the BigAmateurism monologues

Richard Ford
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A series of events over the last 18 months—some unforeseeable—have created a perfect storm that will change college sports forever. The NCAA's bait and switch campaign in Congress on name, image, and likeness, a historic case in the US Supreme Court, COVID, race-based social unrest, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (and the ascent of Amy Coney Barrett,) the Georgia special elections, and more have conspired to make this era perhaps the most consequential in the history of American sports. In this perfect storm, nothing is as it appears to the public. The NCAA and powerful conferences have marshaled some of the most powerful corporate, legal, public relations, media, and political forces in the world to wage war against a small group of elite revenue-producing athletes—overwhelmingly African American—who threaten to disrupt the NCAA cartel in the 15 billion-dollar-a-year college sports industry. The NCAA is one bill in Congress and one Supreme Court decision away from achieving the Iron Throne of college sports regulation. If that happens, the athletes whose talents underwrite the entire industry will have no recourse in federal courts to challenge the NCAA's amateurism-based compensation limits and state legislatures will be powerless to pass laws that protect athletes' basic economic liberties. Join former Duke basketball player, attorney, academician, and athletes' rights advocate Richard Ford as he dissects the NCAA's war against revenue-producing athletes and the institutions, interests, decision-makers, and motives behind it.

  1. 4d ago

    The NCAA’s War on Revenue-Producing Men’s Basketball Players

    The entire NCAA bureaucracy, notably its infractions and enforcement processes, is funded by the Division I men’s basketball tournament (March Madness). An elite core of black basketball players is the lifeblood of the tournament. Without these world-class athletes, March Madness would have little commercial value. The NCAA takes billions of dollars generated by these black athletes and diverts it to downstream stakeholder-beneficiaries who are overwhelmingly white and comparatively well-off. This episode analyzes the true value of these high-value men’s basketball players and highlights the unconscionable, regressive diversion of wealth upon which the entire college sports business model rests. These are the very athletes that are now in the crosshairs of the NCAA infractions and enforcement process.

  2. Sep 22

    NCAA v NC State — Respectfully Throwing Down the Gauntlet

    On April 8, 2020, NC State responded to Carol Cartwright’s February 14, 2020, referral letter. NC State’s response—presented by three prominent national law firms and distinguished individual advocates—lays the foundation for a potential legal challenge to the NCAA’s conduct in its infractions and enforcement case. The response points out the egregious procedural irregularities in the NCAA’s handling of the case and the entire Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP). According to NC State, that process bears little resemblance to the recommendations of the Commission on College Basketball from which the IARP originated. As NC State accurately argues, the “new” the NCAA infused into the IARP the very conflicts of interest and NCAA insider influence that the CCB’s recommendations tried to mitigate. NC State also makes a compelling case that it fully cooperated in all aspects of the investigation into the allegations giving rise to the criminal case in the Southern District of New York. NC State cooperated with federal prosecutors, the court, and the NCAA (including its enforcement staff and outside lawyers). NC State’s Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance was a star witness for the prosecution in the SDNY criminal case and testified to NC State’s “extensive systems that are in place to detect, deter, and report NCAA violations.” NC State’s portrayal of its cooperation with all aspects of the criminal case flies in the face of Cartwright’s claims in her referral letter that NC State’s conduct in the infractions and enforcement process amounted to “adversarial posturing.” This episode analyzes NC State’s response memo in the context of the changed circumstances in college between April 2020 and the Independent Resolution Panel’s hearing just last month. In those sixteen months, the world of college sports changed forever. The hearing panel’s decision may provide a window into how the NCAA has absorbed these fundamental changes and the extent to which it stands by its conceptualization of amateurism—the primary principle upon which the entire infractions and enforcement apparatus rests.

