Back in the middle of June, University of Central Florida (UCF) backup kicker Donald De La Haye posted a video on his 'Deestroying' YouTube channel titled “Quit College Sports or Quit YouTube.” In the video, he mentioned how the school asked him to stop making money off his videos or he could be ruled ineligible under NCAA rules. Apparently, he has not stopped and now the NCAA and UCF have come down on him for it.

NCAA rules De La Haye ineligible

Donald De La Haye uploaded his first YouTube video on May 11, 2016, and has since uploaded around 70 videos to his channel.

Since his account is monetized, he has been making advertising money off of his videos when people watch them, which is a problem for the NCAA and their rules. On Monday, UCF announced that they had ruled that De La Haye is ineligible to play college football because of this money that he is making. He will also lose his football scholarship.

Explaining why this ruling was made

In a news release, the school said that the NCAA's issue with Donald De La Haye wasn't the fact that he was generally making money from his YouTube channel. In fact, UCF received a waiver from the NCAA for De La Haye to keep making and monetizing his videos while keeping his eligibility on one condition.

This condition was that he “did not reference his status as a student-athlete or depict his football skill or ability.” However, De La Haye declined to accept these conditions, since much of his YouTube content centers around those things.

This is why he has been ruled ineligible by UCF and can no longer play college football. In their statement, the NCAA emphasized that this was only about monetizing sports related YouTube videos.

Choosing YouTube over football

Donald De La Haye had spent the last two seasons with UCF as their backup kicker and kickoff specialist.

However, he has now given up the sport he loves to continue making YouTube videos. Back in June, De La Haye's channel had 56 thousand subscribers. Now that number has grown to 131 thousand, likely in part because of the controversy surrounding him and the NCAA rules.

The video he did following the incident “I lost my D1 scholarship because of my Youtube channel..” has over half a million views.

He has since set up a GoFundMe page to raise money from his fans so he can continue to pursue his marketing degree, as the money he earns from YouTube is nowhere close enough to pay for his marketing degree.
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