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The NIL down and dirty
4 Plays21 days ago
Don and Russ talk with Tont Altimore about the evolution of NIL
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Gateway Sports
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Gateway Sports. Ladies and gentlemen, I've got a couple questions for you. Do you love college sports as much as I do? Are you always wondering where you can find the latest NCAA reports?
00:00:13
Speaker
Will you come to the right place? Welcome, sports fans. The NCAA report with Don and Ryan. Gee, that sounds kind of interesting.
00:00:27
Speaker
Ready to win the game.
00:00:58
Speaker
Look at the air, look at the hang time, look at the flying motion. Look at his head above the rim.
00:01:17
Speaker
me a shirt
00:01:24
Speaker
a confident young man a superb athlete to infinity and beyond
00:02:07
Speaker
Call on the field stands.
Meet Tony Altamore: Sports Strategy Consultant
00:02:12
Speaker
Touchdown.
00:02:29
Speaker
You've got to get it done.
00:02:42
Speaker
Pay attention, son. This is for your own good. The moment you've all been waiting for, here they are, your favorite hosts, Don Glenn and Russ Robinson.
00:02:55
Speaker
Well, thanks again to Devin Tynan the wonderful introduction he has done for us. And again, I got to get him on one of these days just so people can learn who he is.
00:03:06
Speaker
um He's going to be my son-in-law for crying out loud. I guess I should get him on some point. Anyway, welcome fans to another episode of the NCAA Report. A proud part of the Gateway Sports lineup with podcasts and articles covering the pros to college.
00:03:19
Speaker
Check it out at gatewaysports.net. All right, sports fans. I said, this is the NCAA report with Donna Russ. I am Don Glenn alongside me. Well, he's actually about 300 miles away is my co-host Russ Robinson. How you doing tonight, Russ?
00:03:37
Speaker
Well, I'm doing pretty good, Don. How about you? I'm fair to admit them. My, uh, wrist surgery is healing up quite nicely and, uh, you know, hopefully that will, uh, uh, I'll be getting back to playing golf at some point in time.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of like kind of like I asked the doctor about playing golf, and he says, well, what was your score before? And I said, i don't know. i don't play that much. But anyway.
00:04:01
Speaker
but so we'll see what happens, you know, but everything's going pretty well. Hey, tonight we have another guest um who I'm hoping can help us shed some light on the NIL and its effect on college sports.
00:04:13
Speaker
His name is Tony Altamore. He's a yeah strategy consultant who combines organizational strategy, data analytics, market forces, as well as storytelling and design for his clients.
00:04:24
Speaker
He's worked with government, corporate business, universities, nonprofit organizations, and He grew up in Big Ten country and worked for the Pac-10. I'm not sure how that all figure figures itself out, but we can ask him in a minute.
00:04:36
Speaker
ah His father is a in the Michigan State Athletic Hall of Fame, and he has an uncle that's an MLB manager. He's worked over two hundred worked with over 250 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.
00:04:49
Speaker
Tony, welcome to the NCAA Report. Thanks. It's great to be here. So how is this? yeah well Give us a little background on that storyline. I find that bio kind of interesting.
00:05:03
Speaker
Well, i grew I grew up in you know the hard big groupp Michigan in the heart of Big Ten country. My dad played for Duffy at Michigan State. um And then I went to USC and spent four years working in the athletic department at USC.
00:05:15
Speaker
And then in addition to that, I do a lot of work ah lot of pro bono work with leadership development for undergrads. So I worked with kids, spent 20 years working with kids from over 250 different colleges and universities.
00:05:29
Speaker
And ah yeah I've had clients in education space and stuff like that, of course, love sports. But when the whole Texas and Oklahoma mess happened, I really found astoundingly that – and they've gotten a lot better about it in the last couple years. But our sports
NCAA: An Illegal Cartel?
00:05:44
Speaker
writers didn't know anything about how universities actually work.
00:05:48
Speaker
And so they would say like ridiculous things like, you know, should the Boise State join the Big Ten? It's like, so it's not going to happen. Like, what are you talking about? So, you know, so there and I i love Boise State. So I'm picking on them.
00:06:00
Speaker
um But a lot of stuff I just found that folks didn't really understand sort of like where, ah you know, the world of business and the world of higher ed and the world of sports combined.
00:06:11
Speaker
And so I started helping with some folks that have done some some client work in that space. And I think it's a really, really interesting place. And it's it's where the the changes are really taking so much of of the game right now.
00:06:24
Speaker
yeah Or at least they've always been there. It's just adding some zeros, I think. and so Yeah, that that yeah that and in itself, I think, is is ah a huge ah part of the issues anyway. But so Russ and I have been talking as as best we can because neither one of us have any kind of real insight on NI. I mean, we we kind of know the back story and the history of it.
00:06:48
Speaker
You know, um years ago with th the Northwestern, some kid guys at Northwestern on one of the Teams are talking about trying to get recognized for their the school using their images and stuff, and that's kind of snowballed.
00:07:03
Speaker
Can you kind of give us a roadmap as to how we got where we're at? Where we're at? Sure. So one of the one of the big issues is fundamentally, and this is a whether we like it or not, just this is a statement. I'm going to say a statement of fact that's going to make people pissed off, but it's just a statement of fact.
00:07:19
Speaker
The NCAA is an illegal cartel. It's not actually a thing. It's a cartel. it's It's all of the universe. And I say that because that's a word that has legal meanings. And and it is it is it is a functional cartel.
00:07:32
Speaker
So it is all of the universities together. The NCAA is not like a big evil thing. It is the universities. Right. That it's made up of. So it's not like, oh, the NCAA won't let the NCAA is not a thing.
00:07:44
Speaker
The universities are sort of the NCAA. Functioning as a cartel, no different than the De Beers diamond mines or, you know, any other global you know OPEC. ah You know, sort of any other kind of cartel.
00:07:57
Speaker
And so the NCAA has been a really, really shaky foundation going back 70 years. um So back in 1951, when the only two powerhouse programs with their own TV contracts were the mighty Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the mighty Pennsylvania Quakers.
00:08:15
Speaker
Right back when Penn State was a cow college nobody had even heard about. Penn was the powerhouse. Penn was such a money printing machine in the nineteen forty s and 50s that ah they were playing ten like nine or ten games at home because everybody wanted to come to them because you got more money if you went to them.
00:08:32
Speaker
Ohio State came to play that. I mean, it was so just a huge thing. And then when the NCAA decided to take over TV rights, Penn said, that absolutely not. ah You're not going to do that. And so they took up they were taking them to court. They were going to win.
00:08:47
Speaker
And sort of the deal to drop the lawsuit created the Ivy League in a lot of ways. um And then they dropped the lawsuit. But that same lawsuit then won in the Supreme Court. Because the really the thing is, if you don't have an antitrust exemption...
00:09:01
Speaker
A cartel doesn't work. But what the NCAA had done for the first 70 years or so is be like, you know what? We have more money and more lawyers and we will abuse the legal system in every possible way ah to stave off the inevitable tidal wave of our losing for being an illegal cartel.
00:09:22
Speaker
um And that so that lasted up until the O'Bannon lawsuit was the big one. And like, whoa. 2012 or whatever, when when they finally started losing. And the thing is, is once you start losing all these cases, once the Supreme Court smacks you down nine zero multiple times, um you can't keep playing your legal game because what happens is you get injunctions that start off from the get-go and say, nope, nope, you're you're breaking the law again, you're done.
