Vegas Law Talk

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Stovall and Associates law firm. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jas and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Leslie Stovall 0:24
Good morning this is Vegas law talk. Your host is Leslie Stovall. It's nice to see you this morning. Today I have the pleasure of having Bill Paulus. Join me. Miss policy is a well known casino operator and owner and also a UNLV alumni who is involved in a new aspect of student athletics, which is an AI L. Name image and likeness. Opportunities for student athletes. Mr. Paulus, how're you doing this morning?

Unknown Speaker 1:03
I'm just great. Les, how are you?

Leslie Stovall 1:04
Well, I'm doing very well. And I thank you very much for coming on the show and helping our audience understand what UNLV is doing with the N i L. issues, or opportunities for student athletes. Mr. Wallace, before we go on, please call me Bill. Be glad to thank you, Bill. I appreciate that. Bill. You've you're a UNLV alumni yourself.

Unknown Speaker 1:33
I am I am I as matter of fact, I graduated in the first class of the hospitality school. I got out here in 1967 when it was in Nevada, Southern University. Yes, it was. And I graduated in 1969 when they changed the name to UNLV.

Leslie Stovall 1:52
That's right. You know, I remember this area out here. There wasn't a thing around it.

Unknown Speaker 1:58
No, there. There was me and 6000 other students. That was it? Yeah, I

Leslie Stovall 2:03
think the first time I took classes out here was in 71, when I was stationed at Nellis Air Base. And then I came back after my service and finished up my undergraduate for any

Unknown Speaker 2:13
students out there who live in Tonopah. Hall. I was the first resident in Tonopah. Hall. That was the first that was the first facility built on campus. So So I hope it's still together.

Leslie Stovall 2:26
I'm sure it is. Well, you know, the the wonderful thing is, the university has really developed over the years and has become an outstanding academic institution, in large part to their contribution of alumni like yourself, and, you know, your your involvement, I think has been wonderful here at UNLV.

Unknown Speaker 2:48
Well, thank you, I appreciate that there's, there's a tremendous amount of folks in the community, that that really support UNLV and continue to support UNLV. And, and, and you're correct. UNLV is a great institution, if you're going to have a great city, you have to have a great institution. You

Leslie Stovall 3:07
know, that's true. And education is a building block for our community. And it's also something that a good education and university provides industry and business with the resources they need to be able to be successful. And it's wonderful that this community is beginning to really recognize that although I think in primary and secondary education, there needs to be more money put into into that system.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
100%. And unfortunately, sometimes we get lumped into the Clark County School District. Right. And that's that's, that's, that's unfair for UNLV. And, and we really need to help Clark County School District there's there's no question about that. Your

Leslie Stovall 3:49
education at UNLV really took you to the heights of the gaming industry. You went from UNLV to managing casinos did tell the audience some of the casinos that you operated? Well,

Unknown Speaker 4:04
I was I was very fortunate in 90 I graduated in 69. I worked. My first job was in Mobile, Alabama. You know, you had a you had a new york city kid from Las Vegas to Mobile, Alabama. It was culture shock for all of us. But came back to Las Vegas and fortunate in 1980. I was I was hired by Bill Bennett, one of the great pioneers of the city and as their director of hotel operations. And from there, again, I was fortunate he threw me a set of keys and said, I've got to I just bought a little casino called the Silver City across the street. He says learn the casino business. So we did that. And by 1983 I was in Laughlin. We had just bought the Edgewater. Right and I then became the fellow who Who grew and expanded the company I built all our all our facilities and operated them for the next 14 years. So I I was fortunate I built the Colorado bell down there, expanded the Edgewater built the Excalibur built the Luxor built the adventure dome. So right I was I was I was very fortunate.

Leslie Stovall 5:25
Well, those are all very interesting projects. You went on, though to eventually develop and operate your own casino operations.

Unknown Speaker 5:37
Yes. And in 1996 after I got back from Australia, me and Bill Wartman, my partner who is a native Las Vegas and also is he came and we we said, you know, we've made a lot of money for a lot of other people. Let's see if we can do it for

Leslie Stovall 5:58
ourselves. And what did you guys do? Well,

Unknown Speaker 6:01
we we took over the state had us take over the rampart, up on up on rampart Boulevard. And we we operated that for over 10 years. And then at the same time, we we helped develop the got the license for and help develop the Greektown casino in, in Detroit, Michigan. And then from there, we developed our own casinos. We developed the cannery in North Las Vegas. Then we went out to Pennsylvania and bought a racetrack of all things, and developed one of the largest racinos in the country. Yeah, they were called the meadows. And then we came back and develop the canary on boulder highway. We made it through the we made it through the the lean years and then we sold our Pennsylvania property to Penn and Boyd bought our local properties.

