By jilting Tennessee, Nico Iamaleava gets schooled in art of negotiation | Toppmeyer
If you think NIL deals and the transfer portal are antithetical to what college should be about, well, Nico Iamaleava just received better schooling in the real-life art of negotiation than he’d ever learn from a classroom.
Make no mistake, the former Tennessee quarterback got schooled throughout this process.
Iamaleava, 20, walked away from a sweet NIL deal at Tennessee that would have paid him more than $2 million this season within a state that has no state-income tax, playing for coach Josh Heupel, a proven quarterback developer.
Iamaleava is expected to transfer to UCLA, according to multiple reports on Wednesday, the first day of the April transfer period.
Neither UCLA nor Iamaleava had confirmed that it’s a done deal, as of Thursday night. The saga continues.
If this were Negotiation 101, Iamaleava would receive an "F" and be told to repeat the coursework next semester. But, this is real life, so Iamaleava must stomach valuable negotiating lessons as he slinks off to his next program.
If UCLA indeed becomes the destination, then Iamaleava left Tennessee, a playoff qualifier last season, for a team that went 5-7.
UCLA previously had an over/under win total of 4½ wins for 2025, according to VegasInsider, before the Iamaleava news. That bleak projection reflects the situation Iamaleava would step into while learning a new offense within a new conference, the Big Ten.
Let’s review some of the negotiating missteps Iamaleava made during this unraveling with Tennessee:
1. Nico Iamaleava failed to retain effective representation.
Iamaleava did not use an agent to negotiate with Tennessee, according to multiple reports, and his dad’s voice weighs heavily in his son’s decisions. Family and business don’t mix.
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2. He didn’t strike when the iron would’ve been hot.
Iamaleava would have generated more market interest if he transferred in December, after the Vols’ playoff exit. Most teams that need a quarterback do their shopping in December for the upcoming season. By April, the number of potential suitors dwindles, with starting quarterbacks already in place.
3. He stopped showing up to work before having a new job in hand.
There's nothing wrong with Iamaleava trying to negotiate a raise from Tennessee. He took the Vols to the playoff in his first year starting. He didn’t perform at an elite level, but he generally wasn’t bad, and his upside showed.
Many of us have negotiated a raise with our employers after what we consider to be a good year of work. Sometimes, that process requires patience, as negotiations unfold. Not showing up to work is the worst thing you can do while negotiating for a raise. When you stop showing up to work, you go from negotiating for a raise, to losing your job.
When Iamaleava skipped practice on the day before Tennessee's spring game, he failed to show up for work. At that point, any hope of negotiating a raise with Tennessee went poof.
4. He left his old job without a new job at hand.
Worse yet, Iamaleava skipped practice and left the Tennessee negotiating table before having a solid suitor in hand. Your value is highest when multiple employers bid for your services. By no-showing at practice and skipping the spring game, several days before the transfer portal opened, Iamaleava left himself searching for a life raft while sitting in a boat with a hole in it.
The Vols moved forward without him, leaving Iamaleava to land a new deal within a tepid market without having Tennessee as a bargaining chip.
In the end, Iamaleava is too talented to wither in the portal. However, if he selects UCLA, he'd learn another valuable lesson: how state-income tax works.
California’s top individual tax rate comes to a wallet-stinging 14.4%. Tennessee's state-income tax rate is 0.0%. Other expenses are higher, too, in California.
Bankrate documents the cost of living in Los Angeles as nearly 73% higher than Knoxville. That’s not directly applicable to Iamaleava, because his scholarship would cover tuition, room and board, defraying some expenses. Still, the $2-plus million he would have made in Tennessee won't go as far in California.
It’s unclear what Iamaleava’s UCLA deal would be worth, but, as of this writing, there are no reports of him successfully negotiating a more lucrative deal.
So, he left Tennessee for a worse situation and less money, but, hey, at least he received an education in how not to negotiate. There’s value in that.
There’s also value in knowing what you’re worth. Iamaleava found out he’s not worth what he wanted.
Blake Toppmeyer is the Paste BN Network's national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
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