00:09:50
Speaker
And so what really has happened in the last few years, and especially since the Alston lawsuit, is that the NCAA is not being allowed to act like an illegal cartel anymore and restrict people from doing things that the NCAA doesn't have the right to restrict them from doing.
00:10:07
Speaker
So there's things like ah where this really came out for NAL, first of all, was it was the most, the hardest thing to argue, which is the idea that can you make money, can the NCAA stop you from making money for things that don't have anything to do with your sport?
00:10:23
Speaker
So the best example this was Jeremy Bloom. You guys remember Jeremy Bloom? I've heard the name. Jeremy Bloom was an Olympic skier. He was like a breakthrough Olympic mogul skier, like right as mogul mogul's first-hand big thing.
00:10:37
Speaker
He was an Abercrombie and Fitch model back in like the shirtless Abercrombie Fitch model day. He was actually an Abercrombie model and an Olympic U.S. national team world champion mogul skier and the best punt returner in the country for Colorado.
00:10:54
Speaker
ah back when they were in the Big 12. And so Jeremy Bloom sued the NCAA saying, yeah you can't stop me from making money from skiing. and don't ski for you. I play football for you. You can't stop me from modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch and argue that that has to do with my football. That's Bogan.
00:11:11
Speaker
And the NCAA played their game and tried to side. They told Colorado, again, illegal cartel behavior. we will We will forfeit all your games. You won't play football if he goes on that field. And a they whisked out and stopped and gave up.
00:11:24
Speaker
So it took to the O'Bannon lawsuit before they finally really smacked down the NCAA. And then with the Alston lawsuit, they went to the Supreme Court. And I mean, it was like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Brett Kavanaugh, new best friends, dunking on the NCAA.
00:11:39
Speaker
Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that literally said We can only rule in favor of what's in front of us, but the NCAA is so egregious that you should all just feel free to bring us more lawsuits because they will lose every time.
00:11:53
Speaker
So so i mean that's how bad they were. And so, again, this was a tidal wave that was always going to happen, going back to the 1980s when Oklahoma beat them with with the lawsuit. so So the issue is it really started with the the true idea of NIL, which is that the NCAA can't stop you from earning money for things that that don't involve football.
00:12:14
Speaker
Well, so this kind of expanded a little bit, as it was always going to, which is that we started to abuse that, right? Because jerugan Jeremy Bloom, perfect example, right? He's the flagship example. He's ah literally on the cover of the Abercrombie magazine.
00:12:29
Speaker
um But now it comes down to, ah you know, can i i hire, can I pay you to be my, ah and back in the 50s, by the way, they they used to pay, Levi's used to pay the Cal players to like, you know, walk around in Levi's and make it cool.
00:12:45
Speaker
So the football players were all in Levi's. So like, you know, that's, again, a little bit sketchy there, right? Because you're doing it for football, but it's kind of marketing related. it' it's a very slippery slope to just flat out paying players.
00:12:58
Speaker
Now, there's another issue which kind of relates to the mess that has made people has really made a lot of people mad, and that is employment law. So all of the problems that most fans hate, the transferring, the money, the just jumping around, it could be stopped overnight if the schools wanted to admit that the players, who they are paying, are actually employees.
00:13:24
Speaker
Okay.
Legal Battles and Player Rights
00:13:25
Speaker
And the schools do not want to do that. So what the courts have finally said, they just started smacking the schools around with this and said, look, either they're employees or they're not.
00:13:36
Speaker
If they're employees, you can collectively bargain. you can By the way, the lawyers are going to angrily type in the comments. i know the complexities to it. Stop your typing. um Essentially, the law says, yeah you know, if if they're not your employee, you can't make rules for them.
00:13:52
Speaker
Right. Like if if if I'm not your employee, you can't tell me like you can't have stuffed peppers for dinner tonight. Go suck an egg. i Go pound sand. I don't care. You're not my boss. You know you're not the boss. And so essentially what started to happen is the NCAA would make rules.
00:14:07
Speaker
And again, now that the the dam is broken of the NCAA, you can't make these rules. ah If you're not going to recognize that they're employees, you can't make rules that you could only make of employees or or of someone you have control of.
00:14:22
Speaker
Because as long as they're saying, you're just a student, you're just a student. Okay, well, then any student can do this. So I'm going to go do this. Any student can transfer whenever they want. I'm going to go transfer tomorrow.
00:14:34
Speaker
ah so So what really started happening is first you had the the, again, from the Jeremy Bloom idea of earning money from something that isn't football. So my dad's roommate at Michigan State, who was awesome, who became a super bigwig at the Dow Chemical Company.
00:14:47
Speaker
um When they were at Michigan State, got a job at a car dealership. He was really good at selling cars. He really good at selling a lot of things. um And he got in trouble when the compliance guy...
00:14:58
Speaker
They said they wanted to get a new car and they were like, oh, you got to go talk to Jim Stopper. He'll give you a great. He was like, I know that name. So the guy went and bought his car, got a deal, and then busted my dad's roommate for you know working when he couldn't.
00:15:13
Speaker
yeah It had nothing to do with football. Today, that would you you couldn't you couldn't do it. Jim would be well well able to sell cars And so then it's only that fine line from, you know, okay you got the, the, and UFC has, we're a little gun shy with the NCAA. So like try to do things the right way. Like, Hey, you know, we got, um, and what was our amazing receiver?
00:15:33
Speaker
Uh, first round draft pick, the transfer from Pittsburgh. Uh, Oh my God, I'm blanking on his name. That's wide receiver in the country. Uh, anyway, um,
00:15:44
Speaker
I'm just embarrassing. yeah is that out sorry sorry Anyway, he amazing guy. ah raising wine receiver they They had him actually he's marketing for you. He was marketing with United Airlines. There's him on the you know on the runway. United Airlines in the background is like, why United?
00:15:58
Speaker
You know, fly like I catch, you know, whatever their things were. Fly down the field. So you know that's the sort of real idea of marketing. But it's just a fine line from that to just flat out pay the players.
00:16:09
Speaker
Except here's the thing. There's one thing schools hate, and that is losing control. But the idea that, you remember the 80s, all the problems were boosters, you know booster outlaws.
00:16:20
Speaker
Well, now the whole thing is booster outlaws. So finally they said, okay, this is dumb. We need to actually have the schools do this for real. Mm-hmm. And it's tied in with the lawsuit, which is the lawsuit that was just recently settled, which kind of has an interesting complication out in California.
00:16:36
Speaker
by the way, to the same judge who did the O'Bannon lawsuit. And that that is the the house. It's Grant House. He's a swimmer from... He's actually recruited by the lawyers. So, i mean, it's not really... wasn't like his crusade.
00:16:48
Speaker
The lawyers recruited him to do it. um To say, hey, we we have to be allowed to to to make money here. So, they they agreed to all this. And they have this whole settlement now. This plan. and It's a whole agreed-on plan. You know, there's going to be money coming from the NCAA to the back... app Basically, the NCAA is paying out settlements to past athletes from the last 10 years.
00:17:10
Speaker
And the schools will pay athletes going forward. Now, the judges brought up an interesting thing, which is, hey, by the way, you haven't stopped breaking the law. You know, you're paying the you're paying off your settlement here, but yeah you haven't stopped breaking. You're still making rules for people who aren't your employees.
