Speaker 1: Ah, you're doing fine. Just just tell your story, just
Speaker 1: how it came about. Don't worry about that prepared statement there.
Speaker 1: It's kind of difficult, but anyway, that's NFL star Dexter
Speaker 1: manly testifying before Congress in three years ago. Uh that
Speaker 1: I just begin learning to learn how to read and write.
Speaker 1: At the time, Dexter was thirty years old before going pro.
Speaker 1: He'd played for Oklahoma State University, somehow majoring in marketing
Speaker 1: while remaining functionally illiterate. I took an a CT test
Speaker 1: and on school to six. He'd never received the right
Speaker 1: help for an undiagnosed learning disability, but he'd managed to
Speaker 1: mask the problem. He may morized how certain words looked,
Speaker 1: cheated on tests, duck girls to do his homework, and
Speaker 1: he passed his college classes even though he couldn't read
Speaker 1: the team playbook. And that that really hurt me because
Speaker 1: then I remember back when I was in grammar school,
Speaker 1: you know what I was told, And I just felt
Speaker 1: like that I am done when I was stupid, and
Speaker 1: that I would have the ability to learn or learn
Speaker 1: how to read or write. The governing body of college sports,
Speaker 1: the National Collegiate Athletic Association, claims that education comes first,
Speaker 1: But how can that be true for players like Dexter
Speaker 1: Manly who go to college because they excel on the
Speaker 1: field and then leave utterly unprepared to do anything else.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the
Speaker 1: gap between what companies say they stand for and what
Speaker 1: they actually do, and what they would need to change
Speaker 1: to practice what they preach. I'm your host, time onto you,
Speaker 1: and I've spent over a decade helping companies define what
Speaker 1: they stand for, their purpose and then help them to
Speaker 1: use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at a lot of companies and organizations today, there's still
Speaker 1: a pretty wide gap between word and deed. That gap
Speaker 1: has a name. We call it bullshit. But, and this
Speaker 1: is important, we believe that bullshit is a treatable disease.
Speaker 1: So when the bullshit detector lights up, we're going to
Speaker 1: explore things that a company should do to fix it.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to look at the n
Speaker 1: C Double A, the institution that shaped college sports into
Speaker 1: what they are today. The n C Double A says
Speaker 1: its purpose is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable,
Speaker 1: and sportsmanlike manner and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher
Speaker 1: education so that the educational experience of the student athlete
Speaker 1: is paramount. Man, what a mouthful. But lately there's been
Speaker 1: quite a bit in the news about a darker side
Speaker 1: of the n C Double A. We will hear argument
Speaker 1: this morning in case twelve National Collegiate Athletic Association versus Austin.
Speaker 1: Then double A has produced iconic matchups, launched professional sports careers,
Speaker 1: and made billions of dollars, but not for the students
Speaker 1: playing in these big games. Here is late with the sad.
Speaker 1: The n c a A didn't even allow schools to
Speaker 1: offer athletes scholarships until nineteen fifty six. Before that, the
Speaker 1: only compensation for playing pride, and for decades, the n
Speaker 1: C Double A has had a long list of rules
Speaker 1: restricting payments to athletes that is finally starting to change.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has handed a massive victory to college
Speaker 1: athletes in their efforts to receive fair compensation. The justices
Speaker 1: unanimously rejected the n double AS rules limiting benefits colleges
Speaker 1: can provide athletes things like laptops and science equipments or
Speaker 1: postgraduate paid internships. Interestingly, the Court ruled that by limiting
Speaker 1: these educational benefits that the n c A would actually
Speaker 1: be violating antitrust laws because it would make it harder
Speaker 1: for schools to compete for athletes not about direct and
Speaker 1: thanks to a separate decision earlier this year, athletes can
Speaker 1: now earn money by endorsing products and businesses like the
Speaker 1: local car dealership or pizza parlor. But while these changes
Speaker 1: are a big deal for players who have in many
Speaker 1: cases been forced to live in poverty, many people don't
Speaker 1: think they go far enough. A growing number of athletes
Speaker 1: and activists claimed the n C Double A is basically
Speaker 1: a cartel, fixing prices and using the unpaid labor of poor,
Speaker 1: mostly black and brown athletes to rake in billions. The
Speaker 1: n C Double A, on the other hand, says they're
Speaker 1: just trying to preserve the idea of amateur status while
Speaker 1: helping student athletes get a college education. This is a
Speaker 1: complicated story, so let's start with a quick history of
Speaker 1: the debate. It all begins in back then, college football
Speaker 1: looked a lot different than it does today. Teams used
Speaker 1: a formation called the flying wedge, where the players linked
Speaker 1: arms in a V shape and sprinted down the field
Speaker 1: in one big mass, and many of them didn't even
Speaker 1: wear helmets. As you can imagine, a lot of people
Speaker 1: got hurt. Eighteen players die in the nineteen o four
Speaker 1: season alone, and basically Teddy Roosevelt called in the presidents
Speaker 1: of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which of course we're major
Speaker 1: football powers back then, and said, you figure out a
Speaker 1: way to clean this up, or I will shut down football.
Speaker 1: That's Joe No Sarah, co author of indentured the battle
Speaker 1: to end the exploitation of college athletes. You got rid
Speaker 1: of the flying wedge, and they started to allow the
Speaker 1: forward pass. The next big turning point in n C
Speaker 1: Double A history came in ninety eight, after a series
Speaker 1: of sports scandals that involved bribes, gambling, and point shaving.
Speaker 1: Enter the Sanity Code. It forbade any form of merit
Speaker 1: pay to students in exchange for their services as athletes.
