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Bryan Sullivan Weighs in on the Groundbreaking Darian Mensah vs. Duke Lawsuit in the New York Times’ “The Athletic” and CBS Sports
Bryan Sullivan recently spoke to the New York Times’ “The Athletic” and CBS Sports about the first-of-its-kind lawsuit from Duke University against its outgoing star quarterback Darian Mensah. After signing a two-year deal with Duke making him one of the highest-paid players in the country, Mensah decided to return to Duke for another year before ultimately announcing his intention to transfer to the University of Miami on the final day of the portal window.
Duke subsequently sued Mensah in an unprecedented move, citing the signed contract and claiming “irreparable harm” if Mensah escaped his contract without any ramifications. The parties reached a settlement Tuesday, January 27th, allowing Mensah to enroll in Miami.
Bryan tells NYT’s “The Athletic” that the core of this lawsuit came down to one question: “Who’s going to be harmed more?”
He explains to CBS Sports that Duke risked damaging the school’s optics with its decision to sue Mensah, even if it was legally within its rights to do so.
“From a business standpoint, nobody may have wanted to be the first school to break that seal and actually sue a player because it may have a chilling effect on other players who may say ‘I don’t want to go to Duke, they sued Mensah,’” Bryan tells CBS Sports. “You make business decisions with knowledge of the law, but you still might not want to enforce it because business-wise it’s not a good idea.”
Bryan adds that despite this, Duke was in a position to calculate the damages that would face the school if Mesah left the team, had the dispute played out in court.
“There’s a good argument that Duke gave up opportunities for other quarterbacks for Mensah,” Bryan continues. “What are their damages there? There’s definitely a way to calculate damages for that, it’s not so speculative that it can’t be calculated. They can certainly get an expert who can testify to that. Maybe they want to be ruthless and not just get their money back, but ding Mensah for an amount of money they would have had he played for them next season,” he concludes.
Read the full article in the New York Times’ “The Athletic” (subscription required).