00:17:30
Speaker
Mm hmm. And they werere like, oh i guess well we're going to figure it out. So they're hoping that they're going to get a congressional bill passed that is going to give that like get to give them some kind of of legislative oomph that lets this settlement be legal, essentially.
00:17:48
Speaker
Because of now, if the NCAA gives you any kind of rule, they can't do that. So the whole thing, and the judge has pointed this out. He's like, I'm approving this thing that is not...
00:17:59
Speaker
not solving your law. Like you're saying, you're you're just going to keep breaking the law. And so that is, that is a really serious issue that, um, that we're going to have to face is that they have to do this Now they have decided in their infinite wisdom, um, that the two best people but to lead this on Capitol Hill are Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I've seen, I've seen that. I've seen a couple of those commissions. They get those two and, uh, I think Cory Booker's on that group. Cory Booker's helping, but it's it's really a Ted Cruz and And Blumenthal and Cory Booker great.
00:18:36
Speaker
like These are two of the least popular senators like in the entire Senate. So, i you know, I really wonder why they chose them. um I mean, tell you just as an example, yeah the the things that, for example, the things that Senator Warren, you know, ah bastion of the progressive world loves are the essence of what the SEC and the big, especially the SEC more than the Big Ten, like like her ideal of like sort of what athletics should be doing for the school and money and all that is really what the SEC does. So,
00:19:09
Speaker
I think that they're missing a lot of people that really could be helping them drive to a solution because they're sort of like defaulting to their senators who just happen to be the, you know, the two of the least influential senators on Capitol Hill.
00:19:22
Speaker
And so they don't have anything. um And so it's going to be really interesting if they don't get this passed because they had another huge issue that the election has derailed. um And that is that they they were also wildly in violation of a lot of the which this goes back to the Northwestern thing as well, in violation of a lot of the rules about employment.
00:19:44
Speaker
There's rules that say, like, if you you know, if you command somebody like an employee, yeah know they're They're your employee. And that's where you the Northwestern had that ruling.
00:19:54
Speaker
Dartmouth had a huge ruling. ah USC was just getting and embarrassed in the court. And then the election happened, and they have like destroyed the Department of Labor from its function. but They haven't changed the law. They've just destroyed the Department of Labor from functioning. Right.
00:20:08
Speaker
So that may well come back, assuming that, you know, this Congress has passed no legislation of any meaningful kind. So I'm assuming they're not going to change any laws. So there's huge, two huge issues right now as well, which with Title IX and with the employment laws, they may shake us up again. Because, because again, they didn't change the law. they We may have, like, the college sports world can get rocked again by either one of those two things, being like, you know, a judge being like, hey – The law says this and you're not doing that.
00:20:37
Speaker
um And so we do we have some big risks there well. Yeah. So you mentioned it that that this the universities don't want to admit the players are essentially employees.
00:20:51
Speaker
Despite they're paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars. Right. It it makes no sense. there's no so Why do you think that is? So most, I think it's just in their heads. Okay. Okay.
00:21:02
Speaker
um So there's a really there was a really interesting thing in 2007 or so, 2006, when the marriage equality thing was a big deal.
00:21:14
Speaker
and There was a psychologist who said something that I thought was really interesting. He he was like not worried about all the, you know they were passing all these like anti-equality laws, the psychologist really wasn't worried about it. He said, well, he said the word marriage has a lot of meaning to people, but he said,
00:21:28
Speaker
Right now we have like 89% of the country support civil unions. It's just a, that's just a word thing. you they They're fine with the idea. Like once brought there will be a tipping point in the country will instantly be fine with And everybody's like,
00:21:41
Speaker
I don't know. And any he was totally right. And I think it's the same thing with this employee issue, which is the schools, the schools have fought this like student athlete, you know, forever. And they just kind of have this mindset, despite the fact that they are completely functioning as employees.
00:21:56
Speaker
And also, by the way, if you think about, I worked in the athletic department at USC for four years, like I was a student and an employee. um I worked in the athletic department. is it Is it that much different if I was on a team?
00:22:09
Speaker
yeah They were probably true i owed them more than I was. um And I mean, same thing with grads. I mean, grad students are unionized. the you know the like The people that work in the labs and stuff, they have like like you know TA a unions. and So mean, there's really no reason not to. I think it's it's just that mental mentality. you know they They've been in this like, you're not an employee mentality for so long that they can't actually be like, actually, you're completely employee.
00:22:33
Speaker
So with with with how, I mean... I think a lot of people don't, and i myself included, don't really understand how all this money gets where it's going to the players because the way I understand it, and that's a very and it's it's changing by that's a very loose representation of the word understanding, ah is that it's all outside money that the university
00:23:04
Speaker
has no control over is that somewhat well it was until maybe the other day um so that that's how it was so again remember in their idea of nil when the reason they were again it's not nil really they were using the nil name because they were pretending everybody's jeremy bloom right but then but then we started to get egregious um and we started and then we started to give people you know like deals that they that had nothing to do with their actual marketing value um And then we got to ridiculous levels of it's outside boosters paying our own players. It's somebody that else paying our employees, essentially.
00:23:40
Speaker
And yeah, so that's what but the the sort of the goal was when this was set up. And if we're setting it up, again, when they were setting it up, people were like, by the way, you know you can't control any of this. Why are you doing it? Again, but it was the school saying,
00:23:52
Speaker
You know, okay, well, we we can't be involved. We don't want our hands dirty on the money. But if there's one thing a school doesn't want, it's other people fundraising on its behalf. Again, these schools, they control.
00:24:02
Speaker
They are all about control. They do not want someone else in control of their payroll. Which is good. Like, you know, getting back to the eight, you know, we knew for a long time, if boosters were running the money, there were going to be problems.
00:24:15
Speaker
So like, who thought it was a good idea that boosters should run the money? No, I have a bad idea the whole time. So part of this issue with the house with the the grant house lawsuit settlement is that starting.
00:24:28
Speaker
but It's supposed to start this year, um but they still they still have sort of kicking in themselves. It's like punching themselves in the crotch constantly. It's like, oh, you know what we should do? Let's just punch her. That sounds like a great idea. I don't know why they keep doing it, but they do. they they They may even lose the settlement because they were so stupid with it. But part of the settlement agreement is that from now on, schools will actually do the pay.
00:24:53
Speaker
Now, one of their other rules, just to keep this accountable, is that other people can't pay. So anybody anything anything else the school will just pay money. You'll just get a stipend from the school up to a $20 million dollars payroll, which is going to increase as your budget increases. It's like 20% of your budget or something.
00:25:12
Speaker
um And then anything else, they have to have this whole compliance function to make sure it's legitimate marketing. It's not just boosters you know not just boosters giving you money. But again, what's the number one thing?
00:25:23
Speaker
You can't make rules for people who aren't your employees. who So even though you're going to pay me a million dollars a year, you're not going to admit I'm your employee, so you can't make that rule.
00:25:36
Speaker
And that's what Judge Wilkin keeps telling them. He's like, you can't make that rule. um But part of that, and the settlement has a lot of other changes too. One of them is it got rid of scholarship restrictions.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, i knew that was I knew that was in the mix. yeah Yeah. And that's a whole antitrust thing, right? Like you can only give it x number of scholarships. Who says who? You can't make rules for people who aren't your employees.
