Episodes

  • NCAA v NC State: A Due Process Train Wreck

    NCAA v NC State: A Due Process Train Wreck
    May 31 2026
    The NCAA’s infractions and enforcement action against NC State arising from the basketball-related criminal cases in the Southern District of New York makes a mockery of basic principles of due process. From its inception, the NCAA Committee on Infractions (COI) relied upon newly created investigative and adjudicatory principles adopted in August 2018 by the NCAA’s Commission on College Basketball (CCB) recommendations. The CCB never intended these new tools to be utilized in the “old” COI process. Instead, the CCB recommended that these tools be available only to independent adjudicators in high-stakes NCAA infractions cases. Indeed, the very purpose of the CCB’s recommendations for a fundamental overhaul of the old infractions system to include a new, separate, independent track for adjudications of high-stakes cases was to mitigate obvious conflicts of interests in the old COI process. NCAA insiders control the old process, including the COI pool of adjudicators and in-house NCAA enforcement staff. In the NC State case, the NCAA ran the entire case through the old process while relying on the evidentiary shortcuts intended for the new process. Then, just a week before a COI panel was projected to hear the case, the COI administrator responsible for managing all infractions cases arising from the basketball-related criminal cases referred the NC State case to the new, ostensibly independent process. NC State reluctantly acceded to the referral but protested substantial due process irregularities. This episode provides a timeline of relevant events in the NC State case, from the beginning of the FBI’s investigation in 2015 on the criminal side, through the NCAA infractions process, and a hearing conducted last month by an Independent Accountability Resolution Panel (IARP). The NC State case is the first-ever to be heard by an IARP. The panel will issue a public opinion at some point. This infractions case has important implications beyond the due process concerns raised by NC State. The NC State case was substantially complete before (1) the US Supreme Court’s Alston decision; (2) the NCAA’s failed attempts in Congress to obtain federal protections and immunities from liability or scrutiny in its exercise of regulatory authority; and (3) the NCAA’s self-inflicted name, image, and likeness debacle. The predicate for the entire NCAA infraction and enforcement process is the principle of amateurism. That principle is now in existential jeopardy. The NC State decision will provide important insight into how the NCAA views the viability of amateurism and whether it can use amateurism as the basis for penalizing alleged violations of amateurism-based NCAA rules.
    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
  • Who are the Five Most Influential NCAA Insiders?

    Who are the Five Most Influential NCAA Insiders?
    May 31 2026
    From the beginning of the early 20th century, one central question has plagued the voluntary regulation of college sports: who is in charge? If you were to pose that question to twenty in-system stakeholders/decision-makers, you might y get twenty different answers. The NCAA regulatory and decision-making process is notoriously opaque. Its defining feature is a lack of clear accountability. After the Commission on College Basketball’s report in April 2018, Commission chair Condoleezza Rice lamented that college sports decision-making resembled a circular firing squad where no one is accountable. Yet a careful examination of the composition of the NCAA’s most consequential governing boards and committees reveals that a small handful of NCAA insiders wield extraordinary power. These decision-makers operate as an invisible star chamber with influence across the board/committee spectrum. While this dysfunctional component of the college sports regulatory model is nothing new, the current star chamber suggests an imbalance of power among the Power 5 conferences. This episode looks at the composition of the current—post-Alston, post-NCAA constitutional makeover, post-NIL market—NCAA governance structure and identifies five key decision-makers and their crucial roles.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
  • The Federal NIL Police

    The Federal NIL Police
    Oct 21 2025
    An element of the NCAA’s and Power 5’s quest for preemption is the claimed need for a national enforcement entity. In 2019 and through 2020, the NCAA argued that it—and it alone— should serve that role if Congress federalizes the NIL market. Now, with the NCAA’s diminishing relevance as a national regulator, NCAA and Power 5 lawyers, lobbyists, and advocates like Linda Livingstone call for a “truly independent” federal enforcement entity. This vague, appealing characterization is yet another NCAA/Power 5 smokescreen. This episode analyzes the legislative proposals Big 12 lobbyists are promoting in Congress behind closed doors and the structure of the “independent” entities responsible for regulation and enforcement in a federalized NIL marketplace.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Herbstreit and Howard Flap Suggests Growing Values Dissonance for ESPN and Power 5