Leslie Stovall 7:03
Those local properties included the cannery both on boulder highway and the one up in North Las Vegas Sun care Craig Craig route, right? Yeah, that's that's really an active local spot.

Unknown Speaker 7:14
Oh, it's a great, it's a great place and the manager there now is sensational. His name is Ryan Paulus. Oh, a relation. My number two son.

Leslie Stovall 7:28
I'm sure he takes after his that. While he's much smarter. That's wonderful. Now what brought you to UNLV athletics and your involvement UNLV athletes? Well, I came

Unknown Speaker 7:39
here in a heyday when and when we just had basketball. Okay, and we were in the convention center.

Leslie Stovall 7:44
I remember the the old Convention Center looked like a spaceship. 100%.

Unknown Speaker 7:47
Yes, it did. Yes, it did. Yeah. And I was in a fraternity. And so we went to all the sporting events. That was, that was what we did. And so basketball became in basketball was a sport that I could never master. I was short, I was tiny. And it was not good at all. I was a baseball player. So we, I enjoyed it really got into it, followed it very closely, until I graduated and then left and came back and, and had a career for a while. And then back in the early 80s. Got got involved. And, you know, donate it to the foundation and donate it to the athletics.

Leslie Stovall 8:41
What I could, that's a rebel Athletic Foundation. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 8:44
the rebel athletic fund, are you right RF. And we kept on kept on going. And it round around 9596 That's when I really got involved in the day to day athletics of basketball. And been doing that ever since. Spent a lot of time. A lot of time with the guys and the coaches and the like, and the administrators. And in 2013 we formalized the foundation called the running rebel club. And there was a few of us me Ted, Quark, Tom, Tom Jean goalie, a few other guys and it was to raise specifically raise four or $500,000 a year to enhance the budget for basketball. Because it was it was decimated by those lean years.

Leslie Stovall 9:42
Right. Right. And you were successful with that. We weren't successful at it. We

Unknown Speaker 9:47
we really were we we got the men are all set her belt which was which was great. And that was actually started by LON KRUGER who got me involved and my partner and and the men and holes and and then it kept going from there.

Leslie Stovall 10:09
Then we have the Supreme Court case and NCAA vs. Elston in 2021. Yes, indeed came out of the Ninth Circuit, Supreme Court affirmed a finding that the NCAA was violating the Sherman Act or the anti trust act by limiting certain aspects of income opportunities for student athletes. Correct? Correct. And that led you then, to do it, then

Unknown Speaker 10:38
then we had to figure out how, what's the best use of the funds? Because now you're, you're you, you cannot pay an athlete to play. You can't entice an athlete to come here with a contract for personal services. However, that's, unfortunately, the rules are so vague and so incomplete, that you can read story after story after story about how that is actually happening. And

Leslie Stovall 11:18
in fact, that's before the National Labor Relations Board at this point. Yes, as I understand it, that very issue of whether or not their employees or not, and whether or not they're entitled to some compensation, right, being a student athlete, right. And that hasn't been decided yet.

Unknown Speaker 11:32
No. And the NCAA to a about two years ago, we're trying to throw all of this to Congress, for Congress to make the rules. And Congress has difficulty enough agreeing what they have for breakfast, right. So so, you know, making rules up for the NC to a wasn't gonna happen. And

Leslie Stovall 11:58
the precise issue is this idea that name and image and likeness is, is a belongs to the student athlete has some value that can be compensated for it. What is UNLV doing with regards to that issue? How are they how are they handling that issue?

Unknown Speaker 12:17
Well, what they're doing is, is I'm very proud of our new athletic director. Okay. And Harper's is a great guy and is on top of it. And then we have and I've got, I've got to read, I call him that. And his name is Eric Knepper Musina. Okay. And he's director of clients. He's associated ad director of compliance, and he is phenomenal. He is, and he's on the committee for the state to make the rules for a name image and likeness for Nevada,

Leslie Stovall 12:55
and they're trying to comply with what the NCAA is trying to do, which is problematic in and of itself. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 13:04
And again, you have, you have five basic premises that the NCAA came out with, and one is it's not pay for play. Number two is that you can't entice with recruitment. Agents are allowed. So, now, a college athlete can have an agent. However, that agent cannot profess that if I'm your agent in college, I have to be your agent for the pros. Okay, so he can't do that. Schools cannot be involved in any way, shape or form. So allegedly, a coach can't sit with a student athlete and say, If you come to you and LV I know I can get you $80,000 in NFL money. That's, that's a no no. However, one month, one month last August, okay. The the, the coach of Alabama

Leslie Stovall 14:21
will we all know? Okay, I've heard that. I've heard about it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 14:24
One of the first things he said was my quarterbacks gonna make a million dollars. Yeah. Okay. And I owe on nio so that's, that's the problem that are that are going right.

