1. Good People, Bad Ideas

A critique of the college sports regulatory and business model is not a condemnation of the people who work in it.

The current regulatory and business models are the product of flawed ideas, not bad people.

Many working in the broader college sports industry are unaware of the tactics being used in their name to preserve the status quo.

The Power 5’s and NCAA’s campaigns in Congress and federal courts are perfect examples. Those wars are waged out of public view by lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations experts that many institutional stakeholders have never heard of.

Power 5 and NCAA leaders increasingly defer to these experts for direction on the future of college sports.

These powerful “Inside-The-Beltway” influencers have no connection to the daily lives of the committed, talented people working in college athletics departments nationwide.

Much of the “chaos” and “uncertainty” in the college sports landscape right now is the product of the insecurity many stakeholders feel because they have no idea who is really in control.

The fact that the Power 5 and NCAA are asking Congress to federalize the college sports regulatory model is perfect evidence that the Power 5 and NCAA are incapable of self-regulation and meaningful change.

In 1951, Walter Byers became the NCAA’s first CEO. He served in that role until 1987—the longest term in NCAA history. Many view Byers as the architect of the modern NCAA value system and business model.

In 1995, Byers published Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes. He harshly criticized the very amateurism-based values and business model he helped create.

In a chapter on the possibility of meaningful reform from within, Byers said those primarily responsible for the regulation of college sports had the least incentive to change it:

“The ‘reforms’ of the late 1980s and 1990s, I believe, on balance have been minor league changes in the operations of a major league industry so that the entrenched oligopoly with its entrenched beneficiaries can proceed as planned…colleges have neither the inclination nor the will to change. That is why the question of how to bring about change is almost as critical as the proposed transformation itself…the rewards of success have become so huge that the beneficiaries—the colleges and their staffs—simply will not deny themselves even part of current or future spoils.” (emphasis added)

To justify its bad ideas, the NCAA bureaucracy has created and reinforced a value system that suggests that one is either a “good actor” or a “bad actor.” (See below for BigAmateurism Podcast Ep. 37)

NCAA and Power 5 conference leaders are quick to label critics of the business model (or peripheral market participants over whom the NCAA has no direct regulatory jurisdiction) as threats to the “integrity” of college sports.

Using powerful media megaphones, lobbyists, and public relations experts, the NCAA and Power 5 marginalize and often silence critics with attacks on their character and motives.

Agents, boosters, and NIL collectives, in particular, are often singled out as unscrupulous market participants who threaten the values of college sports.

These narratives obscure a rulebook and infractions and enforcement system dedicated exclusively to only one issue: controlling the labor force in Power 5 football and men’s basketball through amateurism-based compensation limits and eligibility rules.

If an athlete violates any of these rules, they are treated as criminals by the NCAA and the media.

In the NCAA belief system, there is no room for reasonable disagreement or discussion. “Amateurism,” the “collegiate model,” and the “student-athlete” are the sacraments of college sports.

In a recent congressional hearing, a congressman characterized athletes as employees and perhaps unionizing as a “radical” idea. During discussions about the new NCAA Constitution in the fall of 2021, an NCAA podcast host viewed critics of the business model as “on the fringe.”

Some of the most influential decision-makers in big-time college sports fear for their careers and reputations if they speak to obvious truths about the business model. They know that breaking the code of silence and conformity could be a career-defining moment.

How often have you seen a quote from a “high-level Power 5 administrator” who offers an honest opinion only on the condition of anonymity?

The status quo mindset is ironic in the context of higher education.

Critical thinking, elevating fact over mythology, and open-minded inquiry are foundational values in higher education. Yet they are in short supply when in-system leaders respond to critiques of the status quo college sports business model.

Which brings us to…

2. Human Nature, Identity Protective Cognition, and Learned Helplessness

What Walter Byers described in 1995 is the product of human nature and the power of rationalization. In-system beneficiaries of the existing regulatory and business model have been conditioned to rationalize the model itself and their participation in it.