Speaker 1: In other words, they should not profit in any way.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty one, the n C Double A got
Speaker 1: its first full time leader. And this is where the
Speaker 1: story gets really interesting. They think you have to understand
Speaker 1: about the n C A is it was almost toothless
Speaker 1: for fifty years, and it wasn't until the mid fifties
Speaker 1: that a guy named Walter Buyers took it over and
Speaker 1: turned it into a powerful, and bureaucratic and ruthless and
Speaker 1: you know, one step removed from the National Rifle Association.
Speaker 1: Buyers has been described as a force of nature, secretive, despotic,
Speaker 1: and stubborn. And he got right to work doing two things,
Speaker 1: finding creative ways to monetize America's growing love affair with
Speaker 1: college sports and ruthlessly enforcing the Sanity Code, which meant
Speaker 1: that athletes got none of that money. Today, the n
Speaker 1: C Double A is a money machine, generating and estimated
Speaker 1: nineteen billion dollars a year, and despite years of litigation
Speaker 1: until just this year, the players themselves, current and former,
Speaker 1: were barred from profiting from their name, image, and likeness
Speaker 1: for life, and they still aren't paid for the very
Speaker 1: labor that makes that nineteen billion dollars possible. After three
Speaker 1: trips to the Supreme Court, after multiple athlete protests and lawsuits,
Speaker 1: after several attempts to organize the players and even unionize
Speaker 1: them to get a fair shake, the n C Double
Speaker 1: A maintains that the educational experience of the student athlete
Speaker 1: is paramount. So is that actually true or is that
Speaker 1: just a bunch of bullshit? To get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of this, I called up Joe No Sarah, who, as
Speaker 1: you heard earlier, is the co author of Indentured, The
Speaker 1: Battle to End the Exploitation of College Athletes. Joe, welcome
Speaker 1: to calling bullshit. Thank you very much for being here today.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me so. I loved your book. It
Speaker 1: was a real eye opener starting out. I think, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people, I had this image of the
Speaker 1: n c a. A is this hallowed organization that brings
Speaker 1: joy to millions of people. There's this kind of mythic
Speaker 1: image of these student athlete warriors, both men and women,
Speaker 1: who get to go to college on a full ride
Speaker 1: and play their sport on the national stage while getting
Speaker 1: an amazing free education, and then graduate and go on
Speaker 1: to either a lucrative professional sports career or a career
Speaker 1: in their chosen field of study. How accurate would you
Speaker 1: say that picture is? Let me stop laughing. I think
Speaker 1: if we went and passed that description, every single piece
Speaker 1: of it is wrong. Okay, so let's just say not
Speaker 1: very accurate. Yeah, it's an eye poppingly big business college sports.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about where that money
Speaker 1: comes from. Sure, the majority of it comes from TV contracts.
Speaker 1: That's where the real big money is. Just the college
Speaker 1: football playoffs alone. ESPN has a multibillion dollar contract to
Speaker 1: air what amounts to three games a season at the
Speaker 1: end of the season. The Big Ten not only has
Speaker 1: deals with you know, ESPN, they also have their own network,
Speaker 1: so they generate money from advertising and from subscribers. But
Speaker 1: there's also sponsorships, selling the jerseys in the student union,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of naming rights of the stadiums. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So who gets that money when it flows in? Mostly
Speaker 1: the schools do I mean, if you're the SEC, if
Speaker 1: you're the Southeastern Conference and you generate forty to fifty
Speaker 1: million per school through your TV contracts and other means,
Speaker 1: you um parcel that out to the schools. Now, what
Speaker 1: the schools will say is that the money that is
Speaker 1: made from basketball and football is used to subsidize all
Speaker 1: the non revenue sports like softball and field hockey. It
Speaker 1: basically means two sports that are fundamentally played by African
Speaker 1: Americans are subsidizing lots of sports that are played by
Speaker 1: upper middle class white students. Absolutely. Some would say that's
Speaker 1: not equitable. Yes, some would say some have said, okay,
Speaker 1: So the universities get the lion's share of this nineteen
Speaker 1: billion and they use it to build these massive, cathedral
Speaker 1: like facilities. A lot of it goes to the coaches.
Speaker 1: Some of the coaches salaries that are in your book,
Speaker 1: We're Crazy, Nick Saban seven million, Coach Achevski at Duke
Speaker 1: ten million. There's people on the staff of some of
Speaker 1: the universities, like the strength coaches are making three quarters
Speaker 1: of a million dollars a year. And then there's the
Speaker 1: leadership of the n c A Mark Emmett. He makes
Speaker 1: two point seven million a year, and they're eight executives.
Speaker 1: They're making north of half a million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people doing really well off of
Speaker 1: this nineteen billion. What did the students get, the people
Speaker 1: actually responsible for generating all of this revenue. They get
Speaker 1: uniform that's something. They get training, they do get training,
Speaker 1: that's real. They sort of kind of get an education.
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is that for many, many,
Speaker 1: many football and basketball players, that education is extremely substandard
Speaker 1: because the goal of the coach is to keep the
Speaker 1: player on the field, not to make sure he majors
Speaker 1: in something that's usable after college. To put it bluntly,
Speaker 1: the players get screwed. Yeah, it feels like that. One
Speaker 1: of the statistics that jumped out at me was that
Speaker 1: of top level college athletes live below the poverty level,
Speaker 1: and as you've already pointed out, many of them come
Speaker 1: from poor families, many of them are people of color,
Speaker 1: and the highly paid coaches and n c A executives
Speaker 1: are mostly white. So this feels like essentially reverse affirmative action,
Speaker 1: is the way I think about it. The players are
Speaker 1: often the poorest students on campus, and yet the ns
Speaker 1: amateurism rules have long been aimed at preventing college athletes
Speaker 1: from accepting money. That's what the whole goal was. So
Speaker 1: for instance, if a upper middle class white kid wants
Speaker 1: to go home for Thanksgiving, right, his parents just pay
Speaker 1: war and there's no violation because parents can do whatever
Speaker 1: they want. Right. If a disadvantaged black kid wants to
Speaker 1: go cross country for Thanksgiving and his parents don't have
Speaker 1: the money, he can't go because anybody who would give
Speaker 1: him the money to make that trip would be putting
Speaker 1: him in violation of n c A rules and he
Speaker 1: would be suspended. So the n A basically says, we
Speaker 1: treat everybody the same. We don't want anybody to have money.
Speaker 1: That violates the principles of amateurism. But in effect, it
Speaker 1: affects the black kids a whole lot more than it
Speaker 1: affects the white kids. In your book, you quote historian
Speaker 1: Taylor branch As comparing the n c A system too
Speaker 1: in quotes the plantation. What did he mean by that, Well,
Speaker 1: he means sort of the same thing that I mean
Speaker 1: by the title of my book, which is indentured, which
Speaker 1: is that they're under the thumb of the athletic department
Speaker 1: a coach. You know, if they don't play well, they
Speaker 1: can lose their scholarship and be sent back. They often
Speaker 1: wind up back on the street after their four years
Speaker 1: are up. It's a system in which they have no power,
Speaker 1: or at least had no power until fairly recently. And
Speaker 1: so these players who are making no money are making
Speaker 1: all these white people, not all white people, if they're
Speaker 1: always administrators, these adults rich, which is definitely the whiff
Speaker 1: of the plantation. Absolutely, Joe, What is then, as rationale
Speaker 1: for treating students this way? Let me back up one second,
Speaker 1: and just say this, The combination of the recent Supreme
Speaker 1: Court decision and the legislation in many states to allow
Speaker 1: players to make money on their name, image and likeness
Speaker 1: i e. Endorsements and signing autographs and that sort of
Speaker 1: thing is changing things radically and quickly, and the n
Speaker 1: c a A is trying to catch up. But let's
Speaker 1: make believe we're still back in the era when the
Speaker 1: n c a A. When it was their way or
Speaker 1: the highway. Their rationale was that amateurism, that not paying
Speaker 1: players is what separated college sports from professional sports. It
Speaker 1: was kind of the secret sauce. And they would long
Speaker 1: argue that if players were ever paid, it would turn
Speaker 1: off the fans and people would stop going to the games,
Speaker 1: and it would destroy college sports. It seems to me
Speaker 1: that that is a testable proposition. Why hasn't anyone asked
Speaker 1: them to prove this? Well, that's what these court fights
Speaker 1: have been about. Amateurism, they would say, is not the
Speaker 1: secret sauce. In fact, it's cartel like behavior that violates
Speaker 1: the antitrust laws, and its purpose is to deprive the
Speaker 1: labor force of wages. So each side has their economists
Speaker 1: and in court over the last fifteen years, judges at
Speaker 1: every level, from the district court to the appeals court
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court have all said that the arguments
Speaker 1: in favor of amateurism being something that is required to
Speaker 1: have college sports, they have all ruled at that as
Speaker 1: bogus and that in fact, what amateurism really is is
Speaker 1: a violation of the United States antitrust laws. In June
Speaker 1: of one, the n C Double A dropped its rule
Speaker 1: prohibiting students from making money off their name, image, and likeness.
Speaker 1: That was a big win, but it wasn't the first.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, there was another significant score
Speaker 1: for student athletes in the Supreme Court. O'Bannon versus the
Speaker 1: n C Double A. That's quite the story. Ed O'Bannon,
Speaker 1: former n c A champion basketball player at u C
Speaker 1: l A. He's working at a Las Vegas card dealership,
Speaker 1: goes to a party and somebody says, my kid saw
Speaker 1: your image on a video game. So he goes and
Speaker 1: looks at the video game and sure enough, there's an
Speaker 1: avatar that looks exactly like him that has his number
Speaker 1: on the back. So of course his first instinct is,
Speaker 1: oh boy, this is kind of cool. But his second
Speaker 1: instinct is, why aren't I getting paid for this? How
Speaker 1: can they use my name my image without paying me exactly,
Speaker 1: And that's what led to the verse truly important lawsuit
Speaker 1: O'Bannon versus n c a A that was back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, and since then there's been a
Speaker 1: real shift in how the public thinks about the rights
Speaker 1: of college athletes. Now jump ahead to twenty nine. California
Speaker 1: legislator named Nancy Skinners is at a Rotary Club luncheon
Speaker 1: and she's listening to an economist named Andy Schwartz who
Speaker 1: is giving a talk about the n c a A.
Speaker 1: And she thinks to herself, boy, this is awful. Somebody
Speaker 1: should do something about this. And then she thinks, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm about to join the legislature. I could do something
Speaker 1: about this, right, So she files the bill that says
Speaker 1: universities in California cannot prevent or punish athletes for making
Speaker 1: money on their name, image, and likeness. And here's the
Speaker 1: amazing thing. In this polarized era that we live in,
Speaker 1: it passed unanimously. That's incredible, in the House and the Senate.
Speaker 1: And that really told you that things have changed. So
Speaker 1: then what happens, a bunch of other states say well, hell,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give California the advantage. We gotta
Speaker 1: have one too, or we're gonna lose recruits. And then
Speaker 1: the n c A says, hold on, everybody, let us
Speaker 1: figure this out, you know, just stop, and by then
Speaker 1: then has lost so much credibility that nobody is willing
Speaker 1: to do that. Understanding that this was a losing battle,
Speaker 1: the double A finally decided that they would simply allow
Speaker 1: all athletes to make money from their name, image, and likeness. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the great fears about this was that only
Speaker 1: the quarterback would get a big endorsement deal, and that
Speaker 1: the rest of the you know, the linemen, would get nothing,
Speaker 1: and that it would be dominated by football and basketball.
Speaker 1: That is not what has happened. It's amazing that so
Speaker 1: many of these deals have revolved around women athletes in
Speaker 1: sports that are not Olympic sports or across or just
Speaker 1: it's really been Even Mark Emmert, the president of the
Speaker 1: n c a A, said watching this evolve has been
Speaker 1: quote unquote really neat. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: supposed to have an opinion. I'm interviewing you, but that
Speaker 1: seems nefarious to me because, uh, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: understand how he suddenly got woke. Well, they're not that woke.
Speaker 1: But I do think that acts really paying the players
Speaker 1: is not far behind shifting gears for just a second.
Speaker 1: Another thing that the n c A has said in
Speaker 1: one of its by laws is that student participation in
Speaker 1: intercollegiate athletics is an advocation, meaning a hobby, and student
Speaker 1: athletes should be protected from exploitation by commercial enterprises. How's
Speaker 1: that going? That has been the rationale, And it's so
Speaker 1: ludicrous when they say it out loud in court that
Speaker 1: even that even the judge has a hard time stifling
Speaker 1: a laugh when they say that. It's has become so ridiculous.
Speaker 1: A collegiate model basically says that it's perfectly appropriate to
Speaker 1: maximize revenue for the schools and the athletic departments, but
Speaker 1: that the athletes remain students rather than employees. And they
Speaker 1: always make this absurd distinction between students and employees. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was in college, I worked in the photo lab,
Speaker 1: so I was employee of the journalism school, but I
Speaker 1: was still a student. But the n c A basically says,
Speaker 1: you've got to either be a student or an employee.
Speaker 1: You can't have both, can't be both. So the collegiate
Speaker 1: model is the athletes are students, so they can't be paid,
Speaker 1: but every other aspect college sports is a revenue maximizing enterprise.
Speaker 1: So far, the whiff of n c double A bullshit
Speaker 1: is pretty strong. It's clear that a lot of student
Speaker 1: athletes have been financially exploited, but what about their education?
Speaker 1: The n c double A mission states that education is paramount.
Speaker 1: Since the students aren't getting any of that money, are
Speaker 1: they at least getting a good education. So one example
Speaker 1: of the n c A wanting to put education first
Speaker 1: is their rules about how many hours per week the
Speaker 1: athletes can practice. So let's say it's twenty hours a week. Well,
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty reasonable, but then it turns out that
Speaker 1: let's say they have a game on Friday night in
Speaker 1: Texas and they're in West Virginia, but the only hours
Speaker 1: that count towards the twenty hours are the two hours
Speaker 1: that they're on the field, and the rest of the
Speaker 1: thirty six hours or forty hours don't count. So there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of loopholes like that. But more importantly, when
Speaker 1: an athlete is recruited, it is made abundantly clear that
Speaker 1: their sport comes first, so that means they can't take
Speaker 1: any classes that conflict with practice or games, which means
Speaker 1: that even those who are really quite studious have a
Speaker 1: very hard time finding a major that's legitimate. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the players, you know, they're major is communications
Speaker 1: or physic but really they're what I like to say
Speaker 1: is they're majoring in eligibility. What's happening is that their
Speaker 1: academic advisors are directing them to classes that they know
Speaker 1: they'll be able to pass or they you know, have
Speaker 1: a good likelihood of passing that will allow them to
Speaker 1: remain eligible. Right and how many actually graduate? Do you know?
Speaker 1: There is some controversy over that. The n c A
Speaker 1: would say it's over. I would say for football and basketball.
Speaker 1: A guy named Richard Southall at the University of South
Speaker 1: Carolina has done a lot of work dissecting that and
Speaker 1: using the federal government's graduation numbers and has concluded that
Speaker 1: it's much much lower than that, and for black players especially,
Speaker 1: it can be in the range depending on the school.
Speaker 1: It's crazy that these kids come into the school, they
Speaker 1: work on average fifty hours a week on their sport
Speaker 1: and then have school work on top of it, and
Speaker 1: many of them don't graduate. It's a terrible grind. You know,
Speaker 1: you get up at six o'clock in the morning, you
Speaker 1: go to the weight room. Uh, then you know, you've
Speaker 1: got classes from maybe nine to three. Then you have practice,
Speaker 1: then you have mandatory study hall, and you know, go
Speaker 1: to bed till eleven or midnight. It's really hard. And
Speaker 1: then you know, a lot of the players are not
Speaker 1: ready for college work because they've been pampered in high
Speaker 1: school and a lot of them think they're gonna be pros,
Speaker 1: so they don't spend enough time thinking about scholastics, right,
Speaker 1: and how many of them actually go on to professional
Speaker 1: sports career something like between one and two m Joe,
Speaker 1: just another question for you about this, essentially the injustice
Speaker 1: of this system. Why don't some of the sponsors use
Speaker 1: their cloud to force the n c A or the
Speaker 1: college is directly to solve this problem. Um, because they
Speaker 1: make too much money. There's too much money at stake. So, Joe,
Speaker 1: is the n c a A a bullshitter? Well, of
Speaker 1: course it is. I don't even. I don't even. There's
Speaker 1: nothing else to say. Of course it is seems like
Speaker 1: that is the only thing to say. So on a
Speaker 1: scale of zero to a hundred being the worst, what
Speaker 1: would you rate the level of bullshit at the c A.