00:26:00
Speaker
um you know And we have a lot of rules that say like you can't restrict yeah's some illegal cartel behavior. Again, ah take you know take your mind out. It is an illegal cartel. Functioning is illegal cartel.
00:26:12
Speaker
so So they got rid of the scholarship. pursuit But to keep some form of reasonableness, they put in roster limits. Right. Now, this is a bit of an issue. This is going to become a big issue somewhere and a lot of other places, too, because we're all talking right now and we're thinking like, right, like you're lying.
00:26:30
Speaker
My Trojans, my dad's Spartans.
Smaller Schools and Sports: Enrollment Tools or Financial Burden?
00:26:33
Speaker
But there's a lot of schools that sports play a very different role in and big teams really matter. And that is a lot of schools, especially small schools. It's about enrollment.
00:26:45
Speaker
So a lot of these schools, why do they have a track team? Do they send people to the Olympics? No, they have a track team so they can get high school kids to say, oh, I'm going to be on the track team and then I'll go to the school that I wouldn't go to normally.
00:26:57
Speaker
the And so it's an enrollment function. of So these these limits are going to kick those people in the, you know, in the guts because, you know, they like to have 120 kids in the track team.
00:27:09
Speaker
Why? Because it's they're bringing in money. The baseball team bring in money at the Division three level. Every Division three football team is in the black. Wow. Every single one makes money. Because again, their kids are paying.
00:27:21
Speaker
and but Actually, yeah angry people are typing right now. That's based on averages. I've done the amount based on averages. So we don't know exactly you know kid by kid who makes money. But I've worked with schools where we've actually done the math on a Division III schools on how much does your soccer team make? Because they're like, we have a soccer team. And their goal is to get kids to come here keep them here, help them graduate, and get them tied to the school.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's why they school. They're having to pay their own way, basically. Yeah, the blood yeah in Division III, you pay your own way. You're right. And in Division I, too, a lot of these schools, because there's Division I teams, NYU, Division III, NYU, their sports budgets blow a lot of Division I schools out of the water because Division I schools, a lot of them aren't given scholarships. Again, they have the track team, the swim team, the tennis team.
00:28:13
Speaker
to get kids to come to the school. So one of the issues that we have now is part of these new rules, which are for the USC's and Illinois's, are going to kick in the guts the Mercyhursts and the Salukis and you know other folks that that aren't operating an athletic department like like Illinois is, where that stuff really matters.
00:28:34
Speaker
or Or they're saying, like, you know, we don't we're just not going to we don't care how many scholarships we have. You know, Johns Hopkins is going to have every every one of those lacrosse players at Johns Hopkins is going to be on scholarship. Hmm.
00:28:46
Speaker
You know, they're going to they're going have probably 40, 40 guys on full scholarship because they can now. So there's going to it's going to be some some really interesting things with these rules. But one of the things that was an issue.
00:28:57
Speaker
is kids were getting kicked off teams. Because again, this this settlement is supposed to start any day. It's supposed to be done months ago. so So some schools, this is always a huge debate, like, you know do you you do it early or not?
00:29:10
Speaker
Started kicking folks off teams to get their teams ready. Like, hey, I got too many soccer kids and i got too many lacrosse kids. I got to get my rostered in. And kids were transferring, getting kicked off teams.
00:29:20
Speaker
And so then people were complaining. And judge said, you know what? if you don't resolve the grandfathering issue, then I'm not going to sign off on the settlement. You're going to lose billions. Up to you. and you know what they did? They basically flicked her off and they just turned in their settlement thing saying we're not going to fix it.
00:29:37
Speaker
he was like he Article 3, the senior judge of you know the Northern District of California, who, by the way, has beaten your butt repeatedly in other cases, does not want want to get a middle finger from you. she That was not a suggestion she made them.
00:29:53
Speaker
It was not like, oh, you should try the Caesar salad. It was, you need to take care of the kids you're kicking off teams. She wasn't asking their opinion on it. And they were like, oh, again, it's not real good in the legal thing.
00:30:07
Speaker
you know what Once we learned the emperor had no clothes, the NCAA has like the best paid lawyers doing nothing. I don't know if that's because the lawyers stink or the probably the clients.
00:30:18
Speaker
Beth Wilkinson is one of the best lawyers in the country. She's their lawyer on it. so yeah is I got a feeling Beth Wilkinson knew that this was going to happen. And so they they came back and said, okay, okay fine. we're We'll grandfather everyone.
00:30:31
Speaker
So now it's like if you were on a team last year and got kicked off i or or anything, you have like this get-out-of-jail-free card. You can like play any sport the rest of the time. It's fine.
00:30:42
Speaker
It's sort of how they're going to handle it. Maybe they'll rate it in a little bit, but we'll see. um but But that's part of the whole thing. And, again, it's going to become real interesting because until they get something from Congress – ah there's really nothing to base it on. Now, that there's an interesting question of could they get one of these like flagrantly illegal executive orders that the new president keeps writing?
00:31:03
Speaker
well yeah Probably not. I mean, he might write one. right He might write one to make you and I the king and queen of England. But that's it's going to have the same effect as most these other things he's writing.
00:31:14
Speaker
so Yeah, because it can't it doest it doesn't have a force of law until it's actually acted on oned by Congress. exactly point Exactly. So that's why we need Congress. Has he gotten a bill passed? No. Tony, I'm wondering if the Cruz, Tommy Tuberville thing, I i view ah your opinion, it kind of reflects mine about that.
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm just wondering if... That's by way that's not a political it's not my political opinion. That's my de as legislators' opinion. Right. But ah I'm just wondering if the Congress really wants to get involved and they're letting Tommy Tuberville and Ted Cruz bark.
00:31:48
Speaker
Because they're they're there fan bases or they're voters' bases. You know, Tuberville's from Alabama. And you know Ted Cruz, ah Texas and Texas A&M, there's some big money down there that's throwing money maybe into his ear about it.
00:32:03
Speaker
But I'm just wondering if they're just saying, okay, you guys take it if you want to. Well, again, you you sort of get into a weird thing here, right? Because you've got a couple different interests. Yeah. you know The guys at Texas Tech, they like being number one. Texas likes being number one.
00:32:16
Speaker
Texas has more money than God. Texas just raised a billion with a B for their athletic endowment. like Texas is rolling. They're fine with how things are. They're good with it.
00:32:27
Speaker
um i mean Again, Senator Warren's office, Senator Booker, when they look at stuff, one of the things that worries them a lot is um you know, are we're not going to cheat players. So, you know, we're not going to write a law that lets you go back to screwing players.
00:32:41
Speaker
And oh, by the way, you have a 0% track record of doing the right thing, NCAA, in your history. Zero times you have, like, taken the moral right attitude. So, and by the way, schools, we know it was really you.
00:32:56
Speaker
yeahp Schools are like, oh my god, the NCAA has these rules. like No, you made those rules. How did you vote? you You voted for every one of them. so you know don't Don't blame the NCAA. There's no trust in Congress that like the NCAA is going to like take care of you. What's interesting is you have...
00:33:14
Speaker
You think about like horseshoe political theory, you know, the right and the left are alive in some ways. And, you know, then you've got like clueless people being like, i just wanted the way it was. it's okay Well, that's not going to happen. we So ah you get some weird issues. But I mean, one of the issues, for example, again, football and but basketball are the ones making the money.
00:33:31
Speaker
um And there's people that are like, OK, well, um we've kind of exploited students of color for a very long time who were very shorted by the world.
00:33:42
Speaker
um You know what? If you're gonna be this dumb, let them take your money. So, theres you know, there's some interesting questions there and some some interesting questions about, like, making sure that um that athletes can do that. I mean, you can argue that some of this money, this is a this is going to turn sports into a phenomenal, some of these sports, into a phenomenal anti-poverty program.
00:34:05
Speaker
I'm not kidding. You're going to change families' lives in a lot of good ways. Especially because it's more spread out to college. Kids that can't go pro are going to be like, I'll dirty me or whatever.
00:34:21
Speaker
you know They're looking at it and they're like, so I see where the problem is for you. um Show me where your problem is society's problem. And ah one of the issues is, by the way, the schools need to stop breaking the law.
00:34:32
Speaker
it's none There's a cost for that. You're you're already paying billions. So the NCAA, for example, you know, the NCAA distributions are going to be down. Like every school is going to get like a million dollars a year less because or whatever, because they're paying out.
00:34:45
Speaker
The NCAA is paying the back, the you know, the back pay of the athletes. So they haven't really resolved some of this. But yeah. You know, in general, again, it's a weird thing, horseshoe politics, where like, you know the far left and the far right are like, I don't like you, but you have a good point.
NIL Lawsuits: Compensation for Missed Opportunities?
00:35:04
Speaker
Well, Tony, to kind of expand, maybe expand or on this little bit, I know recently there's been two lawsuits, or at least I've read about two lawsuits, been filed by class action lawsuits by former NCAA players who are now suing the NCAA to get their, when they get the money, they were, they feel like they're old now.
00:35:28
Speaker
God, you're paying these current players. We never got our NIL. We never got the deals they did. And these there's two lawsuits have been filed. And the reason I kind of grabbed my attention is there's two former Mizzou players ah that are,
00:35:42
Speaker
and that have ah joined in with these. And I assume that's going to be another hit on the NCAA. I can't see how they can't end up having to settle this with these former players and how far back that'll go.
00:35:56
Speaker
but so the One of the issues is this one in California is a class action. It was designed to sort of include everybody. um One of the other problems, again, you know lawyers, the ambulance chasing lawyers, like they see there's money to be had and they would like to be the law firm. the law The law firms are making like a five, you know quarter billion dollars or something off this lawsuit for them.
00:36:17
Speaker
So a lot of some of that is lawyers coming after the money. i don't know the I don't know these two, so my I'm not impugning on these particular folks. um but But a lot of these other sort of cases happen. And so those tend to get rolled into the lawsuit where they they have a little negotiation in the, you know, the um what is it?
00:36:35
Speaker
Sturck law firm, upgrading the name of the law the law firm that um the it's it's ah it's ah It's a plaintiff's law firm. um Now, a friend of mine is a plaintiff's lawyer who does things like – he does the really big – I'm surprised he didn't do this one actually. But he does a lot of the big things like the the workers' families from the ah the Deepwater Horizon or the you know the oil platform that blew up.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, died right. Like yeah he did theirs. um and And he has a boat that has a a beautiful oyster yacht. And it always has the same name. But, you know, with each with each settlement, it's like 10 feet longer. is There's a new one. um And afraid of our a friend of mine is a lawyer for a ah big corporate firm in D.C. stepped on. He looks at my friend. The lawyer goes.
00:37:19
Speaker
apparently I'm on on the wrong side of the V. And the lawyer looks at him when it's Hugh John goes, you are on the wrong side of the V. So you know the the lawyers that are on that side of the V like a little piece of it. So they kind of cut a deal on that.
00:37:31
Speaker
um right But yeah, yet one of the issues is they haven't they haven't stopped the law breaking. And there's now there's some other arguments about... which again, when you get past that O'Bannon era, now you start to have some, some debatable issues about like valuing the money. Like, you know, what were you really owed? You know, there's, there's, you start to get more debatable as to what, whether the school was sort of, you know, bilking you down. Cause the other thing is there wasn't this much money in this stuff back before. And so in 2008,
00:38:01
Speaker
two thousand eight um you us s In the old Pac-10, USC was getting more. The Pac-10 until 2011, they had the contract. Depending on how many times you were on TV, that's how your TV payment came out. If you weren't on TV very much, Oregon State, you know you didn't get very much money.
00:38:21
Speaker
If you were on TV a lot, USC and UCLA, you got more. so usc was getting more we nick When Nick Saban joined Alabama, USC got more money than Alabama did. who And I think think USC got something like, I don't know, $10 million dollars from the Pac-10 that year. And Alabama got like nine from the SEC. So the numbers were so much smaller.
00:38:42
Speaker
And then the tv you know as as football became so important to broadcast, the the numbers just started adding zero, literally adding zeros because now USC is going to get like 80 million. So that's ted x In you know at 15 years So now there's a lot of money to be had and and one of the other big things that this threatens is Olympic sports Because the way we've always funded Olympic sports is essentially by taxing football profits know football profits You don't get them.
00:39:12
Speaker
So we're gonna use them to have a you know pay for volleyball and track and tennis and all this. And then the U S Olympic committee, that's how we train a lot of athletes in sports. They come up through college and, and the Olympic committee doesn't, the government doesn't have to pay anything. the Olympic committee doesn't have to pay anything.
00:39:31
Speaker
And we do it for the world. You know, somebody – But if you think about it, I mean, that was an – the French, you know, nat you know great the amazing swimmer of the Olympics, you know, the one who, like, carried the little torch in the closing ceremony.
00:39:46
Speaker
That was an Arizona State Sun Devil. Right. So, you know you start to get some questions of, like, you know, are we – you know, we have been funding the training of everyone else's athletes. And then you get some other bigger questions, especially at not the Big Ten schools but some of these the other places.
00:40:01
Speaker
where student loans are a real issue. Every kid at Coastal Carolina, every kid pays $3,500 a year more to pay for the subsidies of Coastal Carolina sports.
00:40:18
Speaker
In the matter. At Akron, it's like two grand. So here's a question. Kids you know scraping by, living at home, going to Akron, Does that kid need an extra $2,000 a year in student loans so that Akron can play football?
00:40:33
Speaker
Exactly. Right. Good point. good point Hey, ah we'll we're going to take quick break here, and then we'll come back, and we'll kind of top off this discussion.
Commercial Break: Liquid IV Promotion
00:40:41
Speaker
ah This is the NCAA Report with Don and Russ.
00:40:47
Speaker
I would like to talk to you about hydration. Herb. Dehydration, both. Did you know that our bodies are made up of fifty to seventy percent water? The average loss of water due to dehydration is about three to five percent per day.
00:41:00
Speaker
Now obviously, the higher the activity level, the higher the level of dehydration. If dehydration levels get around 8% to 9%, it starts to affect your body. you feel thirsty. you feel tired.
00:41:10
Speaker
These symptoms increase as your dehydration increases. If you lose 15% of your body's water, that's enough to put you in the hospital. And I've been there. That's not a really fun way to do it.
00:41:21
Speaker
So hydration is a serious issue and water alone sometimes just isn't enough. And I coupled that with the fact that most people only drink 50% of the recommended amount of water they need per day for proper hydration and good health.
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00:42:16
Speaker
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00:44:23
Speaker
And we
Future of NCAA: Financial Dependencies and Structural Changes
00:44:24
Speaker
are back. This is the DNC W report with Don and Russ. I am Don Glenn joined by my partner as always, Russ Robinson. And we have special guests with us. Tony Altamore. I hope I get that. I got that. the last You got it. You're right. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Tony Altamore. We've been talking NIL.
00:44:41
Speaker
Very fascinating stuff. ah Something we've, moved right Russ and i are just we've we've been trying to but report on it, but we just haven't had the insight that that you've had, Tony. And, um you know, a couple things we were talking about during the break there.
00:44:56
Speaker
um You know, that's how in-depth a lot of this has gone that, you know we don't hear about. it leads me to another question though, is the last guest we had on Brian Smith, he was talking about, we were talking about recruiting and the blue bloods always are going to get their people and this and that, you know, with the blue bloods are always going to get their money.
00:45:17
Speaker
I mean, that's obviously going to be true too, because the, the, you know, corporations or whoever boosters are going to donate to make sure that they stay up and up in their upper echelons.
00:45:29
Speaker
And, yeah And my question is not so much about mid-majors because, you know, they are going to suffer through all this. But where' up a lot what about the lower end teams and in the Power Five?
00:45:41
Speaker
You know, like your Northwesterns, like your um mississippi's i mean you're not not Mississippi State, Vanderbilts and places like that. Well, there's some really good questions about the about those schools.
00:45:52
Speaker
And... you know the realquet one of one of the One of the real questions, too, is which is sort of why the SEC does their scheduling like they do, is is the question of, like you know is it better to be the worst team in the SEC than the best team in, i don't know, Missouri Valley or you know whatever? wow um um and else I'll give you an example somewhere that this is really interesting, is ah the Dakota schools and the Montana schools. Those guys are playing for national championships every year.
00:46:21
Speaker
And they have and a lot of people are like, oh, I don't understand. I mean, they I watched them. Was it a year ago? They almost beat Arizona State. um They probably should have. they One of them beat. Maybe they beat Arizona. Those teams have won some games in South Dakota State, North Dakota State. There's some great teams.
00:46:36
Speaker
yeah and And so one of the issues for them is, you know, do we want to move up? And one of the issues that they argue about is we love being the national champions.
00:46:49
Speaker
And if we were, don't know, four and five in the MAAC, would we be able to go to the you know the recruit we would be able to go to that kid in suburban Chicago and be like, see these national championship rings? You want to come play for us? could they even And so one of the questions is, would they actually be worse?
00:47:08
Speaker
Would they be worse off? and have lesser teams than they do today if they drop down because yeah, they'd be ah ah be a higher division, but they wouldn't be the national champions and they recruit off, we play for national champion we play for championships here.
00:47:23
Speaker
um So your question becomes, for the and this again kicks the mid-majors in the crotch because it's gonna be better to be like, well, we're the national champions here in FCS, or you know you come here, you can play in the SEC, play in the Big 10,
00:47:37
Speaker
But it's the folks caught in the middle that I think are going to suffer a lot from that because the you know the the big schools, yeah and we'll pick we can pick on Northwestern or Purdue or you know whoever, um you know as long as they don't stink.
00:47:52
Speaker
I think that they'll be okay. You know what I mean? yeah mean and we we've Because we've seen some of those teams have stuck before. ah ah Yeah. when we we know We know. You know what I mean? like it's one you can be you could be you know You can win two games in the Big Ten and and still be okay.
00:48:06
Speaker
Or you can win one game. you can see you know Colorado Oh, so bad um I mean, their quarterback looked like a 10-year-old. So you know you it depends. I think that some of those schools, those lower-end schools, thequet one of the questions is you know how how into this are you?
00:48:25
Speaker
And one of the things that private schools have a better ability to do is to decide where they want to spend. TCU is a great example. TCU spent its way.
00:48:38
Speaker
to being a national, TCU is like Lehigh. I don't know if you guys know about TCU. It's a great school, but it's like Lehigh. It's not like Illinois. It is like a tiny little, you know, tiny school.
00:48:53
Speaker
ah Something like, you know, 10 or 10% of their students are athletes. I mean, just it's something wildly huge. I forget what it is. It's a wildly huge number. So, you know, they sort of were like, hey, we're going to do this.
00:49:04
Speaker
USC is like, we've always been in for this. Notre Dame, were. We're to, and they all have their private schools. They have that ability. Northwestern was like, you know how into this we are? We're going to build an $800 million dollar stadium.
00:49:16
Speaker
Well, boom, because we can. And they are. So, you know, Northwestern has sort of made that point. know i don't know guys know this. Northwestern turned down the Ivy League in 1980. The Ivy League had a little mess with Army and Navy, and they were kind of – Army Navy were still wrapped in with the Ivy League until 1992 in some sports.
00:49:34
Speaker
Right. um one I think Army signed one of the Ivy Agreements too. like So they go way back. And when – They want to join the Ivy League. The Ivy League said no.
00:49:44
Speaker
So then when they were going to get kicked down to FCS, they did not want to get kicked down. And so the Ivy League went to Army, Navy, Duke, Northwestern, Colgate maybe, and said, do you want to join? We don't want to go down.
00:49:56
Speaker
And they were like, oh, ah look who's in trouble now. Yeah, yeah right. Let me just flush you one more time for fun. um Army was like, let me see these deuces.
00:50:07
Speaker
um Remember when you turned us down? So so the so north what one of the things was in the 1980s when Northwestern was atrocious. You guys remember how bad Northwestern was in the 80s? Yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
Northwestern turned down the Ivy League, you say, in the Big Ten. Because one of the things about the Big Ten, cute you guys know. People from the big ah not from the Big Ten don't know this. They're starting to learn it. But the Big Ten is not a football con.
00:50:28
Speaker
The Big Ten is a group of like-minded universities. who are aligned on research and on procurement. and I mean, they have a group. The Big Ten is grouping together to defend themselves from attacks on the federal government. right like The Big Ten is is a group of schools. Northwestern said, this is who we are. It's not even doesn't sound a football thing. it's a who and The Big 12 fans do not appreciate this.
00:50:56
Speaker
pack t twelve pack it And same with the Pac-10. The Pac-10 was like this, too. The Big Ten the Pac-10 were like two peas in a box. you know they They were like, we are we are a group of like-minded schools. And so you know Northwestern said, we're not we're not going to leave for that.
00:51:09
Speaker
um And so one of the questions I i think is is here is that for a lot of these schools, this is very tied into who they are. And same with Vanderbilt. In the South, i don't I'm not a Southern guy, so I don't quite know know the – but there's this whole culture of like um you know you want your daughter from Alabama to marry like like a doctor who went to Vanderbilt. like a thing.
00:51:33
Speaker
Vanderbilt has a role in the social world that I don't quite understand, but it's like Vanderbilt has a role of the in the social world of the South. and And so they are they like where they are they are. They're very happy in doing that.
00:51:45
Speaker
And so it's just – there are some weird wacky little cultural things like that for those teams. And the Mississippi State's – you know, again, they're – the Mississippi State's a real good team. I mean, again, as long as these teams aren't like, you know, just irrelevantly non-competitive, um I think they're going to be okay.
