Cincinnati sues ex-QB Brendan Sorsby for $1 million buyout after transfer to Texas Tech

The University of Cincinnati has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against former quarterback Brendan Sorsby, according to court documents obtained by The Athletic on Wednesday. Cincinnati is seeking a $1 million buyout in liquidated damages from Sorsby for the quarterback violating a multiseason revenue-sharing agreement with the university.

Sorsby, who played two seasons at Cincinnati, transferred to Texas Tech last month despite one season remaining on a revenue share agreement with Cincinnati that included a $1 million buyout clause, as The Athletic previously reported.

A lawsuit complaint was filed Wednesday by the University of Cincinnati in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division. It states that in July 2025, Sorsby, while represented by a professional agent, signed an 18-month, two season name, image and likeness (NIL) agreement with the University of Cincinnati, and that Cincinnati agreed to pay Sorsby a substantial amount for the 2025 season “with the express expectation that it would realize the majority of the benefits during the following season, 2026, after Sorsby’s play developed and his brand grew.”

The lawsuit also states that Sorsby “promised to pay to the university $1 million in liquidated damages if he transferred to another university before completion of the agreement’s full term.” The agreement ran through Dec. 15, 2026.

The buyout payment was due to Cincinnati within 30 days of Sorsby’s transfer, according to the lawsuit. The buyout did not apply if Sorsby left Cincinnati for the NFL, according to people briefed on the contract who were not authorized to discuss it publicly, and only applied if Sorsby transferred to another school.

The lawsuit states that before initiating litigation, Cincinnati reached out to Sorsby’s representation, who “advised that Sorsby refuses to pay the university anything,” according to the complaint.

Sorsby is represented by agent Ron Slavin of LIFT Sports Management, who is referenced but not directly identified in the lawsuit. Texas Tech is also referenced but not directly identified, either.

“Cincinnati athletics is proud to partner with its student-athletes and honors the contractual commitments it makes to them. We expect student-athletes and their representatives to do the same,” Cincinnati wrote in a statement, provided to The Athletic. “In his lucrative NIL agreement with Cincinnati athletics, Brendan Sorsby committed to stay and play for two seasons as a proud Bearcat representative. He also agreed that if he left the university before that time, he would pay the university a specific amount for the substantial harm that his breach would cause. Cincinnati athletics intends to enforce that contractual commitment. As stewards of the university’s resources, the athletics department has a duty to do so. We thank Brendan for his time at Cincinnati and wish him success in the future.”

Sorsby’s representative at LIFT Sports Management provided the following statement: “Pursuing legal action against Brendan Sorsby is misguided. University of Cincinnati, through its revenue-share structure, paid him $875,800 for a season he fully completed, and in that time, he generated millions in value for the program. Attempting to recover those funds now sends the wrong message to current and future student-athletes and risks damaging the long-term credibility of Cincinnati football. This is further disappointing given that Brendan parted ways with UC in what was a mutually agreeable manner.

“The money the university seeks to recover from him is nothing more than an unlawful penalty under Ohio law. Because UC has chosen to pursue this course of action, Brendan will aggressively defend the lawsuit and pursue any and all damages he incurs as a result of it.”

A representative for Texas Tech declined to comment since the university is not named in the suit.

According to the lawsuit, officials from Cincinnati’s athletic department had conversations with Sorsby’s agent after he announced his intention to enter the transfer portal in December 2025. The complaint states that those conversations focused on Cincinnati’s desire to retain Sorsby and also reiterated that the liquidated damages provision of Sorsby’s agreement would apply if the quarterback transferred to another university.

Sorsby officially entered the transfer portal on Jan. 2, 2026, according to the complaint. Texas Tech officially announced his signing on Jan. 6.

Texas Tech was aware of Sorsby’s buyout during the transfer process, sources briefed on the matter previously told The Athletic, and Tech factored the buyout into Sorsby’s recruitment and Tech’s revenue-sharing budget. Sorsby was one of the top transfer quarterbacks in the portal this offseason, and his one-year contract with the Red Raiders is expected to pay him more than $4 million for the 2026 season, according to sources briefed on the terms.

According to enforcement guidelines from the College Sports Commission (CSC), the organization that oversees revenue sharing, Sorsby’s $1 million buyout must be accounted for by Texas Tech within the school’s $20.5 million revenue sharing cap for fiscal year 2025-26. Texas Tech is not required to pay Cincinnati directly to cover the buyout costs.

Sorsby’s buyout is indicative of the new era of direct revenue sharing between universities and college athletes under the House v. NCAA settlement, which was instituted last summer. Many schools have included buyout clauses in their rev-share agreements that require athletes to recoup money to their previous school if they leave before the end of an agreement.

Yet, how these revenue-sharing contracts hold up under legal scrutiny has become a recurring question, in large part because college athletes are not employees and their revenue-sharing contracts are not typical employment agreements. There have already been a pair of high-profile contract disputes between schools and quarterbacks this year.

Quarterback Demond Williams and the Washington Huskies had a 48-hour standoff last month after Williams announced his intentions to enter the transfer portal despite signing a new contract with Washington just days earlier. Williams retained legal counsel but ultimately chose to remain with the Huskies. Had Williams left, he could have owed the Huskies the value of his new contract (roughly $4 million), which reflects buyout language in the Big Ten’s template rev-share contract; transferring could have also forced Williams’ new school to count that $4 million against its own $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

A couple of weeks later, Duke sued quarterback Darian Mensah after Mensah announced his intentions to enter the transfer portal despite being under a multiyear rev-share agreement with the Blue Devils. There was no buyout in Mensah’s contract with Duke, but the university’s decision to take its own player to court momentarily prevented the quarterback from transferring. The two sides ultimately reached a settlement resolution (terms were not disclosed), and Mensah transferred to the University of Miami.

The two instances suggested varying degrees of enforceability regarding revenue-sharing contracts, which are not standard across schools and leagues.

Sorsby initially transferred from Indiana to Cincinnati as a redshirt sophomore ahead of the 2024 season, signing an NIL agreement before revenue sharing began in July 2025. Sorsby signed a new two-year deal with Cincinnati’s NIL collective before the 2025 season, a third-party group affiliated with the school, that later transitioned to a rev-share contract with the university. The $1 million buyout was agreed to in both the multiyear collective deal and revenue-sharing agreements. Sorsby earned roughly $1.5 million from Cincinnati in 2025, according to sources briefed on the previous terms.

Sorsby, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound dual-threat quarterback, averaged better than 2,800 yards passing and 500 rushing yards in his two seasons with the Bearcats, including 36 touchdowns passing and rushing in 2025, third-most in the FBS, with only five interceptions. He led Cincinnati to a 7-5 regular-season record in 2025 and a spot in the Liberty Bowl, the program’s first bowl bid since 2022.

Click here to read article