the BigAmateurism monologues

The NCAA’s vaguely defined “Constitution Committee” is due to announce the terms of its “transformative” overhaul of the NCAA constitution to align NCAA “responsibilities” with NCAA “authorities.” According to NCAA Board of Governors member Bob Gates—the committee chair—the NCAA is in an existential battle for “relevance” as a national regulatory authority in college sports. One pathway to nationa...

On September 30th, 2021, Mark Emmert made his fourth appearance in Congress over twenty months to plead for federal protections and immunities to protect the NCAA from itself. Like the high-powered NCAA lobbyists that orchestrated the hearing, Emmert knew no shame in pumping propaganda that should now be irrelevant. In late 2019 and throughout 2020, the NCAA’s built its Senate campaign around obta...

On September 30th, 2021, the NCAA’s high-powered lobbyists orchestrated yet another Congressional show in the NCAA’s renewed effort to reclaim the Iron Throne of college sports regulation. Last week’s hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce was a reprise of the Senate Commerce Committee’s June 9th, 2021, hearing. The June 9th hearing was the NCAA’s...

The NCAA’s infractions and enforcement case against NC State could wind up in litigation, mainly since the NCAA has capriciously denied NC State the right of appeal from the Independent Resolution Panel’s decision. In that scenario, the climate and culture of the NCAA’s infractions and enforcement staff and processes will be under the microscope. This episode discusses the history of the NCAA’s in...

Happy Labor Day to revenue-producing football and men’s basketball players whose labors line NCAA national office employees’ pockets with gold! However, it appears NCAA fat cats aren’t much in the mood for sending these athletes thank you notes. Instead, as evidenced in the NCAA’s scorched earth tactics in its infractions and enforcement case against NC State, these athletes are “bad actors” and “...

The NCAA’s infractions and enforcement case against NC State has been presented to an Independent Resolution Panel and is now under review for a final decision. As a predicate for an analysis of that case, this episode explains the context for the NCAA’s case against NC State. In 2017, NC State was implicated in a federal criminal investigation into “corruption” in men’s college basketball. NC Sta...

On August 3rd, 2021, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors announced an immediate and substantial restriction on the Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP). The Commission on College Basketball (CCB) recommended the IARP to restore integrity to the infractions and enforcement process in high-stakes NCAA investigations. Launched in August of 2019, only six cases have been referred to...

On August 11th, an NCAA Committee on Infractions (COI) panel issued its decision on Baylor University’s failure to report a series of alleged violent acts against women by Baylor football players. The COI found no NCAA rules violations despite the institutional acknowledgment of a “colossal operational failure” and universal condemnation of Baylor’s conduct by numerous outside investigatory bodies...

The NCAA constitutional committee has begun its campaign to “align responsibilities with authorities.” Through “independent” Board of Governors member Robert Gates, the NCAA has framed this alignment to suggest that the NCAA has too much responsibility and too little authority. The opposite is true. In the last episode, we looked at how little responsibility and accountability the NCAA actually ha...

On August 11th, 2021, the NCAA Committee on Infractions issued its non-decision in the Baylor case. The COI concluded the central allegations relating to an out-of-control, corrupt football program and culture were beyond the reach of existing NCAA enforcement jurisdiction. The COI reached the correct conclusion legally, but it begs the question of why the NCAA yet again finds itself defending non...

As state legislatures in Washington and California began deliberations on name, image, and likeness legislation in late 2018 and early 2019, Congressman Mark Walker (R-NC) devised then introduced on March 14, 2019, a bill in House that would have stripped the NCAA of its tax-exempt status unless it permitted NCAA athletes to be “reasonably compensated” for the commercial use of their NIL. Titled t...

The NCAA’s cynical quest for the Iron Throne of college sports regulation began in early 2019. This episode discusses how the NCAA transitioned from outright hostility to name, image, and likeness “compensation” to a stealth campaign in Alston, Congress, and public relations to eliminate the athletes’ rights movement in one fell swoop. Beginning with its decision to appeal the Alston trial court’s...

