NCAA president Charlie Baker has admitted that the reaction to the Brendan Sorsby case could provide a “thunderbolt moment” that triggers Congressional action aimed at getting college sports the antitrust exemption it craves.
The NCAA is currently flying a kite with a key on the string.
Via Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the NCAA sent (and leaked) a memo to Division I conference commissioners on Friday regarding the potential impact of the so-called “Protect College Sports Act.” The memo explains that the bill would “override Sorsby’s legal challenge and allow the NCAA to maintain its eligibility restriction.”
The bill would do plenty of other things, many of which would strip players of rights, without giving the players any real representation in the process. But there’s nothing like an overhyped crisis to shape public opinion, and to manipulate it into political action.
The NCAA’s goal is obvious. It hopes to use the Sorsby ruling as the springboard to get the comprehensive Congressional solution it craves. Unwilling to clean up its own mess, the NCAA wants Congress to wave a magic wand that will exempt the various universities from antitrust laws that all other American businesses must honor.
At a time when the word “integrity” has been thrown around as casually as Alexi Lalas saying “wanker” during Fox’s World Cup coverage, what does it say about the NCAA’s integrity that it’s pouncing on the organic reaction to the specific outcome in the Sorsby case as a way to force into existence a law that sweeps far more broadly than the enforcement of the NCAA gambling rules?
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