Speaker 1: The real bullshit factor to me about the n c
Speaker 1: A is how orwellian the language is. Say more about
Speaker 1: that that they screw player in a dozen different ways,
Speaker 1: and yet they always characterize what they're doing as being
Speaker 1: the force for good, as being the people who are
Speaker 1: trying to to save the college athlete. Last question, what
Speaker 1: is the one thing you would do to change this problem?
Speaker 1: Pay the players? Okay, folks, it's time to make the call.
Speaker 1: Is the n c double A really governing competition in
Speaker 1: a fair, safe, equitable, and sportsmanlike manner and integrating intercollegiate
Speaker 1: athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of
Speaker 1: the student athlete is paramount Based on what I've heard
Speaker 1: so far, I gotta call bullshit. But remember, bullshit is
Speaker 1: a treatable disease, So after the diagnosis, we always prescribe
Speaker 1: a cure. After the break, we'll hear solutions from some
Speaker 1: great minds and activism on behalf of athletes everywhere. Stick
Speaker 1: with us before you head to the break. We'd love
Speaker 1: to hear what you think about the show. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were inspired to take action, maybe you disagree with today's
Speaker 1: bullshit rating. Either way, we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Leave us a message at two one two five oh
Speaker 1: five five, or send a voice memo to CBS podcast
Speaker 1: at co collective dot com. You might even be featured
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode Welcome back. All right, So, there's
Speaker 1: a pretty big gap between what the n C double
Speaker 1: A says it stands for and the actions that it takes.
Speaker 1: So the next question is what could the n C
Speaker 1: double A do to actually solve this. We've assembled a small,
Speaker 1: yet mighty panel of experts and asked them to propose
Speaker 1: some concrete things the n C A A could do differently.
Speaker 1: So our first expert is Dr Ellen Starowski. Ellen, can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about your background? Sure.
Speaker 1: I am a proud member of the faculty and the
Speaker 1: Roy H part School of Communications at Ataca College, and
Speaker 1: in a previous lifetime, I started out my career as
Speaker 1: a college coach, moved on to become a director of athletics,
Speaker 1: and I've researched, written, and taught courses about a college
Speaker 1: sport now for we're now moving into four decades, so
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to be talking about this particular topic today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. And our second
Speaker 1: expert is Dallas Hobbes. Dallas, can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I'm Washington State University
Speaker 1: defensive linemen on the football team here, originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
Speaker 1: and found my way over to Pullman, Washington because of sports,
Speaker 1: because of football, and really got heavily involved in some
Speaker 1: athletes activism. It's about a year now. It was one
Speaker 1: of the main leaders of the Reunited Movement group that
Speaker 1: was really pushing a lot of athlete activism and stuff
Speaker 1: on the table. So really happy to be here. Fantastic,
Speaker 1: So let's get right into this. The way this works
Speaker 1: is I want all three of us to take no
Speaker 1: more than two minutes to present one idea, the single
Speaker 1: most important action that you think the n c A
Speaker 1: could take to better live their purpose. Alright, Ellen, am
Speaker 1: I going to ask you to kick us off. You're
Speaker 1: on the clock. I think that what's ailing the college
Speaker 1: sports system in Dallas. You're on the ground work with
Speaker 1: the movement last summer is exhibit A. In terms of
Speaker 1: what needs to happen, there needs to be the creation
Speaker 1: of an independent players association that represents the interests of
Speaker 1: the players, because from the early nine hundreds to the present,
Speaker 1: we've had college sport leaders who have been putting forth
Speaker 1: an agenda that has benefited the business of college sport,
Speaker 1: but it has not represented the interests of the athletes,
Speaker 1: and so to the reform is not going to happen
Speaker 1: without that step. That's a fantastic point. There is no
Speaker 1: one really truly representing the interests of the players right now, Dallas,
Speaker 1: over to you in two minutes. The single idea that
Speaker 1: you would want to get Mark Emmert to agree to,
Speaker 1: to get the n c A to actually walk their
Speaker 1: talk minds with the athletes in mind as well, mainly
Speaker 1: the the younger generation of athletes that are coming along.
Speaker 1: I would like the n c A to create some
Speaker 1: sort of program with the revenue that they are generating,
Speaker 1: because there is a lot of it, to set up
Speaker 1: programs for lower income communities athletes that are lacking the
Speaker 1: right resources to get into sports. You know, I was
Speaker 1: lucky to have parents and grandparents um that were able
Speaker 1: to pay for these things, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that aren't even able to get into the sports
Speaker 1: they enjoy and can't even make it to the collegiate level.
Speaker 1: So that's something I really want to see happen, to
Speaker 1: really create some better areas for athletes to get into
Speaker 1: the n c A. Yeah, another fantastic idea, right access,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely not equitable right now, Thank you, Dallas.