  3. Sep 20

    NCAA v NC State — The Cartwright Referral Letter and the NCAA’s Violation of Its Own Public Disclosure Rules (Part II)

    NCAA Bylaw 19.01.3 (Public Disclosure) prohibits the public disclosure of infractions and enforcement information. This prohibition applies to both the NCAA and those the subject of an NCAA investigation. In May and June of 2019¬—before the NCAA served Notices of Allegations on NC State and former NC State basketball coach Mark Gottfried on July 9, 2019—NCAA national office executives made public comments to ESPN and CBS Sports about the basketball-related cases. These comments were infused with bias and prejudgment. After the NCAA sent out the NOAs on July 9, Gottfried’s attorney publicly questioned the NCAA’s interpretation of its new Importation Rule, and NC State released investigative materials in response to a public records request. These public disclosures were the subject of two referral criteria: “Actual or Perceived Misconduct by the Involved Parties” and “Breaches of Confidentiality.” Cartwright defended the NCAA’s public comments as appropriate without referencing or citing Bylaw 19.01.3. However, for NC State and Gottfried, the NCAA specifically cited Bylaw 19.01.3 and alleged violations of that bylaw. This episode discusses the remainder of Cartwright’s referral letter and the NCAA’s obsession with its public image under Mark Emmert’s leadership.

  4. Sep 16

    NCAA v NC State — Carol Cartwright's Referral Letter and the NCAA’s “Adversarial Posturing” (Part I)

    On February 14, 2020, Carol Cartwright referred the NC State infractions and enforcement case from the old Committee on Infractions to the new Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP). The IARP was the product of the Commission on College Basketball’s (CCB) recommendation that “high stakes” cases such as NC State should be removed from the old “broken” system and adjudicated by truly independent decision-makers. The referral occurred after the entire case was adjudicated through the old process. The IARP was excluded from the process up to the time of referral. As Cartwright herself repeatedly emphasizes in her referral letter, the NCAA formed the IARP to investigate and adjudicate this very type of case. Cartwright’s justification for the timing of the referral doesn’t pass the blush test. She accused NC State of “adversarial posturing” when it disagreed with the NCAA’s interpretation and application of a newly acquired, powerful adjudicatory tool (“Importation of Facts”) used for the first time in an NCAA infractions case. The circumstances of the referral resulted in NC State losing substantial due process rights. Ironically, Cartwright’s combative tone and prejudgment of the case are textbook examples of “adversarial posturing.”

  5. Sep 13

    NCAA v NC State - The World According to Carol Cartwright (and many university presidents)

    To understand the dysfunction in intercollegiate athletics, it is important to understand the way in-system stakeholders/ beneficiaries think about the relationship between revenue-producing sports and higher education. This is particularly true for university presidents who have primary responsibility for the conduct and control of intercollegiate athletics. This episode discusses the irreconcilable tension between the value systems of many university presidents—including Carol Cartwright— and the realities of the big-time college sports marketplace. Cartwright’s February 14, 2020, referral letter in the NC State infractions and enforcement case exemplifies the hypocrisy in university presidents’ quixotic quest for “academic integrity” in the relationship between the academy and big-time college sports. In 1991, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics recommended presidential control of, and responsibility for, college sports as the magic bullet to preserve the “integrity” of higher education. As a prelude to analyzing Cartwright’s referral letter, this episode explores how university presidents have enabled the very corrupting influences they claim to stand against.

  6. Sep 9

    NCAA v NC State: “Importation Fever” – the NCAA’s Evidentiary House of Cards

    On February 7, 2020, the NCAA filed its reply to NC State’s response in the infractions and enforcement case arising from the basketball-related prosecutions in the Southern District of New York. For the first time in the infractions process, the NCAA identifies the specific “evidence” for its case against NC State. This “evidence” is comprised in large measure of “testimony” from T.J. Gassnola, who turned state’s evidence in the criminal case and avoided a prison sentence. Gassnola, a shadowy grassroots basketball operative who steers high-level youth basketball talent to Adidas-sponsored universities (Gassnola is not an Adidas employee) boasts that he has a “degree in bull.” Just as Gassnola was the prosecution’s star witness in the criminal case, he is the star witness for the NCAA in its infractions case. Using investigatory and evidentiary powers adopted by the NCAA from recommendations of the Commission on College Basketball, the NCAA liberally “imported” material from the criminal case and used the silence of former NC State assistant coach Orlando Early to make its case. In addition to Gassnola’s self-serving testimony, the NCAA used “positions” taken by Gassnola’s attorneys in opening and closing arguments, unproven allegations in the criminal indictment, and material from Gassnola’s sentencing documents to support its infractions case. Most of this material does not rise to the level of “evidence,” and its use by the NCAA is an affront to basic principles of due process and fairness. This episode analyzes the NCAA’s reply document and the circumstances of a $40,000 payment that is the crux of the NCAA’s case against NC State.