Leslie Stovall 14:38
And and the regulations across the country are different. They're diverse. They're not uniform and the NCAA hasn't really helped that situation.

Unknown Speaker 14:48
That's exactly right now, every state has different roles, every state so they need to come together and make make rules that make sense.

Leslie Stovall 15:01
Now, how does if a student athlete has this interest in an AI L? How does that get negotiated? Or how does that? How does the student monetize that?

Unknown Speaker 15:18
Let me tell you what we do. Okay. And that's, that's basketball, we've started an organization. First an umbrella organization called you and I L V, we'll be we'll be putting up a website, by the end of the month, where everybody will be able to go look, to see the athletes, if they want to hire an athlete, for for promotional purposes or anything else, they'll be able to choose the athlete, and it goes through a third party to make sure everything is according to NCAA rules. And that third party for us is called blueprint sports. Blueprint sports is is a is backed by the Agassi foundation. So it's a local, it's a local group. So good guys to work with. Very good Agassi, being the tennis player, tennis player Andre Agassi grew up here. 100% are wonderful fellow. Yeah. And so what we, what we have done is we started another foundation called the running gun Foundation. And we go out to individuals and businesses, and we say, if you fund running gun, we will take these student athletes who are interested, we will create a contract with them. Okay, on on a on a time by time basis, or an overtime basis, and say, Okay, we're gonna get you appearances at charitable foundations, all over the valley. So we wanted to do be able to do two things. We wanted to, we wanted to bring our student athletes, the great student athletes that we have, okay, and bring them out to the valley and let them talk or do or do clinics, okay, with the various charities, for instance, we're going to be doing a basketball clinic with miracle League. Okay, sure. We have taken them, we have taken them out to make a wish foundation. And we do things like that for for special purposes. Number one, the donation is is tax deductible. Number two, it's educational, for the student athlete also, they really get to see, okay, the other side of things. And so we want them to give back also. So it becomes a becomes a very good two way street. Our kids last year that we had go out, were absolutely phenomenal. They were there. They're polite. They're well spoken. They're intelligent, young athletes, and they love the kids. And

Leslie Stovall 18:18
you know, it's really good for these organizations that they visit with, in promoting that organization's goals and objectives and also making them more visible to the community. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 18:29
What we're trying to we're trying to do also is educate these guys and gals, on social media. The better their social media are, is, excuse me, the better their social media is, the more value they have. Yeah,

Leslie Stovall 18:49
rather than doing the nightclub social media, they're out doing social interactions with community organizations.

Unknown Speaker 18:57
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it works very, very well. Well,

Leslie Stovall 19:00
it seems to me to be the right way to go, you know?

Unknown Speaker 19:04
Yeah, we think so. We think so. And there, there's, you know, we'll have other other businesses, okay, who want to sponsor them. A Clothier in town. Okay. Well, these kids, these kids, you've got football players and basketball players and soccer players. They look pretty good when they're all dressed up. They're pretty handsome, handsome boys and girls. Yes. So we got clothiers that that want to sponsor the kids in in kind. There's one there's one alumni. Who, for every graduate on the football team, okay, if they graduate. He met he gets him a custom made suit. Oh,

Leslie Stovall 19:47
wow. That's pretty nice. Yeah. This these are, excuse me, these organizations that you're working with, or your organization. In the literature, they're referred to as what collectives. Alright, I'm not really enamored with that, that word, but what does it really designate? Or

Unknown Speaker 20:10
if there was, if there were, if there was a definition, it would be a group of people, or businesses that are going together, putting money in the center of the table and saying, Okay, this money is for the NFL, and we're going to pay students to do something. Now, the student in order to get money by NCAA rule must do something for that money, whether it be do social media 20 times a month for a car company, or or go and appear on a Saturday and sign basketballs. Right. Right, but he must do something. What

Leslie Stovall 20:57
I'm curious about is how to how does the student athlete know of these opportunities before or do they before they select a school to go to? Well,

Unknown Speaker 21:09
today, it's the first question asked when you're on a recruiting trip. Okay. kids ask, how's the NFL at

Leslie Stovall 21:17
your school? And how is that described to a student athlete?

Unknown Speaker 21:22
Well, the problem the issue you have, if you're, if you're following the NCAA rules, okay, you can't talk about it. What your coach can say is, we have a website called you and I LV, go look at the website and see how serious we are about the Nio. Okay, unfortunately, that's not happening all over. Um, I talked to her after, after or after a recruit signed, I want to emphasize after a recruit signed, okay, I spoke with his mother. And she was she said, we were the only school that didn't break that rule that they talked to.