Speaker 1: So my turn. I noticed that a lot of the
Speaker 1: talk is about the money, and I think that conversation
Speaker 1: is a super important conversation. But the n c a's
Speaker 1: mission doesn't say anything about money. It does say that
Speaker 1: the n c A exists to ensure that the academic
Speaker 1: experience of the student athlete is paramount. And when you
Speaker 1: look at the academic outcomes, particularly in Division one and
Speaker 1: particularly in the money sports football and basketball, graduation rates
Speaker 1: are horrible. In some cases, twenty per cent of a
Speaker 1: team graduates, and many of the people who do graduate
Speaker 1: are kind of sham graduations because the player got allousy
Speaker 1: or non existent education. The story of dexter manly comes
Speaker 1: to mind. Less than four percent of athletes ever get
Speaker 1: to the pros, which means that a huge number of
Speaker 1: D one athletes leave college and are sort of tossed
Speaker 1: away like refuse, with no ucation, no real prospects, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a crime. I propose that the n
Speaker 1: c A immediately begin forcing colleges to ensure that incoming
Speaker 1: athletes get a real education. Give them all a scholarship,
Speaker 1: but not for a year, not for four years, but
Speaker 1: a scholarship for life. A student athlete should be able
Speaker 1: to play for four years so long as they're a
Speaker 1: student in good standing, and when that time is done,
Speaker 1: they should have a lifetime ticket to return to that
Speaker 1: school to finish their degree, and that scholarship should cover
Speaker 1: living expenses as well. If the n c A wants
Speaker 1: to claim that they're about the primacy of education, they
Speaker 1: need to back those words up with some immediate action.
Speaker 1: They have a great story, they just need to do
Speaker 1: that story. So I'll stop there. I think all three
Speaker 1: ideas are provocative, ellen starting with yours. This idea of representation,
Speaker 1: that's another thing that struck me as just completely unfair.
Speaker 1: That until very recently, although it seems like some of
Speaker 1: these rules are changing, college athletes weren't allowed to have
Speaker 1: a lawyer or an agent, and there wasn't anybody looking
Speaker 1: out for them. Meanwhile, coaches have agents and the schools
Speaker 1: themselves have the n c A to enforce rules. What's
Speaker 1: it going to take for that to really be put
Speaker 1: in place? Do you think it may end up being
Speaker 1: an Act of Congress? Quite literally? Senator Chris Murphy from
Speaker 1: Connecticut has a bill before Congress right now which is
Speaker 1: arguing for athletes to have the opportunity to collectively bargain
Speaker 1: and to have an association that would allow for the
Speaker 1: kind of advocacy that a group like that would provide.
Speaker 1: I want to cycle back to two things that you
Speaker 1: talked about in your proposal for reform with an emphasis
Speaker 1: on education, and the first one is that even though
Speaker 1: in the n c AS Mission statement it doesn't say
Speaker 1: anything about money, within that four and fifty page manual
Speaker 1: that they've got for Asian one, and who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to read that on any given night? I mean I
Speaker 1: read it daily, of course, as we all do. But
Speaker 1: buried within there is a philosophy statement, and in the
Speaker 1: philosophy statement, it expressly talks about money, and it does
Speaker 1: so in a variety of ways. Um. You know, there's
Speaker 1: an ongoing narrative around college sport has been connected to education.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, this is a multi billion
Speaker 1: dollar global industry and it really needs to be understood
Speaker 1: as such. And I think part of our conversations around
Speaker 1: reform really need to acknowledge the fact that athletes have
Speaker 1: their interests have been sacrificed. I think that this is
Speaker 1: one of the things that athletes would benefit from in
Speaker 1: terms of having a players association, because this is certainly
Speaker 1: this conversation and Dallas, I think, given the activism that
Speaker 1: the Pack twelve players had last summer, this is about compensation,
Speaker 1: but this is about basic humanity and treatment. This is
Speaker 1: about education, This is about safe workplaces, this is about healthcare.
Speaker 1: And I'd really be curious to know, Dallas, what you
Speaker 1: think about that and frankly, what you think the critical
Speaker 1: issues are. Yeah, and that's something we were definitely trying
Speaker 1: to attack last summer. Our main focus was COVID at
Speaker 1: the time, you know, that was what was at the spotlight.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's a lot more things we can
Speaker 1: put on the table. Health and safety, protections, protect all sports,
Speaker 1: in racial injustice in the college sports and society, and
Speaker 1: then economic freedoms and equity. Economic freedoms are starting to
Speaker 1: happen within I L coming out, which is a big
Speaker 1: win for US education is still in major one protecting
Speaker 1: all sports. We see all these sports keep getting like
Speaker 1: Stanford had what twelve sports discontinued last year. When we
Speaker 1: keep seeing it at other schools, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of main, big concerns that are still happening that
Speaker 1: need focus. Everyone thought once we got in l A
Speaker 1: and all these things, you know, we hit them along.
Speaker 1: It's all it now, you know. So I want to
Speaker 1: return to sort of our main theme here, which is
Speaker 1: what are the actions that the n c A should take,
Speaker 1: and maybe I want to look at it through a
Speaker 1: slightly different lens. One of the things that just I
Speaker 1: found stunning was the degree to which the n c
Speaker 1: A has resisted any of these reforms over the years.