  7. Aug 10

    Is the NCAA’s Kaplan Report a Gender Equity Smoke Screen?

    On August 3rd, 2021, the outside law firm—Kaplan, Heckler, and Fink—hired by the NCAA in March to conduct an external review of gender-based discrepancies between the Division I women’s and men’s basketball tournaments issued its first report. While Kaplan identified troubling inequities, most of its recommendations are warmed over from prior, failed reform efforts. Importantly, these recommendations leave to the NCAA the discretion of whether to adopt them. In short, Kaplan’s work presumes and preserves the essential dysfunction in college sports: NCAA regulatory authority. This episode begins an analysis of the report, including its scope and purpose. The NCAA’s dishonest virtue-signaling on gender equity as a primary institutional value provides valuable and timely insight into its disingenuous campaign for name, image, and likeness “compensation” during the perfect storm of 2019 – present. Is it time for the NCAA Board of Governors to cut its losses and fire Mark Emmert?

  8. Jun 25

    Kentucky Governor Acts in the Wake of NCAA Incompetence on NIL

    By executive order dated June 24th, 2021, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued temporary name, image, and likeness regulations that provide athletes in Kentucky NIL rights. With a NIL law pending in the Kentucky legislature, Beshear acted preemptively to ensure that Kentucky schools are not left at a competitive disadvantage in the ever-important talent acquisition market. Beshear’s executive order offers a new pathway for states who do not have NIL laws to preserve their competitive interests. Beshears order leaves to the universities broad discretion to define specific NIL rules and the NIL marketplace. This pathway makes a mockery of the NCAA’s campaign for absolute “uniformity” in NIL regulation. Now, rather than 50 different NIL standards, there could theoretically be 1,100 different standards. It remains to be seen whether other governors in states that have no NIL law set to go into effect on July 1st will follow Kentucky’s lead. I also preview another huge event on June 24th: a federal court order from Judge Claudia Wilken—the same judge who presided over O’Bannon and Alston—that paves the way for a new legal theory in athlete challenges to NCAA compensation limits. Buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride!

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A series of events over the last 18 months—some unforeseeable—have created a perfect storm that will change college sports forever. The NCAA's bait and switch campaign in Congress on name, image, and likeness, a historic case in the US Supreme Court, COVID, race-based social unrest, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (and the ascent of Amy Coney Barrett,) the Georgia special elections, and more have conspired to make this era perhaps the most consequential in the history of American sports. In this perfect storm, nothing is as it appears to the public. The NCAA and powerful conferences have marshaled some of the most powerful corporate, legal, public relations, media, and political forces in the world to wage war against a small group of elite revenue-producing athletes—overwhelmingly African American—who threaten to disrupt the NCAA cartel in the 15 billion-dollar-a-year college sports industry. The NCAA is one bill in Congress and one Supreme Court decision away from achieving the Iron Throne of college sports regulation. If that happens, the athletes whose talents underwrite the entire industry will have no recourse in federal courts to challenge the NCAA's amateurism-based compensation limits and state legislatures will be powerless to pass laws that protect athletes' basic economic liberties. Join former Duke basketball player, attorney, academician, and athletes' rights advocate Richard Ford as he dissects the NCAA's war against revenue-producing athletes and the institutions, interests, decision-makers, and motives behind it.

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