Many of these rationalizations are rooted in fear of change and our natural tendency to default to parameters that offer familiarity and the appearance of safety and security. The Power 5’s and NCAA’s lawyers, lobbyists, and public relations experts have brilliantly fomented such irrational fears.

History is replete with scare tactics to preserve or promote indefensible power structures, social norms, and government policies. Civil Rights legislation of the 1860s and 1960s faced powerful, organized resistance that tapped into irrational fears of change.

Fear-mongering has also been used to slow the acceptance of new technologies. The automobile, air travel, assembly line production, radio, television, the internet, and robotics all encountered fear-based resistance, nearly all of it unfounded or exaggerated.

The Power 5 and NCAA have elevated fear of change in college sports reform efforts to an art form.

The hearings detailed in the Timeline are littered with scare tactics. An unregulated NIL market will be “the end of college sports as we know them.” The new NIL market is the “Wild West,” “chaotic,” and “out of control.” Revenue sharing or employee status will rain down a blizzard of “unintended consequences,” including the death of Title IX and “Olympic” sports across the college sports landscape. Our Olympic development pipeline will collapse. Consumers—who are supposedly in love with “amateurism”—will flee. And on and on and on.

These decades-long fear campaigns have been quite effective.

Indeed, the milestone events in the athletes’ rights movement through external regulatory pathways have produced only modest changes to the business model.

The White suit in 2006 (cost of attendance) ended in a whimper.

The O’Bannon suit in 2009 (name, image, and likeness) offered only a modest, permissive, practical benefit and its legal principles created a firewall to a free market for the value of athletes’ services.

The Northwestern football case in 2014 through the National Labor Relations Act (establishing employee status for the players) was neutered by the top NLRA board.

In 2021, Alston was whittled down to a minimal set of permissive education-related benefits because of the O’Bannon ruling.

A common thread in these external regulatory efforts is extraordinary deference by governmental decision-makers to the NCAA’s conceptualization and use of amateurism and a deeply embedded fear of unintended consequences.

a. The NCAA Office of Government Relations “ALERT MEMO”

Fear-based tactics are even more effective when narratives become group values.

There could not be a better example of large-scale, fear-based groupthink in big-time college sports than the NCAA Office of Government Relations’ “ALERT MEMO” provided to institutional stakeholders on March 28th, 2023.

The NCAA Office of Government Relations is a registered lobbying entity. Its purpose is to persuade Congress to enact federal legislation protecting the Power 5’s and NCAA’s business interests.

The Memo was sent to NCAA member institutions the day before a March 29th, 2023, hearing in the House of Representatives (see Timeline entry for March 29th, 2023).

The Memo is a masterpiece in the elevation of fear tactics over critical thinking.

The Memo directed stakeholders at nearly 1,100 higher education institutions in America to accept as accurate a litany of questionable talking points devised by Power 5/NCAA lawyers and lobbyists.

The memo further instructed stakeholders to engage members of Congress to show blind support for those principles.

To some readers, the talking points in the Memo may seem reasonable.

However, if you understand Power 5 and NCAA scare and deflection tactics, these statements are standard fare manipulation techniques.

For example, in the very first heading and bullet point, the NCAA’s lobbyists say, “College sports provide hundreds of thousands of student-athletes with a pathway to education while also allowing them to pursue lifelong athletic dreams. Today, over 500,000 student-athletes from more than 1,200 schools experience the lifelong benefits of participating in college athletics across all divisions.”

On its face, this may seem like an innocuous, partially fact-based statement. However, it is drenched in false narratives that lead stakeholders to believe that without protective federal legislation, educational and athletic opportunities for all NCAA athletes across all three Divisions are at risk.

This conflation of interest tactic is a “go-to” move for the NCAA and Power 5. Its central purpose is to disguise that only two college sports products are relevant to the NCAA’s and Power 5’s quest for federal protections and immunities: Power 5 football and men’s basketball.

