KC Smurthwaite is a consultant for Athletics Admin, specializing in revenue generation, licensing, marketing, and higher education. He has almost two decades of experience in collegiate athletics and the sports and entertainment industry. Smurthwaite is a fractional employee of several athletic departments across the country. He also teaches sports management and journalism as an adjunct professor. Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn. Smurthwaite can also be reached at [email protected].
Right now, the sports media world is locked in on the Cincinnati Bengals and the Shemar Stewart contract standoff.
The Cincinnati Bengals’ first-round pick is refusing to sign his rookie deal—not because of money (rookie pay is slotted under the NFL’s CBA)—but because of one sticky clause. The Bengals are demanding language that would allow them to void future guaranteed money if Stewart is released.
That kind of clause turns what should be a secure, long-term investment into a year-to-year gamble. And it’s incredibly rare. So rare, in fact, that we haven’t seen a first-round holdout over contract language like this since Joey Bosa in 2016.
The Bengals are essentially trying to protect themselves from a bad pick by making the contract easier to walk away from—even though they’re the ones who made the pick … in the first round. Stewart and his agent see right through it. He’s said the quiet part out loud, accusing the front office of caring more about “winning arguments than winning games.”
Who is right here? Who is wrong? Should he just sign? He’s a first-round pick!
But here’s the twist: While this kind of drama is rare in the NFL, it’s common enough in college athletics. You just don’t hear about it.
This is where the Red Herring Clause shows up—quietly, legally, and effectively.
Let’s look at a real Division I college basketball contract. Not a Power Five gig. But a real, multi-year deal that exists in the marketplace right now.
On paper, it’s a four-year agreement—say, 2025 to 2029—and for simplicity, let’s call it a $175,000 per-year deal. That’s $700,000 total. It looks secure. It sounds like job stability. It even reads like a vote of confidence.
But then there’s this clause, buried in the middle of the termination section:
Involuntary Termination Without Cause. [School] may terminate this Employment Agreement at any time… it shall pay to [Coach], as liquidated damages, the lesser of the following:
(i) Twelve months’ salary and benefits,
or
(ii) All remaining salary and benefits unpaid under this Agreement.
Translation? You signed for four years. But if the school fires you after one, they owe you just one year—not the remaining three. That $525,000 you thought was locked in? Gone.
And here’s the kicker: coaches often sign it anyway. Additionally, they can do it without cause.
So it has to be asked, why was this even signed? Because it’s their first head coaching job and will sign anything. Or they’re coming from a lower division. Or they know the school has other candidates lined up and isn’t about to negotiate. The clause looks harmless. It sounds like standard language. And to the untrained eye, it even appears generous.
That’s the red herring. It’s there to make the contract feel secure, while legally allowing the school to cut ties early with minimal cost. That security is usually on the first page, which shows multiple years, and is stated again later, only to be undone by something on the last page.
It’s not just a bad deal—it’s a faux multi-year agreement disguised as stability.
And here’s the part that matters most: this is more common than you think.
No, it’s not the norm everywhere. But it’s not some obscure clause either. It shows up more often than the general public realizes—especially in non-revenue sports, and sometimes even in bigger athletic departments where certain programs are treated more like side projects than competitive investments.
These are often the sports where administrative expectations are modest: keep the team relatively competitive, graduate the players, avoid scandals. In those situations, athletic directors and university counsel aren’t looking for long-term commitments. They’re looking for flexibility.
So they bake it into the contract.
And in today’s climate—where NIL, the House settlement, looming employment status changes, and realignment chaos are completely reshaping the business of college athletics—don’t be surprised if we start seeing even more of this.
The pressure to control costs in other areas will rise. The temptation to bargain-shop coaches will grow. And clauses like this one—or ones that look friendlier on the surface but do the same thing—will quietly become negotiating tools.
That’s why this matters. Because we often think of professional sports as the shark tank and college athletics as the safer space. But in reality, schools use the same leverage—and sometimes more.
(This isn’t even talking about when these clauses start to show up in NIL and revenue-sharing agreements!)
So the next time a coach gets fired “after just one year,” and the story says they “had three years left on their contract”—ask yourself: Did they really?
Or was it just another red herring clause?
