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  • Dr. Livingstone’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Congressional Testimony

    Dr. Livingstone’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Congressional Testimony
    2026/10/15
    On September 30th, 2021, Baylor University President Linda Livingstone testified in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce. The hearing was titled “A Level Playing Field: College Athletes’ Rights to Their Name, Image, and Likeness.” Dr. Livingstone identified herself to the Subcommittee and the public primarily as a university president and mentioned her role as the Vice-Chair of the Big XII Conference and a member of the NCAA’s Constitutional Committee. But Dr. Livingstone is not a garden variety university president when it comes to college sports. She is also a member of the NCAA Board of Governors and the NCAA Division I Board of Directors. These are the two most powerful and consequential governing boards in the NCAA governance system, making Dr. Livingstone one of the most influential people in college sports. Dr. Livingstone made a case for placing the NCAA on the Iron Throne of college sports regulation, advocating for federal preemption of state NIL laws, anti-trust immunity, and a federal declaration that athletes cannot be employees of their university. In her testimony, Dr. Livingstone did not identify or explain to the Subcommittee the powerful positions she holds in the NCAA governance system. Moreover, Dr. Livingstone’s case for extraordinary federal powers and immunities pitted the interests of revenue-producing athletes against those of nonrevenue-producing athletes. This episode analyzes Dr. Livingstone’s testimony.
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    1 時間 12 分
  • Thoughts on the Big Game, Then Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

    Thoughts on the Big Game, Then Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program
    2026/10/07
    In this episode, I offer some closing thoughts on Coach K’s last game in Cameron Indoor Stadium and then return to the byzantine world of the business of college sports.
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    57 分
  • The NCAA’s War on Revenue-Producing Men’s Basketball Players

    The NCAA’s War on Revenue-Producing Men’s Basketball Players
    2026/10/02
    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.
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    1 時間
  • NCAA v NC State — Respectfully Throwing Down the Gauntlet

    NCAA v NC State — Respectfully Throwing Down the Gauntlet
    2026/09/22
    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.
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    53 分
  • NCAA v NC State — The Cartwright Referral Letter and the NCAA’s Violation of Its Own Public Disclosure Rules (Part II)

    NCAA v NC State — The Cartwright Referral Letter and the NCAA’s Violation of Its Own Public Disclosure Rules (Part II)
    2026/09/20
    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.
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    1 時間 6 分
  • NCAA v NC State — Carol Cartwright's Referral Letter and the NCAA’s “Adversarial Posturing” (Part I)

    NCAA v NC State — Carol Cartwright's Referral Letter and the NCAA’s “Adversarial Posturing” (Part I)
    2026/09/16
    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.”
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    1 時間 4 分
  • NCAA v NC State - The World According to Carol Cartwright (and many university presidents)

    NCAA v NC State - The World According to Carol Cartwright (and many university presidents)
    2026/09/13
    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.
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    1 時間 3 分
  • NCAA v NC State: “Importation Fever” – the NCAA’s Evidentiary House of Cards

    NCAA v NC State: “Importation Fever” – the NCAA’s Evidentiary House of Cards
    2026/09/09
    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.
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    59 分