Speaker 1: There have been people trying to change these rules for years,
Speaker 1: and the n c A has used every means at
Speaker 1: their disposal to avoid sharing the money, instituting safety reforms,
Speaker 1: making sure that college students get an education, all of
Speaker 1: the ideas that we've been talking about today, Ellen, maybe
Speaker 1: I should go to you. Why do you think that
Speaker 1: they are even today seemingly continuing to drag their feet
Speaker 1: and what's it going to take to get them to
Speaker 1: actually want to do it. We're in such a different
Speaker 1: environment than what we were in the or what we
Speaker 1: were in the nineteen hundreds, but the system itself has
Speaker 1: remained status quo. And I think that's part of the
Speaker 1: reason why there needs to be a players Association, because
Speaker 1: there's no incentive for the leaders to change. In a
Speaker 1: classic labor construction, owners don't change until they have to,
Speaker 1: until there is an imperative for them to change. You
Speaker 1: can bring moral arguments to the table, you can bring
Speaker 1: economic arguments to the table, but the plain fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is until the power dynamic changes, nothing really
Speaker 1: changes at all. And I think that's what is exciting
Speaker 1: about the n I L era and about what's happening
Speaker 1: with athlete activism in general, and frankly, I think it's
Speaker 1: part of why THEN is failing so badly in its
Speaker 1: leadership right now. It is completely misread the landscape. For instance,
Speaker 1: they've got a convention coming up in November to talk
Speaker 1: about reform, but they did not go to the different
Speaker 1: organizations that are representing athlete interests right now. They didn't
Speaker 1: ask them for feedback, and they stayed internally with the
Speaker 1: people they generally do, and to me, that's the tell
Speaker 1: that they have no intention of really changing unless they
Speaker 1: absolutely have to. Athletes from the ground are making a change.
Speaker 1: I think legislators are calling for a change, and frankly,
Speaker 1: I think the American public is beginning more and more
Speaker 1: to see the inequities and to get with why this
Speaker 1: is so dramatic And Alice, you talked so eloquently about
Speaker 1: the racial injustice in all of this, and this is
Speaker 1: the moment for the n c a A. Not to
Speaker 1: be responding to that in a substantive way is really
Speaker 1: deeply problematic. And Dallas, I see you nodding along as
Speaker 1: as Ellen spoke. And you've led some of these activists actions.
Speaker 1: Why are these not more widespread? What is preventing the
Speaker 1: players from really getting together, because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you have a monopoly on the sports right
Speaker 1: without players, no sports. I'd love to hear you just
Speaker 1: talk about your experience as an organizer, what the conversations
Speaker 1: were like with the other players, what you guys felt
Speaker 1: like you had on the line, and what it would
Speaker 1: take to really make more of that kind of thing happen.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing we call it now is this conveyor bell.
Speaker 1: You're moving along. You're told to focus on your sport
Speaker 1: in your school, and you just keep on going by.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone is grateful for you know, their scholarship
Speaker 1: or the equipment they have, the support they have from fans.
Speaker 1: You know, they're on this conveyor belt and they keep going.
Speaker 1: And then some people, you know, finally get to look
Speaker 1: to the right or to the left and they can
Speaker 1: see outside the conveyor belt. You know, the windows open up.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful. I still I'm grateful, but I have finally
Speaker 1: noticed all the wrongdoings that are happening, all the programs
Speaker 1: that could be put in place to see the success
Speaker 1: of the athlete and not just the n c A
Speaker 1: as a whole. I think I talked to probably two
Speaker 1: thousand Pact twelve athletes you know at the time, mainly
Speaker 1: football players, and they, you know, all had concerns. On average,
Speaker 1: maybe like five people from each school that came out
Speaker 1: and wanted to be a part of the United and
Speaker 1: really saw what was going on, and they came into
Speaker 1: our conversation, I came into our zoom calls. They saw
Speaker 1: everything that was happening, and they listened but we also
Speaker 1: had another two thousand people we were talking to, and
Speaker 1: those people, a lot of them didn't repost it. They
Speaker 1: didn't share the graphic that said they were with us
Speaker 1: because they were scared. They sat in all those calls
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, this is what's going wrong here.
Speaker 1: You know, I have these concerns. I'm scared of this.
Speaker 1: I've had all these issues at my school. We heard
Speaker 1: all their stories. Whatever it was, they were scared. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit more about that fear? Like,
Speaker 1: what are they afraid of? It comes down to the
Speaker 1: main thing. You want to play your sport and you
Speaker 1: get scared. You want to stay in your lane. You know,
Speaker 1: I respect their decisions. You know, some people can't risk
Speaker 1: their scholarships. It's interesting in terms of the framing of
Speaker 1: labor issues in general and athlete activism that whenever you've
Speaker 1: got a group that has the kind of power inequities
Speaker 1: that we've got within college sport, whenever we've got that
Speaker 1: kind of dynamic when players step up and challenge the
Speaker 1: status quo, there's this question about, well, why weren't there
Speaker 1: more of you? Rather than really putting into perspective just
Speaker 1: how profound that action was We've got the Northwestern players
Speaker 1: organizing and actually gaining the right to collectively bargain until
Speaker 1: they got derailed with the National Labor Relations Board. That
Speaker 1: was an action where people kept saying that will never
Speaker 1: ever happen. It will never happen. And there we saw
Speaker 1: football players who were signing union cards. And then we
Speaker 1: have Missouri where the entire football team boycott's on racial
Speaker 1: injustices at Missouri. So rather than thinking about this in
Speaker 1: terms of who and sign on, officially, we should be
Speaker 1: looking at this as a movement where it's gaining ground
Speaker 1: and it's going to continue to gain ground. Coaches salaries
Speaker 1: are tied to in some cases winning and in some
Speaker 1: cases their ability to recruit top players, but they are
Speaker 1: not tied to educational outcome. Mark Emmert's salary at the
Speaker 1: n c a A isn't tied to educational outcome at all.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that one of the levers might
Speaker 1: be tying people's salaries to better outcomes for athletes, whether
Speaker 1: they be educational or remunerative. Depending on whose contract it is,
Speaker 1: you will see coaches that will have bonuses in terms
Speaker 1: of their team APR scores and their graduation success rates.
Speaker 1: But think about that for a minute. Of that for
Speaker 1: a minute now. Actually, I don't think that is good.