    Herbstreit and Howard Flap Suggests Growing Values Dissonance for ESPN and Power 5
    Jun 4 2025
    On New Year’s Day, ESPN analysts Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard went old school to criticize NFL-caliber football players who opted out of increasingly less consequential bowl games to avoid career-altering (or ending) injuries. Herbstreit questioned these players’ love for the game, and Howard described them as entitled. Facing immediate blowback online (and presumably after consulting with ESPN higher-ups), Herbstreit issued a “clarification” that was essentially a poorly disguised double down. This episode discusses why Herbstreit’s and Howard’s comments reveal a growing values-based imaging and messaging problem for both ESPN and the Power 5.
    Show More Show Less
    55 mins
  • Saban Schools Fisher While Lobbying for Protective Federal Legislation

    Saban Schools Fisher While Lobbying for Protective Federal Legislation
    May 22 2025
    Nick Saban’s comments on the state of college sports regulation will no doubt be remembered more for the reaction they drew from Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher than for what they say about the future of college sports. This was textbook Saban. Grab headlines with provocative claims, then weave in the actual message. Saban’s claims that Texas A&M and Jackson State were “buying” players—and Fisher’s entertaining rant in response—are a sportswriter’s dream. This gift will keep giving until the teams square off in Tuscaloosa in October. But Saban’s comments are worth analyzing for a much different reason. In his portrayal of the chaotic state of college sports regulation, he was a human talking point for tired—and often false—narratives that justify protective federal legislation that would effectively end the athletes’ rights movement. Saban’s megaphone is second to none in college sports. When he speaks, people listen. Saban is a far more potent lobbying force than the army of paid lobbyists working on behalf of the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences, including the SEC. This episode examines Saban’s comments in the context of the NCAA/Power 5 lobbying and public relations war against revenue-producing athletes.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Did Booker and Blumenthal Hang a U-Turn on Athletes’ Rights?

    Did Booker and Blumenthal Hang a U-Turn on Athletes’ Rights?
    Aug 3 2023
    On July 20th, 2023, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) released a discussion draft of a bill titled “College Athletes Protection and Compensation Act of 2023.” The bill is largely a cut-and-paste job from Moran’s 2021 bill, the “Amateur College Athletes Protection and Compensation Act of 2021” and Booker/Blumenthal’s 2020 bill, the “College Athletes Bill of Rights” (rereleased in 2022). The Moran bill gave the NCAA and Power 5 everything they wanted to obtain regulatory supremacy in college sports and, in the process, end the athletes’ rights movement. The Booker/Blumenthal bills were an equal and opposite counterweight to Moran’s bill and others like it introduced by NCAA/Power 5-friendly Republican Senators. Booker and Blumenthal built their legislation around a civil rights philosophy, particularly the financial and educational exploitation of African American Power 5 football and men’s basketball players. On the crucial question of who will sit on the Iron Throne of college sports regulation, Moran and Booker/Blumenthal have been on opposite sides of the earth. Both would use a federal corporation to oversee the college sports issues covered by the legislation. However, Moran would require that NCAA and Power 5 insiders run the federal corporation, replicating the NCAA bureaucracy with the protections and powers of the federal government. Booker and Blumenthal would exclude those decision-makers from involvement with the federal corporation and instead rely on athletes and experts in relevant fields. The new “compromise” bill not only jettisons Booker’s and Blumenthal’s civil rights focus but also adopts Moran’s NCAA/Power 5 governance model for the federal corporation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the new bill would grant the NCAA subpoena power to wreak havoc in its infractions and enforcement operations. This episode analyzes the new bill and what it may mean for Congressional action and perhaps the future of athletes’ rights.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 20 mins
  • The Power 5’s and NCAA’s Assault on Washington