00:52:05
Speaker
ah One – you know, a couple of things, russ or one of the things Russ and I have been talking about, And we've kind of hit hit this and we've asked about it or on a couple of the guests is given that, as you as you say, the NCAA really doesn't have any teeth to enforce anything.
00:52:25
Speaker
um They don't really, I mean... then The Wizard of Oz secret, they never did. and Well, yeah, that's true too. They were always the Wizard of Oz.
00:52:36
Speaker
Is... is is is with And like you said, they've been waiting, and and I think Russ and i have talked agree with that. They've been waiting for the federal government to do something so they don't have to.
00:52:47
Speaker
Are we seeing at this point with NIL and with the transfer portal and with all the other things that are going on, do you see the NCAA existing in anything but a name?
00:53:06
Speaker
um or yeah are we going ah i guess i'm saying are we going to see a breakup at the NCAA at some point? So we might, and that might not necessarily be a bad thing. Because let's remember, the NCAA serves 520,000 athletes. Mm-hmm.
00:53:23
Speaker
Most of them are not. There are two sports that make money. Everything else is a black hole. Exactly. Everything else, everything else in the whole athletic world is a, somebody's in a tight end, North Dakota State hockey. Probably not. Surprisingly, you might be surprised. They'd still probably still have to make money. Couple random things. Colorado College hockey does.
00:53:42
Speaker
yeah um Yeah. So those those dozen weirdos aside, you know it's football and basketball, and then it's everything else. So I really think there is a role for everything else.
00:53:53
Speaker
um But the question is, you know do you almost want to get you almost want is it almost a good riddance? you know Could the NCAA be its glorious NCAA sell without the mess that is all of this dragging it down?
00:54:07
Speaker
and And you could make whatever rules because it really wouldn't matter. you know no there's no There's no money on the line. Nobody cares. So there might be a ah better role for the NCAA if it didn't have ah major football and or major basketball.
00:54:21
Speaker
The problem is, i don't know if you guys know how the NCAA pays for itself. ah Everything from the NCAA is paid for by that basketball tournament. That basketball tournament comes in, it pays the entire expenses of the entire NCAA.
00:54:37
Speaker
well And then it pays for ah welfare checks. Essentially, I can say welfare. i I'm being a bit facetious that revenue sharing. ah But they're essentially welfare checks to every team at every level. So every every all those 520,000 athletes, you know the ones going to like the softball Division III tournament who get their like trips paid for, it that's all from that basketball.
00:55:01
Speaker
So your question starts the question starts to be, like if they if the money from the basketball tournament wasn't paying for the NCAA, then you know where does the NCAA get its money or do schools just pay more? you know you Essentially, you know could you do the same model as the club teams do?
00:55:16
Speaker
Probably. you know The schools have the money. um But the the current model it exists off the largesse of that basketball tournament's money. So that's one question. um I think the NCAA would like to be rid of the mess of football. But again, they they understand that the money is tied to that. yeah um the The lawsuit settlement was very interesting to me.
00:55:38
Speaker
because the lawsuit settlement ties that basketball tournament, which the money for the basketball tournament is paying for the back athletes, the money the next 10 years.
00:55:49
Speaker
um So we have about 10 years where the those big those big power schools are tied to the NCAA for that house settlement. So that was something that really put the break off on pause.
00:56:00
Speaker
The other thing is the NCAA does a lot of good stuff that is a pain in the butt to do. Like if you were to try to think about we need a new association. OK, well, that association is of an HR strategy. You got to have IT t and tech and reporting and records keeping all this stuff.
00:56:17
Speaker
And that stuff is a pain in the butt and that stuff costs money. So do you want to start a new organization to do the same thing or you just want to? Again, the NCAA is not a thing of its own. and You decide what it does.
00:56:29
Speaker
So ah you just tell the NCAA to do things the way you want them. So there is a big advantage of the NCAA being there. where that Where that will change, I think, is if they make a decision that says we want the money from the basketball tournament and not to share it with the rest of you.
00:56:48
Speaker
I see. but so and And by the way, that doesn't necessarily mean that the yeah they wouldn't necessarily have to. They could still invite the Cinderella's, but like maybe the formula is different or maybe they just aren't paying for everything out. Maybe you're not paying for Division three softball World Series because that money is just going to go to the schools from basketball.
00:57:07
Speaker
ah Because, again, the NCAA gets no money from football. That ended in the 1980s with the Oklahoma lawsuit.
Football Finances: Separate from NCAA?
00:57:12
Speaker
and for The first time they got smacked down by a Supreme Court, which is the same thing that Penn tried to do in 1951. Oklahoma just took the Penn lawsuit, scratched Penn off it, and wrote their name on top and turned it in.
00:57:23
Speaker
um They didn't actually do that. There's someone angrily typing in the comments. um They could have. It's the same. Sherman Antitrust Act, that's what they were doing. same Same thing in 1951 they were doing in the 80s.
00:57:34
Speaker
There's no money going to from football to the NCAA. It's all basketball. That's it. Even with the ah with the recent football playoffs, and none of that playoff money is going to the NCAA? The football playoff is its own thing completely.
00:57:47
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So the Knight Commission, I don't know if you guys know about the Knight Commission. The Knight Commission, this wealthy family be funded, it's like a think tank. And they they think big thoughts about how college sports could be better.
00:57:59
Speaker
they're great. They're awesome. They they they bring they bring like the news you the NCAA doesn't like to hear to the NCAA. I think Arnie Duncan is was is or was the chairman. And so they they have long recommended that football go into its own category.
00:58:14
Speaker
Just take football. Stop pretending it's in the NCAA and then free the NCAA of having to to do anything related to football and how much better would this be for the rest of the NCAA? So there is a pretty good argument. Like, cause again, if if there's not money in it, then you don't have all the problems that we have.
00:58:34
Speaker
You know, kids aren't transferring it. you And also you can sort of make some sketchy transfer rules because if they're not making money, then when you restrict them from transferring, you're not restricting them from earning things. So you can restrict, you can make rules because there's no money. We're not, we're not playing employee stuff.
00:58:47
Speaker
You're not interfering with livelihoods. Yeah. Well, that's okay. well i cause you know like because ah What was it, Russ? Back in early in the year, the Big Ten and the SEC met behind closed doors, if you will, in Nashville and came up with a basically agreement that you know we're going to play more games against each other and we're going to do this and we're going to do that and
00:59:18
Speaker
you know basically, like you said, tell the NCAA, we don't care what you want. This is how want it. the way I understand there were a lot of lawyers in that room making sure that there was no collusion. probably was ah There probably was.
00:59:28
Speaker
There were a lot of lawyers in that room. I'm sure, yeah, okay. I will tell you that one of the commissioners did not think it was funny when I told him they should have the meeting at Bretton Woods just for the support of it. but They have the meeting where?
00:59:40
Speaker
New Hampshire, Bretton Woods, where they but they planned like the world monetary system of today. I did i didn tell him they should do that, and he he he he did not send me back a smiley. Didn't see the humor in that.
00:59:54
Speaker
but It was less funny to him than it was to me. Come on. How cool would that meeting have been if it was in Bretton Woods? Right? Hotel was available. It's out of season. was it Would have been pretty cool. Rush, you got anything else? well would The Big 12 would not have thought that was funny.
01:00:08
Speaker
Probably not. No, I think that's, it's been a good show, ah Don. I appreciate Tony coming on and and because he's kind of pulled everything together. i understand in depth a lot more than I did an hour ago.