Leslie Stovall 22:12
And by breaking the rule the schools what, what you have understood as occurring, is their specific discussions about monies that would be available to that particular athlete for Nia. Well,

Unknown Speaker 22:24
they're there are there are schools allegedly, I am told that already have a personal services contract already filled out. Okay, for, let's say $80,000 for a nine month personal services agreement. And when you sign you sign, not only a letter of intent, but the personal services agreement.

Leslie Stovall 22:53
Well, maybe that's how some coaches can announce how much their incoming players are going to be getting in nio. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 23:02
No, it's, it's, it's wild. And it makes it so much more difficult for the sport and for the coaches. Because your mid majors. I mean, we had nine new players last year, we may have that many this year. Okay. And when we're not alone, this is this is this is the same. So the other problem you have with with the portal system, when when when somebody is transferring, okay? And they're at a, let's say, a division to school, and they say, Well, I had a good year this year. I'm gonna go into the portal because I can make money at a division one school. Right? So the division two schools now are losing all their kids. And who really gets hurt by this is the high school seniors because now you have you have right now today 1500 Kids in the portal God and Rosella 1500 Okay. And only 54% of them will get picked up. So some will lose all our benefits. So it's it's a real crapshoot out there today.

Leslie Stovall 24:19
i What do you suggest based on what you know, to help with this particular issue, the N i L. Issue,

Unknown Speaker 24:29
the NIA LSU is that there needs to be more a more defined structure on on how it works. Yeah, you know, the the horses out of the barn now, and you're not going to be able to rake back. Anything. Okay. And a student athlete can make as much money as he as he wants, or as anybody's willing to give him. And here's, here's a perfect example. You know, versity of Miami, there's a there's a gentleman down there by the name of John Reese. John Reese is a major has a major law firm in in in Florida, Miami, and also owns life wallet, and the cigarette Boat Company. He's a billionaire. He's a Miami graduate, he wants to help the Miami, Miami School's out. So he's budgeted $10 million this year. For nisl. For Miami students,

Leslie Stovall 25:39
that sounds like a hefty sign that that's

Unknown Speaker 25:43
a hefty sum. And so you have a benefactor like that. And you advertise it upfront, because he's trying to make he's trying to get the PR for his companies. But all of a sudden, you know that there's a $10 million budget in the NFL, there's an awful lot of kids scampering to Miami to get on the gravy train. The biggest problem is you had one of the one of the student athletes come out and say, Okay, I'm not getting enough NIHL I'm gonna go into the transfer portal and leave Miami. That so that completely destroys what this was all about.

Leslie Stovall 26:34
And, and it demonstrates the students are going to try to go where the money is 100%. And you know, you can't really blame or criticize a student for doing that if they have the opportunity to monetize or maximize the money that they may receive from an AI. Oh, you would understand why they would do that. Absolutely. And there's no controls on what amount can be paid to on an AI L at this point is no,

Unknown Speaker 27:03
no. If if they went with a revenue sharing program, of what the university can let the university have a little bit more control. And they did a revenue sharing program. And you had a whole nisl division. Okay. I think it worked a lot better than it's working now.

Leslie Stovall 27:23
Yeah. Well, how do you think the program is working here at UNLV?

Unknown Speaker 27:29
It's working very well. You know, we we, obviously we don't have that. Those kinds of funds right now. But we raised we raised $150,000, pretty quickly. Last October, because people are interested and and the vast majority of of, of athletic supporters and those people who follow college athletics believe that kids should get stipends of some sort.

Leslie Stovall 28:04
Absolutely. All you have to do is look at some of the big schools like University of Michigan. What a great campus life it is when football is going up at that school or go to Notre Dame or some of the other great sports school.

Unknown Speaker 28:18
It's amazing. Well,

Leslie Stovall 28:20
even UNLV when we had Yeah, like, I remember coached Arcadians days, Coach

Unknown Speaker 28:25
Coach Tarkanian put UNLV on the map. Man,

Leslie Stovall 28:30
I gotta tell you, those are great games. Everybody was there. And you know, Coach Kruger, Kevin's dad. Yep. When he had the program. He really brought program back to life. Yes, he did. And I couldn't. I was really disappointed when we went Oklahoma. But I'm glad he's back. I understand. He's the gives pointers to his son.

Unknown Speaker 28:50
I talked to him yesterday. Yeah, I talked to him yesterday. You'll he'll be in town for coaches vs. Cancer over the weekend, a great a great charity. And there'll be a lot of coaches in town. And

Leslie Stovall 29:04
so you're gonna get him out to the golf course to play? Absolutely. Well, let me know. Okay. That's the deal. Mr. Bill, it has been wonderful having you on the show. And I thank you so much for your time. And this is really an interesting topic. I mean, we can get back together as things develop and tell our audience how things are going. You bet. Thank you very much. Thank

Unknown Speaker 29:29
you. I appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai