The NCAA isn’t just a corpse.
It is a dried-out husk of a corpse.
This was already fairly obvious, but it became official on Monday.
A judge in Texas granted an injunction that essentially precludes the NCAA from disciplining a player who bet on his own team’s games. The player is Brendan Sorsby, a quarterback who’ll now be free to play for Texas Tech after serving the two-game suspension his lawyers had suggested. The NCAA had declared him ineligible for the season.1
I find myself with mixed feelings on the subject, which is somewhat surprising because I do not think athletes should be allowed to wager on games their teams are involved in. If they do, I think they should be ineligible.2
Despite all that, I find myself slightly giddy that the NCAA got pantsed in court. Again.
This is because I believe the NCAA’s inability to enforce its own rules is largely due to its refusal to adapt to the new reality of the sports it purports to govern.
In other words, I firmly believe that Sorsby was wrong. I just don’t think that makes the NCAA right, which puts me swimming against the current of most opinions you’ll see offered on the subject:
By Dan Wetzel | ESPN.com
By Pete Thamel | ESPN.com
Sorry, but I can’t summon any sympathy for the NCAA here.
For 10 years, the NCAA has been told in increasingly emphatic terms that its rules and eligibility requirements are not enforceable as written.
And for 10 years, the NCAA has refused to create a new framework that won’t get struck down in court.
This is about more than just a few court cases, too.
It has been clear for more than a decade now that college sports – or at least college football and men’s and women’s basketball – were headed toward a new period of increased professionalization.
This began when states such as California passed laws explicitly prohibiting the NCAA or any similar governing body from preventing a college athlete from earning money by marketing themselves.
Instead of working to adapt to this new reality, the NCAA has dragged its feet. It has asked at every turn for more time, for additional leeway. Now, it has reduced itself to begging (repeatedly) for Congressional help.
It could have spent that time creating a new system of governance compatible with the new laws and the changing public perception of paying college players.
It chose not to, and at this point, it is an utterly failed institution that I will spend exactly zero time mourning.
The reason it can’t discipline Sorsby for what is an obvious and serious breach of its rules is not because of a rogue judge in Texas or a school whose boosters have run amok. The NCAA can’t discipline Sorsby because its legal basis for doing so is questionable.
There is no collective bargaining agreement with its players, whom the NCAA continues to insist are not actually employees, despite being paid to play a sport.
There are no winners here. Not unless you’re one of those folks who believe that college sports will have to experience total anarchy before there is a workable system of governance put in place. In that case, Monday’s ruling was another step closer, and the NCAA has no one to blame for that but itself.
1 The NCAA ruled Sorsby ineligible after determining he had wagered approximately $90,000 on college and pro sports over the past four years. The NCAA said 40 of those bets involved the 2022 Indiana team. Sorsby was a freshman on that team.
2 It seems fairly obvious why athletes would be forbidden from gambling on games in the league/conference in which they play, but just to be clear, I’ll lay out the reasons: 1. If the athlete in question is playing in the game, they could do something that impacts the wagers; 2. Even if the athlete in question is not playing in the game, they may well have insider knowledge of injuries, availability, or even talent levels within their sport; 3. The appeal of sports depends — at least in part — on the belief that these are earnest athletic competitions in which the outcome is not predetermined. Players/coaches placing wagers creates doubt in this regard.