The Power 5 and NCAA want stakeholders to buy into the false narrative that Albertus Magnus  College (Division III) field hockey players are on equal footing in the business model with Ohio State football players.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If Ohio State football players were paid a fair share of the revenue they generate, it would have zero impact on Albertus Magnus College athletics.

Similarly, the NCAA says that athletes graduate at “record rates.” This talking point aims to highlight the NCAA’s ostensibly education-based mission and to suggest they are succeeding in that mission.

The claim is misleading. The NCAA’s graduation and academic success metrics are controversial. They have been the subject of substantial debate for the last twenty years.

Critics argue that NCAA academic measurements (the “Graduation Success Rate” and “Academic Progress Rate”) disguise the inconvenient reality that many athletes—particularly athletes of color in Power 5 football and men’s basketball—graduate at levels far below other athletes and “regular students.”

The conflation tactic operates here as well. By making the graduation rate claim in the context of all 500,000 NCAA athletes in all three Divisions, the NCAA masks obvious differences in graduation rates among different athlete cohorts.

The “ALERT MEMO” implored stakeholders to act and contact their Congress representatives. To that end, the Memo included a document that cross-references the names and contact information for every Representative on the Subcommittee with the schools in that Representative’s district.

The NCAA Office of Government Relations presumes to tell stakeholders at 1,100 higher education institutions in America what to think and do.

There can only be one legitimate way to view these issues—and that viewpoint is aligned perfectly with the NCAA and Power 5’s economic interests.

This peculiar dynamic between big-time college sports and institutional stakeholders hinders athletes’ rights. Many institutional stakeholders operate in a breezy, effortless denial of the truth of the business model.

They ritualistically reinforce the party line and fall prey to identity-protective cognition and confirmation bias, which subconsciously leads them to reject information that conflicts with the group’s predetermined and deeply ingrained beliefs.

These biases invisibly and efficiently filter out inconvenient truths.

This frequently occurs in discussions about the racial implications of the college sports business model inherent in Myles Brand’s “collegiate model” as a financial framework.

Institutional stakeholders—notably the university presidents—recognize intellectually that the business model is racialized.

However, they don’t want to look too closely. It is much easier to focus on and celebrate the wonderful things that college sports bring to campus life.

When the going gets tough, the tough yell: “Go Cougs!” “Go Gators!” “Go Dawgs!” “Go Buckeyes!” “Roll Tide!”

All is forgotten. All is forgiven.

b. University Presidents’ Deference to Outside Experts

Under the NCAA’s principle of institutional control and responsibility for intercollegiate athletics, university presidents and chancellors bear the ultimate authority for all college sports issues at their institution. In theory, the “buck stops'' with presidents and chancellors.

However, presidents/chancellors and governing boards increasingly defer to the “expertise” of conference commissioners, athletics directors, and imperial coaches on core issues in college sports. Such deference has the effect of relieving presidents and chancellors from looking honestly at dysfunctions in the values, regulation, and business of college sports.

The work of the Division I Board of Directors Transformation Committee is a prime example of this dynamic.

The D-I Board created the Transformation Committee in October 2021 to align D-I rules and policies with the new Division-based authorities of the new NCAA Consitution that was under consideration at the time.

The Transformation Committee had twenty-one members, including Power 5 university presidents, conference commissioners, and athletics administrators.

At its very first substantive meeting on February 1st, 2022—after the ratification of the new NCAA Constitution in January 2022—the Transformation Committee employed the NCAA’s public relations firm (Bully Pulpit Interactive) to provide a “comprehensive communications plan” to spin the committee’s work.

Similarly, before its very first discussion of “athlete benefits,” the Committee went into executive session to receive a privileged and confidential briefing from the NCAA’s outside lawyers (see image below, item 4). That briefing served as the “foundation” for all future discussions on athlete benefits.

One has to wonder how dysfunctional the regulation of college sports has become that the first items of business for the Transformation Committee were to hire spin doctors and lawyers to dictate the Committee’s work (the Transformation Committee and its work are discussed in more detail in the “NCAA/P5 Governance” Tab in the Explore menu).

The work of the Transformation Committee exposes one of the biggest myths about the current voluntary regulation of college sports: that institutional stakeholders—presidents/chancellors, governing boards, faculty, commissioners, athletic directors, and coaches—are sitting around conference tables having intelligent, thoughtful conversations on the state and future of college sports.

Having conceded decision-making authority to lawyers, lobbyists, and professional spin doctors, institutional stakeholders have become spectators in a process over which they believe they have no real control.

c. Congress Members Abandon Core Values

Congressmembers have likewise indulged rationalization and confirmation bias to support and propose athlete legislation fundamentally inconsistent with their stated value systems.

For example, Senators such as Marco Rubio (R-FL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) built their political careers on states’ rights, free markets, and economic self-determination.

These Senators tie their belief systems to American freedoms. They believe the federal government should stay out of the way and let individual liberties guide the way.

Yet the federal legislation they have proposed (discussed in the Timeline) makes a mockery of those values.

Bills introduced by Rubio, Wicker, Cruz, and Moran, for example, would eliminate states from the regulatory field, place the NCAA and Power 5 beyond the reach of federal free competition laws and athlete lawsuits, and make it impossible for athletes to be employees of their university.

So much for states’ rights, free markets, and economic self-determination.

How can these (and other) Senators engage in such obvious values-based inconsistencies?

With the aid of NCAA/Power 5 lobbyists and public relations experts, they have rationalized to themselves that they are preserving the “integrity” of college sports.

d. Learned Helplessness

Each of the examples above illustrates a form of learned helplessness among institutional stakeholders and decision-makers.

A seventy-year-long process of deference to NCAA values and bureaucratic authority has reinforced institutional stakeholders' reliance on “someone else” to solve college sports’ problems.

Since the 1950s, the NCAA (and later the Power 5) has arrogated to itself the sole authority to regulate and govern college athletics. The NCAA falsely portrays its regulatory systems as democratic and membership-driven.

NCAA leaders routinely suggest they operate in a governance model similar to our system of representative democracy and are doing no more than serving the “will of the membership.”

In reality, a very small number of NCAA insiders dictate policy and legislation. They operate in a star chamber-like environment buried deep in the byzantine NCAA bureaucracy.

These bureaucrats are not elected. The NCAA President, for example, is hired by the NCAA Board of Governors and reports only to the Board of Governors. He has no direct relationship to the membership and no meaningful accountability to the membership. Similarly, the Board of Governors members are not elected by the membership.

These decision-makers are increasingly focused on making money and enhancing their institutional brands rather than promoting and protecting athlete well-being.

Yet, stakeholders blindly acquiesce to NCAA (and conference) directives.

This dysfunctional governance model leads university presidents and athletes alike to believe they have no real power.

In 2018, the NCAA’s Commission on College Basketball released its report in response to the college basketball “scandal” that resulted in criminal prosecutions in federal court.

The Commission addressed, in part, some chronic college sports regulatory and governance dysfunctions that impede intelligent, forward-thinking policy and decision-making.

At a press conference announcing the release of the report, Chairwoman Condoleezza Rice described institutional stakeholders as a “circular firing squad.” The recurring problems in college sports were always the fault of someone else.

The circular firing squad dynamic is a product of decades of reliance on the NCAA bureaucracy—and now outside experts—as primary authorities on the state and future of college sports. That reliance has fueled learned helplessness and rationalizations of the status quo among key institutional decision-makers.

The participants in the circular firing squad are good people who have found themselves in a position where they feel powerless to influence intelligent reform.

Good people, bad beliefs and ideas.