USC ordered to hand over document related to athlete revenue sharing lawsuit
A South Carolina judge has ruled that the state’s flagship university must turn over some documents relating to its revenue sharing agreements.
The order comes after Frank Heindel, a former grain merchant and open records advocate, sued the University of South Carolina after they blocked his freedom of information request seeking records of the school’s revenue sharing agreement with its football team.
The revenue sharing agreement stems from a court settlement earlier this year, which saw many major universities commit to dividing up a pool of $20.5 million among its athletes from 2025 to 2026.
The new order in the USC case dated Oct. 23 and signed by circuit court judge Daniel Coble does not require the university to release revenue sharing agreements, but it does require the school to release a confidential affidavit they submitted to the court. Lawyers for the school submitted the affidavit to argue that they had met their obligation under South Carolina’s freedom of information law when they said that they had no documents in response to Heindel’s request.
The affidavit contained no confidential or privileged information, Coble wrote. However, Coble did not require the university to turn over another document, described only as an attachment. Instead, Coble ordered the university to provide a “general description” of the document to Heindel.
In his order, Coble was clear that he was not prepared to rule on whether the university had met its obligation under FOIA. Instead, the judge was simply ruling on whether the evidence the university had submitted to argue that it had satisfied the requirements of South Carolina’s FOIA law could be released.
The University of South Carolina has offered a range of justifications as to why the documents must be withheld. In filings, they have claimed not to have the documents, cited the federal law protecting student privacy as well as a recently passed state law that exempts so-called NIL (name, image and likeness) contracts.
At a recent hearing, lawyers for the university maintained that the school does not have knowledge of any documents relating to Heindel’s request and if they did, they would fall under the FOIA law’s “trade secrets” exception. Additionally, they argued that the documents are with third parties and thus not public.
“This court is perplexed at how all of this can exist at the same time,” Coble wrote, pointing to the different explanations USC has given for witholding the documents.
In his response Coble indicated some sympathy for the university’s argument that releasing information about the revenue pool could provide student athletes’ identifying information and damage the school’s competitiveness.
“The trade secrets exception might well in fact apply,” Coble wrote. But the judge repeatedly emphasized that he was not ready to make a ruling.
USC didn’t immediately respond to The State’s request for comment.
Jay Bender, a prominent South Carolina First Amendment and FOIA attorney, said that he anticipated another hearing where the university will continue to make the argument that they have met their standard under South Carolina’s FOIA law.
“The university is continuing to try to hide the ball,” Bender said.