This episode identifies the crucial milestones in the modern era of college sports leading to the 2019 perfect storm. I identify six themes that have developed over the last seventy years that have come to define the business of big-time college sports: (1) the belief among in-system stakeholders that the NCAA and only the NCAA should be the sole regulatory authority in college sports; (2) the dec...

On Friday, July 30th, the NCAA Board of Governors emerged from seclusion to announce the formation of a “constitutional convention committee” that will propose “dramatic” changes to the NCAA constitution. A Constitutional Review Committee will redraft the NCAA constitution to usher in a new era in NCAA governance. The Committee will be comprised of 22 members from in-system stakeholders such as un...

The Power 5 conference realignment mud fight is escalating. Yesterday, Big 12 conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby came out of hiding to accuse ESPN of conspiring with unnamed accomplices to ruin the Big 12. What happened to the “integrity of college sports”? While Bowlsby rants and ESPN reports on itself, I refocus on perhaps a more important arena: the United States Senate. I lay the foundation f...

This episode first analyzes some additional issues that I left on the table in the last episode, including how so many crucial in-system stakeholders could have been caught off-guard by the SEC’s courtship of Texas and Oklahoma. In that regard, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has said little since the Texas/Oklahoma defections were made public. Why is that? Then I turn to where (and whether) the N...

The rumors are confirmed: Texas and Oklahoma are indeed bolting the Big 12 for the SEC. Is this the end of college sports as we knew them? We can only hope so. What appears to be the beginning wave of another shake-out in the big-time college football sweepstakes is neither revolutionary nor unforeseeable. Instead, what we are witnessing is perhaps the logical endpoint of an imperial march by SEC...

In Mark Emmert’s July 15th “interview” with a “small group” of reporters, he alluded to the possibility that university presidents and chancellors may assert their authority and interests in the remaking of college sports. Emmert’s discussion implied that university presidents are marginal stakeholders in the business of big-time college sports. In fact, college presidents—and college presidents a...

In a stunning “interview” with a “small group of reporters” on July 15th, 2021, NCAA president Mark Emmert erased seventy years of NCAA history. He made a case for returning the structure and governance of college sports to the “home rule” era of the early 20th century. Emmert claimed the mantle of reformist and visionary, stating, “[t]he new environment is one that creates some pretty remarkable...

As the NCAA’s grip on its monopolistic empire slips away through its arrogance, greed, and incompetence, the quest for “uniformity” in name, image, and likeness legislation is alive and well. The NCAA, Power 5, state legislatures, governors, individual NCAA institutions, and the Uniform Law Commission cling to the myth that material non-uniformity exists in the evolving NIL regulatory marketplace....

In this episode, I frame the context for the period 2019 – present, which may be the most consequential era in college sports history. I do a summary of crucial milestones in the modern era of college sports leading up to 2019. I identify six themes that have developed over the last seventy years that have come to define the business of big-time college sports: (1) the belief among in-system stake...

In this episode, I set the table to analyze the perfect storm from May 2019 to the present. I return to one of the most fundamental questions in higher education: why are universities in the business of college sports? I frame the response to this question around the “amateur-professional dilemma” defined by sports historian Ronald Smith in his 1988 book Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time Co...

With the Senate in recess until September, it is safe to assume that the Power 5 are reframing their strategy in Congress. This episode looks back on how the Power 5 planned to pursue and disguise their interests in the Senate in late 2019 and into 2020. Through secret discussions in December of 2019, Power 5 commissioners, president, and chancellors orchestrated a congressional influence campaign...

This episode offers some thoughts on freedom and liberty one year after perhaps the most challenging Independence Day in recent American history. I reflect on my blog post from last year and discuss what has changed in revenue-producing athletes’ quest for equal treatment under the law. Athletes have made historic inroads legally and legislatively. Will this progress result in a meaningful and las...

On June 30th at 4:20 PM, the NCAA issued a press release announcing that NCAA athletes nationwide would be allowed to make money from their name, image, and likeness. While presented as an NCAA Division I Board of Director’s action, Emmert was the featured spokesman. Emmert said, “This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image, and likene...