many schools and collectives have started to include liquidated damages clauses in their contracts with athletes to protect their investment in players and deter transfers. Georgia is one of the first programs to publicly try to enforce the clause by filing suit against a player.
"When the University of Georgia Athletic Association enters binding agreements with student-athletes, we honor our commitments and expect student-athletes to do the same," athletics spokesperson Steven Drummond said in a statement to ESPN on Friday.
Multiple attempts to reach Wilson for comment through family members Friday were unsuccessful. Wilson was served last week in Missouri with a summons to appear in court, according to legal documents.
The Bulldogs paid Wilson a total of $30,000 from the disputed contract. Because of the way the deal was crafted, Georgia says Wilson owed it $390,000 in a lump sum within 30 days of his decision to leave the team. Drummond declined to comment when asked why the damages being sought are much higher than the amount Wilson was paid.
Wilson signed a term sheet with Classic City Collective in December 2024, shortly before Georgia lost in a quarterfinal playoff game to Notre Dame, ending his sophomore season. The 14-month contract -- which was attached to Georgia's legal filing -- was worth $500,000 to be distributed in monthly payments of $30,000 with two additional $40,000 bonus payments that would be paid shortly after the NCAA transfer portal windows closed.
The deal states that if Wilson withdrew from the Georgia team or entered the transfer portal, he would owe the collective a lump-sum payment equal to the rest of the money he'd have received had he stayed for the length of the contract. (The two bonus payments apparently were not included in the damages calculation.) Classic City signed over the rights to those damages to Georgia's athletic department July 1 when many schools took over player payments from their collectives.
Georgia's filing claims Wilson received his first $30,000 payment Dec. 24, 2024. Less than two weeks later, he declared his plans to transfer.
Legal experts say Georgia's attorneys will have to convince an arbitrator that $390,000 in damages is a reasonable assessment of the harm the athletic department suffered due to Wilson's departure. Liquidated damages are not legally allowed to be used as punishment or primarily as an incentive to keep someone from breaking a contract.
In one of the only other examples of a school trying to enforce a similar clause, Arkansas' NIL collective filed a complaint in the spring against quarterback Madden Iamaleava and wide receiver Dazmin James after both players transferred out of the program. It's not clear whether the Iamaleava case has been resolved. James' attorney, Darren Heitner, told ESPN that the wide receiver "stood his ground" and that Arkansas has not moved forward to date with further attempts to collect damages.
"To me, [these clauses] are clearly penalty provisions masquerading as liquidated damages," Heitner said.
Several attorneys who have reviewed athlete NIL contracts for ESPN in the past say they believe schools and their collectives are using liquidated damages clauses in bad faith to punish players who break their contract early.
Schools and collectives have not used the negotiated buyout clauses that typically appear in coaching contracts for athletes because the teams aren't technically paying them to play their sport. Instead, the school pays players for the right to use their name, image and likeness in promotional material. Paying for play could make it more likely that courts would deem athletes to be employees, which almost all college sports leaders want to avoid.
Wilson's case could help set a precedent on whether liquidated damages clauses will serve as an effective, defensible substitute for more traditional buyout fees.