    The Power 5’s and NCAA’s Assault on Washington
    Jun 19 2023
    For the last six weeks, the Power 5, the NCAA, and their lobbyists, lawyers, and corporate allies have engaged in an unprecedented, no holds barred campaign to bend the federal government to the will of the big-time college sports industrial complex. Between May 19th and June 16th, four Power 5/NCAA-friendly bills were proposed or circulated for discussion. On May 23rd, the IRS issued an Advice Memorandum on nonprofit NIL collectives. From June 7th – 9th, Power 5 and NCAA leaders descended on Washington in a show of force to demonstrate their singular commitment to federal legislation that would federalize aspects of the college sports marketplace. The campaign included a symposium dominated by Power 5 and NCAA insiders hosted by the University of Arizona. On June 12th, the NCAA-controlled NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committees (all three Divisions) sent letters to Senate and House members supporting federal legislation the Power 5 and NCAA have sought since 2019. Also on June 12th, the NCAA announced the celebration of its first-ever “College Athlete Day.” Championship teams from all three Divisions attended a White House ceremony celebrating the accomplishments of these teams. In conjunction with “College Athlete Day,” the NCAA honored US Presidents who participated in college sports, from Joe Biden to Woodrow Wilson. This episode analyzes the events of the last six weeks.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Understanding the Power 5’s and NCAA’s Congressional Campaign: An Organized Lie is More Powerful Than a Disorganized Truth

    Understanding the Power 5’s and NCAA’s Congressional Campaign: An Organized Lie is More Powerful Than a Disorganized Truth
    Apr 10 2023
    On March 29th, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce held a hearing titled “Taking the Buzzer Beater to the Bank: Protecting College Athletes’ NIL Dealmaking Rights.” During and after the hearing, many in the college sports commentariat seemed confused and surprised by the dissonance between the stated purpose of the hearing—protecting college athletes’ NIL rights—and the avalanche of P5/NCAA talking points directed to protective federal legislation that had little to do with NIL. Observers also noted the apparent lack of expertise among the witnesses on NIL (or anything else), the absence of influential P5/NCAA leaders, and the stunning ignorance of the Subcommittee members on the basics of the college sports business, regulatory, and legal environments. None of this should have come as a surprise to anyone who has carefully followed the P5’s/NCAA’s multi-faceted campaign to end the athletes’ rights movement, which began in earnest in the fall of 2019. Congress—through the most powerful lobbyists in America—is the primary battleground, but the P5/NCAA war spans other fronts, including federal litigation to achieve coveted antitrust immunity, false promises of voluntary rules changes on NIL, and a sophisticated public relations gaslighting machine. The P5/NCAA have used these assets over the last four years to eliminate all threats to their regulatory authority and financial interests. To understand what happened at the hearing on March 29, it is essential to know (1) the history and power of big-time football, (2) Myles Brand’s “collegiate model” as a financial framework for big-time college sports, (3) the external regulatory and financial threats to the P5/NCAA in the 21st century, (4) the timeline of events from March 2019 – present, (5) the changing justifications for protective federal legislation, and (6) the extraordinary motivation of P5/NCAA interests to impose their will on Congress and college sports stakeholders, notably including the athletes whose fundamental American rights are at stake. This episode broadly addresses these issues and lays the foundation for a more detailed analysis of every component of the P5/NCAA campaign to end the athletes’’ rights movement. **Note: The opening montage runs for approximately five minutes. The clips are from three Congressional hearings: February 11th, 2020, in a subcommittee of Senate Commerce, July 1st, 2020, in Senate Commerce, and March 29th,, 2023, in House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce. The speakers: Clip 1: former House member Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) (2/11/2020) Clip 2: former Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby (2/11/2020) Clip 3: former NCAA President Mark Emmert (2/11/2020) Clip 4: Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) (7/1/2020) Clip 5: Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) (7/1/2020) Clip 6: exchange between Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and University of Baltimore School of Law Professor Dionne Koller (7/1/2020) Clip 7: Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) (3/29/2023) I discuss these clips at the end of the episode.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 35 mins