By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The attorney representing Tiger Rag, The Illuminator and WAFB-TV in a public records lawsuit against LSU for keeping secret what LSU is paying its athletes says that he has a potential landmark case.
“The biggest thing is the state of Louisiana is taking money that is taxpayer money, public money, and paying it to someone, but refusing to turn over the check,” Baton Rouge attorney Scott Sternberg said Thursday on Matt Moscona’s radio show on 104.5 FM in Baton Rouge that is syndicated statewide and appears live on COX Sports Television.
“And we’ve never seen that before,” Sternberg said. “If the state writes the check, we usually get to see the check, including how much the check is for. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’m proud to say that I’ve represented a number of individuals against government in this state when they won’t turn over public records. If they’re receiving public funds, we get to see the check.”
Reporters Sue LSU for Records on Public Payments to Student-Athletes
— 104.5 ESPN (@1045espn) March 12, 2026
LSU sued over athlete payments ⚖️🐯 Louisiana reporters filed suit seeking records of public dollars LSU pays athletes under revenue sharing. #LSU #NIL #CollegeSports
READ: https://t.co/N85nyKGg2Q pic.twitter.com/wINV1VqW2m
Sternberg and the reporters’ lawsuit is focused on the money LSU athletes and its various sports programs receive from revenue sharing. That began in 2025 after an antitrust settlement between the NCAA and former Arizona State swimmer Grant House and former Oregon women’s basketball player Sedona Prince. House and Prince filed a class action lawsuit against the NCAA in 2020 that said the NCAA illegally restricted their earnings via their Name, Image & Likeness (NIL).
The $2.8 billion settlement against the NCAA has allowed more than 300 college sports programs across the nation to share up to $20.5 million of revenue annually paid to the players directly by the university. That money is subject to state laws like public records laws and others governing state, public institutions, such as LSU.
The lawsuit is not asking to receive what athletes make in addition to their revenue share, which is via their NIL deals. That is income that comes from third party companies, such as endorsements, sponsorships, booster and donor collectives or social media campaigns, as opposed to directly from the school. Earnings via NIL-related deals are exempt from public disclosure under federal student privacy law.
Moscona brought up the fact, though, that student-athletes are not yet considered employees, even though they are receiving pay directly from LSU via revenue share.
“That’s the big question,” Sternberg said. “That’s why LSU thinks it’s justified because the athletes are not employees. It’s a whole new world. And I’m not going to tell you that the folks at LSU are completely unjustified in withholding this. I’m saying that we get to see the checks all the time. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it, where we did not get to see the money as it was spent. NIL and revenue share have opened up a whole new world in college sports. And this lawsuit is one of the first of its kind. We want to know how much these folks are being paid (from revenue share).”
Tiger Rag executive editor Todd Horne, Louisiana Illuminator reporter Piper Hutchinson and WAFB-TV investigative reporter Chris Nakamoto filed the lawsuit Thursday afternoon in the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge. It argues the records should be made public because the money LSU is paying athletes via revenue share is public, taxpayer money. The journalists had recently requested the spending records from LSU under the state’s public records law and were denied. They did not request – nor is the lawsuit requesting – the revenue share of each athlete, rather what the school is paying.
“It’s the basis of everything that we have in transparency laws in this state, which we earned as citizens because we have been through a lot with our government since this state was founded,” Sternberg said. “We know we have to check every now and then to see what they’re spending the money on. It’s not about the individual student-athletes. They didn’t do anything wrong. They have the same status here as any other person that receives public funds.”
Meg Casper Sunstrom, LSU chief communications officer for the LSU System and LSU president Wade Rousse, told Tiger Rag and the other media entities that releasing what LSU pays its athletes would “put LSU at a competitive disadvantage on the field and runs contrary to the privacy interest of our student-athletes.”
Casper Sunstrom did not explain what that “competitive disadvantage” would be. New LSU football coach Lane Kiffin sure didn’t seem disadvantaged as he signed what is believed to be the No. 1 Transfer Portal class in the history of the no-sit-out-a-year Transfer Portal that began in 2021 with 41 transfers at an estimated cost of $40 million. Other coaches recruiting those players as well as the players and agents themselves have proven to know what the various asking prices are for players when those are not public. So why would it make a difference if they are made public?
There is also no blanket exception in state law for information perceived by some to create a competitive disadvantage. LSU regularly releases information on how much it pays others at the university, including new president Wade Rousse ($750,000 annually) and head football coach Lane Kiffin ($13 million annually), without claiming it’s detrimental to the university.
And Sternberg says Louisiana citizens have a right to know what the athletes at their state, taxpayer-supported schools are making.
For example, new LSU football coach Lane Kiffin signed the No. 1 quarterback in the NCAA Transfer Portal last January for an estimated $5 million. How much of that is coming from the $20.5 million revenue share allotted to LSU?
“I’m a fan of a number of sports at LSU, and I would like to know as a citizen, how much we’re spending on the football team,” Sternberg said. “Who do we spend the most amount of money on? Where is that line? And how much are we spending? If it wasn’t taxpayer money – public money – then I’d be out of luck.”
Sternberg said the lawsuit has been in the works since last fall after the House-NCAA antitrust settlement.
“We’ve been hearing about this across the state where the state institutions are not willing to tell the public what they are paying student-athletes to perform on the field or on the court,” he said.
Sternberg said there are plans for similar suits against other state colleges in Louisiana.
“We’ll sue them, too,” he said. “We started with LSU. We considered suing a number of universities frankly. LSU has really good lawyers. They have good people we’re used to working with in the athletic department who understand. We’ve had a lot of experience with LSU. They’re used to defending public records lawsuits. And let’s be honest, they’re the biggest show in town. People statewide are especially interested in what happens with the money that LSU is appropriated (by the state) and what it generates. That’s why we did the lawsuit.”
Sternberg said that the reporters in the lawsuit did submit the same requests to other schools in the state.
“In varying degrees, but yeah, pretty much, we were not able to see how much the schools were paying,” he said. “They gave us some cursory numbers. The reality is nobody knew what to do, and LSU is the leader in this area. When they said no, everybody else said no, too.”
Sternberg said he expected a hearing on the lawsuit in a couple weeks.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said.
BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST LSU
As Sternberg said, LSU is “used to defending public records lawsuits.”
And LSU has lost to newspaper reporters in past sports-related lawsuits. In 2002, for example, the Baton Rouge Advocate won a settlement against LSU of $13,261 for attorney fees and other related expenses and received the complete list of applicants for the LSU athletic director job to replace Joe Dean in 2001. Retiring baseball coach Skip Bertman, who got the job, was announced as a candidate as was East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Doug Moreau, but others who applied were kept secret against state public records laws.
LSU had refused to give the Advocate the names of those who applied for the job under an Advocate public records request in the summer of 2001. LSU appealed the original ruling, but lost again and had to pay the Advocate another $1,500 in attorney-related fees for a total of $14,761.
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