01:00:22
Speaker
so yeah. I mean, yeah. Separate stuff. Yeah. You know, this was here, this was there and that, but I hadn't just pulled it together. So and a lot lot of it comes down to, you for anybody listening to the the big thing is,
01:00:36
Speaker
This was always going to happen because yeah you can only break if you're not going to change the law, you can only break the law for so long before you get the inevitable avalanche. And then we got the avalanche.
01:00:48
Speaker
So that's that's why they change the changes have been so fast. but why why one other One question is just, why do you think, I mean, because there has been a lot of push over the years about ah baseball and its antitrust clause that it can do what it wants. that They have one.
01:01:05
Speaker
Yeah, they've got one. Why... By the way, the Ivy League had one, too, and it expired in 2022. Oh, wow. Oh, really? Just attached to some, because it's like attached to some, I don't know, defense spending, don't know what was attached to.
01:01:21
Speaker
There was like a little rider somewhere that was like, the Ivy League doesn't have to pay any attention to the antitrust laws. Truly, it was there and expired in 2022. So that's why the Ivy League started to have some lawsuits. Because the Ivy League had no issues because they had had a baseball level.
01:01:34
Speaker
i don't know who from Harvard put that in. Some, I think, I was i might have i wasn't defense spanning. in some random bill. There was randomly an Ivy League antitrust exemption. Why hasn't the NCAA tried to go for an antitrust exemption?
01:01:51
Speaker
um part Part of that is because by admitting you need need one, you are admitting you're breaking the law. nine Despite how obviously you've been breaking the law. um it And it this was actually a thing with the law is that they're lobbying about why we need one is admitting that they're breaking the law. They're breaking the Sherman Act. So they need an and an exemption from one. So that there is there is some issue with that. Also, like...
01:02:18
Speaker
Colleges, they're very reactionary. You know they're not ah it's not not a proactive industry. Right. It's a good. Right. Part of why it succeeds is because it's slow to move.
NCAA's Antitrust Challenges: Why No Exemption?
01:02:29
Speaker
so' they don't you know They don't necessarily move to good things, but they also don't move to bad things very easily. So that's part of why, you know, if you President of USC used to say something like, there's like, don't know, three institutions that have survived since, or there's only only of the however many institutions it is that have survived since like the year 1000. It's like the Roman Catholic Church and like, i don't know, like a parliament on the Isle of Man and like all the rest of the church.
01:02:56
Speaker
yeah and Like no other organization like predates whatever the year. know yeah they They do this because they're sort of slow to move. And so they've been pretty reactionary. um i don't I don't think that they expected that Congress would be as dysfunctional as it is to not like step in and and like handle it. like like but again But then they put Ted Cruz in charge. They didn't put Katie Britt's everybody's best friend. like why isn't Why aren't like Katie Britt and Amy Klobuchar are doing this?
01:03:29
Speaker
you know Put the people in charge who can do things. um So there's there there are some good questions there. But I think that you know just this is a bad is also just a very bad time for them to need something from Congress.
01:03:41
Speaker
If this was 2009 2004, you could probably get something through. um but but they are also being saved, by the way, by the fact that I don't want to say say because the the university is being – this is part of the thing is some of the stuff that's good for sports is really bad for the school.
01:04:04
Speaker
Like the stuff happening the Department of Education is terrible for the colleges. Now, for sports, it's it it's arguably good because nobody's enforcing Title IX. But that also means that nobody's like enforcing the stuff to prevent sexual assault on campus either.
01:04:18
Speaker
Like there's a lot of good things that are – not going to happen that, you know, the one positive is going to be like, nobody's, nobody's enforcing some of the rules that were bad for sports. Cause the title nine guidance that came down with NIL was like, Hey guys, um, title nine is still a law.
01:04:36
Speaker
So you want you want to figure that out? Like I, and I said this and I, I made a thing about this. And again, people who were in the room told me that like, we're not doing anything with that. Like why, weren't why weren't the department of education people part of this settlement solution?
01:04:50
Speaker
ah ah Kathy Lehanna, this brilliant lawyer who was the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, like she's the one who runs ran Title IX. She should have been with you building this answer.
01:05:01
Speaker
She wasn't. So i don't I don't know why they're ignoring that that stuff because, like again, they did they're not changing the law. And if you're not going to change the law, you're going have trouble if you keep breaking Exactly, exactly.
01:05:13
Speaker
Well, ah you know, ah Tony, it has been like, like Russ said, and we were talking during the break, it's it's been an an eye
Engage with Gateway Sports
01:05:22
Speaker
opener. And, you know, I mean, because, you know, like I said, it's it's gone from, well, it's outside boosters and outside investors that are all these, ah what do they call them? Collectives. Collectives.
01:05:35
Speaker
you know, that are doing all this and the coaches didn't have any knowledge and the school can't be part of it, you know and now we're in the vein of, instead of giving you a scholarship, you're giving, you're signing a financial services agreement.
01:05:48
Speaker
Well, I mean, the thing is, too, you think about it like one of the reasons. i So I said this that the day that the Supreme Court, like the 901 came out, I said rossterers are roster limits are dead or or scholarship limits because, OK, I can't give you a scholarship.
01:06:03
Speaker
Here's $100,000. Pay your bill Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So that that's when you knew a lot of it was going to go away. Yeah. Well, Tony, again, thank you so much for coming on with us tonight.
01:06:15
Speaker
And tell ah tell the folks where you they can find you if they want to look you up.
01:06:21
Speaker
Twitter's probably easiest, TJ Altimore. Altimore's like Baltimore with no B, so just TJ Altimore. And, you know, love to talk to folks, love to engage with folks. And I try to put out some data on Twitter that, like, just tries to help folks, you know, with little things to think about with, you know, sports in the world and everything else. So, always glad to talk to folks.
01:06:41
Speaker
Okay. Well, thank you so much. ah Russ, where can we find you? as well well Well, yeah, on Twitter, I'm... Uncle Frank at Robinson, one nine five seven on blue sky. I'm Russ 57 and I have a sub stack account that's called Russ's Rambling. So look for me.
01:07:02
Speaker
If you want to look me up, I talk about sports to all of those, especially ah what we're talking about. Okay. Well, and you can find me on X, uh, at T S O T B GCS. You can check out the Facebook page, talking sports with uncle Don.
01:07:19
Speaker
And, uh, hopefully soon and I will be, uh, joining the staff of the champagne room, writing about Illinois sports here in the good old CU. So I want to thank everybody, Tony and Russ for coming on tonight. And, uh,
01:07:36
Speaker
We will see you all again down the road. And until then, you'll want to have fun, stay safe, and we'll talk to you again when we are talking the NCAA report with Don and Russ.
01:07:51
Speaker
Good night, everybody. And don't forget to check out Gateway Sports for many other podcasts like this when you get the two for three with Moose Michaels. The team of rivals with Ron Nuttall, Pete Geddes, and Elliot Dewey. Ron also teams up with Chris Hambleton for At The Park, all about city soccer.
01:08:06
Speaker
Ryan and Capel and Tim Van Stratton team up for the stupidest sports show on earth. They still got to look that one up. You can also check out Talking Sports with Uncle Don. And of course, the Derrick King Sports Show with the 101 Derrick King. You can also look out for tons of articles too.
01:08:22
Speaker
So check it out at gatewaycitysports.net.