Arkansas Hires Lawyer That Helped Nico Iamaleava In $8M Dispute To Sack Brother, Madden, In NIL Breach

The Arkansas football team is serious about recouping NIL cash lost to transfer quarterback Madden Iamaleava. The university has reportedly lawyered up as it pursues a $200,000 payout.

The legal representation hired has history to the Iamaleava family dating back to 2024. Tom Mars helped Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee in a recruiting case against the NCAA.

Mars is a well-known lawyer with a reputation for winning high-profile cases as they relate to college athletics. He was called into an Ole Miss scandal involving Hugh Freeze in which he successfully cleared the smeared name of predecessor Houston Nutt. He played a role in the Big Ten’s reversal of a decision to postpone the 2020 football season amid the COVID pandemic.

Most notably, he’s considered the “No. 1 person to credit for the NCAA’s current helplessness on regulating transfers.” Mars kickstarted a push to lift penalties for transfer athletes. It’s somewhat regrettably led to what Mars dubbed “total chaos” in this new portal world.

That was never my intention to help go from one end of the spectrum to the complete other end of the spectrum. I’m almost apologetic…

“As passionate as I’ve been about freedom for college athletes… There’s no serious organized sports that generate any revenue in the world that doesn’t have some limitation on transfers, some guardrails.”

Mars represented Spyre Sports Group, which helped secure deals for more than 200 Tennessee athletes. “In early 2022,” he said in a statement, “independent of the University of Tennessee or anyone associated with its athletics programs, Spyre Sports entered into a mutually beneficial contractual relationship with Nico Iamaleava that involved a limited assignment of his NIL rights, no matter which school he chose to attend.”

Tom Mars insisted that the agreement was consistent with then-existing NCAA guidelines. It had nothing to do with persuading Iamaleava to attend Tennessee.

The lawsuit was eventually settled after Tennessee won a preliminary injunction to prevent the NCAA from enforcing new NIL rules to punish Iamaleava.

Mars is now fighting against Madden Iamaleava.

Nico Iamaleava was set to earn another $2 million+ with his NIL contract intact. However, he opted to spurn the Vols this spring and hit the transfer portal.

Iamaleava landed at UCLA, where he’ll take a significant pay cut. His brother, Madden, followed suit.

Madden Iamaleava signed with Arkansas as a member of the 2025 recruiting class. He inked an NIL deal with the Razorbacks only to enter the transfer portal four months later.

Arkansas says he breached his contract with that decision. It’s now seeking a $200,000 payment as penalty.

“I have spoken to the leadership team at Arkansas Edge and expressed my support in their pursuit to enforce their rights under any agreement violated by our student-athletes moving forward,” Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek said in a statement. He’s doing just that.

Tom Mars is representing the Razorbacks in their NIL fight against Madden Iamaleava. It comes a little over a year after helping his brother, Nico, in his NIL dispute. Given Mars’ track record, that could mean bad news for the Iamaleavas this time around!