WATCH: Ex-UCF K Donald De La Haye criticizes NCAA for making him shut down YouTube page
One of the strangest storylines of the offseason (non-Ole Miss edition) came from the University of Central Florida, where K Donald De La Haye was forced to decide whether he wanted to continue making money from his popular YouTube channel or continue his college football career.
Eventually, the now-former UCF player chose his YouTube channel, and has drawn praise for standing up to the NCAA’s controversial rules about how athletes make money.
On Wednesday, De La Haye went on the FOX Business channel to explain why he chose his YouTube channel and to criticize the NCAA for forcing him to quit playing football:
College football player, @Deestroying, gives up eligibility for YouTube videos https://t.co/MrLlynMrTe pic.twitter.com/yXJP3oWBjv
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) August 2, 2017
“I feel that it’s very unfair,” he said. “If a student had the same aspirations and goals and worked as hard as me, they’d be praised for what he’s doing, but the NCAA kicked me out.”
De La Haye is comfortable in front of a camera and has a good eye for producing quality content, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see him land a TV gig someday. However, once he can break free of the NCAA, it sounds like he wants to give football another shot.
God I’m sick of this self entitled generation. A football scholarship, by his own admission, is worth a lot more than his Youtube revenue. The NCAA can’t make exceptions to letting players get paid off of their likeness as a college football player. Why? Because that’s how boosters pay players and cheat. Maybe that’s too difficult for a kicker from UCF to understand that…but it’s true. Once you let one player get paid, you have to let them all or face lawsuits. Besides, I don’t think he really wants to know what his worth is to the football program. He would wind up owing them money.
Isn’t he their KR.
Also they granted him a waiver to still make money from YouTube, just not use his football stuff to make money. He cares more about being YouTube famous and that crap than actually playing football since he wasn’t even that good.
I understand your frustration with this “entitled generation”(even though smart phones and social media exacerbate the issue), but people in all generations have (had) a sense of entitlement…
Next:
“A football scholarship, by his own admission, is worth a lot more than his Youtube revenue”
Dude, he’s(De La Haye) about as ignorant as you are; a YouTube channel has a limitless possibility(revenue)for income; just because he wasn’t making a ton of money now, doesn’t mean he won’t make a ton of money in the near future. He obviously had something going if it got to the point to where the NCAA came down on him. You think he is the only college football player with a YouTube channel? lol Ok…..
He also, wouldn’t determine his worth to the program, dynamics of the game would( he isn’t Marquette King, even though he could be)….
Man, put your critical thinking cap on, for once…..
Are you seriously trying to say that Youtube is more valuable than a college degree? Outside of say, Bill Gates, you have no argument. Keep thinking like that, this world needs plenty of ditch diggers. I get that you don’t like being labled…but it’s what all old people do. My parents did it, there’s did too. So suck it up snowflake.
Alright Weagle clearly you know nothing about some of those MONSTROUS YouTube channels. The kid’s busting his ass making content and getting paid for it. It’s no different than him getting a job at school. He’s still in college (shocking there is more to it than football) and if anything else he is making a name for himself and will probably generate more revenue off it. (Wow that whole thing called marketing works!) Keep yourself in the 80’s or go do some research on some of these big name channels, because there is loads of those guys making more money than you ever will.
The guy isn’t making much now or he wouldn’t have set up a gofundme page for help with his college costs. But, there are many people that make tons of money doing this, so who knows what the future holds for this guy.
I never said he couldn’t make a living off of it, I know there are plenty that do very well. You are still missing my point. There are a handful of channels that earn a couple of million per year. There are literally millions of college graduates making that. The “Marketing” that you know so much about, is paid by companies that makes even more off of Youtube and is run by people with college degrees. You do the math. Besides, I never complained about him choosing Youtube over college. My only issue is him complaining about the NCAA for his decision. Blaming others…as usual.
YouTube is ABSOLUTELY more valuable than football.
Unless he were to go pro (which didn’t seem likely), football is not going to earn him any money at all. Sure, scholarships are great, but it’s not like you can spend that money on anything except for school, and it only lasts 4 years. As other’s have stated, YT has unlimited earning potential (some Tubers make more than any NFL player), and it also has the potential to last much longer than 4 years.
Who said anything about football? Maybe someone should try to go to school instead of wasting time on Youtube.
Lol
“Out side of say Bill Gates…”… what….? Are you that ignorant of the website called YouTube? Bill Gates doesn’t make his money from YouTube….
Gangnam style (a song) has 2.9 billion views on YouTube…
Get yourself more familiar with how the licensing works on that site. I’m not saying that this kid’s channel will ever reach that, but who knows? People can make plenty enough money (more than a lot of college degrees). You don’t even know what he was going to get his degree in… You just assumed that a school teach (bachelors in education) will make the same as a molecular biologist….Shuuutttt your yapper, Smeagle! And nice try on the strawman argument; I’m not even gonna entertain it.
And snowflake? Is that your go to phrase when you’re getting your tail handed to you in an argument? Half of the people who throw that word around are obnoxious, and frail; let’s set a SDS meet up for the SEC championship game, you can call me a snowflake to my face and we’ll see who ends up sucking it up.
The NCAA and UCF worked together to get him the best deal he could possibly hope for (short of NCAA actually changing their rules). I guess I get where he’s coming from (artists don’t like feel limited), but if I were him I’d have taken the deal. Frankly I was surprised to find out the NCAA granted such a waiver in the first place. He could have kept making monetized videos AND kept playing football, and even if he hadn’t been able to monetize football-related videos, he could still use them to grow his audience. It was a much better deal than I thought the NCAA would have agreed to. Oh well.