Speaker 1: I think that that is hypocrisy at the fight, because
Speaker 1: anybody who's working in higher education should be invested and
Speaker 1: athletes graduating. And the idea is that somehow we had
Speaker 1: to create a financial incentive for coaches to direct their
Speaker 1: attentions to graduating athletes. That just tells you how sick
Speaker 1: this system is and how corrupt it is. Well, I
Speaker 1: agree with that, Alan, but the sad reality of most
Speaker 1: of the world is that effort follows money. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's cynical, but I just think if Mark Emmert, like
Speaker 1: he makes north of a million, if fifty percent of
Speaker 1: that even was tied to academic outcome, in other words,
Speaker 1: graduation rates across the universities, he would pay attention to that,
Speaker 1: and n t A would start to enforce rules that
Speaker 1: made sure that those rates got better. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: the n c A created the graduation success rate, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting that graduation success rate compares to nothing. There
Speaker 1: is no metric for graduation success rate for undergraduate students.
Speaker 1: That's where we have the federal graduation rates, and that
Speaker 1: comes into play that's a different metric. So the n
Speaker 1: c A has created this pr campaign around graduation success rates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they get gamed, right, Yeah, So creating that financial incentive,
Speaker 1: you're just going down another rabbit hole and effect. Well
Speaker 1: that's grim. Thanks Alan, thanks for bumming us all out. No,
Speaker 1: that was great, And so I want to probe in
Speaker 1: the same area with Dallas because Dallas you put the
Speaker 1: student in student athlete. You're carrying a three point eight
Speaker 1: five g p A, is that right? And you've gotten
Speaker 1: awards for your academic achievement at Washington. How hard is
Speaker 1: that to do because that's I would say, pretty unusual.
Speaker 1: How well you're doing in school and in your chosen sport.
Speaker 1: How big a commitment of time and energy is that?
Speaker 1: And is everybody on the team doing that? Are there
Speaker 1: people who are struggling? Yeah? I would say the biggest
Speaker 1: benefit to my success is my ability to learn and
Speaker 1: seek out as much resources that I can and completely
Speaker 1: suck those dry. And it also helps the fact the
Speaker 1: major I'm in is something I want to do the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. I love art, you know, I
Speaker 1: love digital technology, so it's a passion of mine, but
Speaker 1: it is definitely a commitment once I get out of
Speaker 1: practice and get done, you know, studying playbook, you know,
Speaker 1: watching film, I dive right into school. That's all I do.
Speaker 1: The rest of the day are I dive into work
Speaker 1: that's just super inspiring. Right, and you've found two things
Speaker 1: that you love and that you're really good at, And
Speaker 1: to me, like, I look at you and I go,
Speaker 1: that's the key to life. Right. You find things that
Speaker 1: you're passionate about and you pursue them with like ferocity.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm probing so much on this is
Speaker 1: I want to figure out how to provide more of
Speaker 1: that for people, because no matter how good you are
Speaker 1: at your sport, the number of people who are going
Speaker 1: to go on to play professionally is vanishingly smaller. And
Speaker 1: so helping people find that next passion, the thing that's
Speaker 1: going to carry them beyond their sport and into success
Speaker 1: in life, feels like a vital thing that college is
Speaker 1: supposed to do. That's what college is supposed to be for,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem to be working in the case
Speaker 1: of many, not all, but many college athletes. You know,
Speaker 1: I see a lot of other athletes that aren't in
Speaker 1: majors that are their passion, but they're in them because
Speaker 1: they fit the schedule of what we're doing. That's where
Speaker 1: instead of you were talking about adding bonuses to coaches, No,
Speaker 1: we take that money and we add into academic resources,
Speaker 1: into academic advisors, into tutors, into the resources we can have.
Speaker 1: That's where the money go. And we need to see
Speaker 1: policies put in place that allow for more academic success,
Speaker 1: that allow for schedule adaptations for student athletes that have
Speaker 1: crazy schedules. You know, we need to figure out a
Speaker 1: way where say this person's you know, wants to be
Speaker 1: an engineering or kinesiology one, to be an athletic trainer,
Speaker 1: wants to be, you know, a doctor, but that schedule
Speaker 1: does not fit a student athlete or an athletic schedule whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So we need to figure out how we can push resources,
Speaker 1: like you said, an extended scholarship that pushes onto six
Speaker 1: eight years where they can take a longer time to
Speaker 1: take a short amount of classes. There needs to be
Speaker 1: put that policy put in place. But instead, you know,
Speaker 1: we see things that are forced where it's you have
Speaker 1: to have of your major complete by this time. So
Speaker 1: it's forcing these college athletes into majors that they're not
Speaker 1: passionate about, and then you see a success rate drop.
Speaker 1: They're forced to do do this, but then still hold a
Speaker 1: high grade payerent average to be successful, but it's not
Speaker 1: something they're passionate about. So it's in the end they're
Speaker 1: just gonna drop it when they're done. So why not
Speaker 1: add in resources where they get this extended stay in
Speaker 1: college because only two percent make it to the next level.
Speaker 1: We're lacking in support for our advisors, were lacking in
Speaker 1: a lot of things that you would really see increase
Speaker 1: in real sustainable futures for college athletes because it's us,
Speaker 1: the student athletes that are doing the work. It's our education,
Speaker 1: it's our future. So we need the money to help
Speaker 1: us succeed and to do something we're passionate about. That's
Speaker 1: very well said, So let me try another area. There's
Speaker 1: an economist who was quoted in Joe No Sarah's book,
Speaker 1: and in it he advocates for just an open marketplace
Speaker 1: right now. He argues that the n c A is
Speaker 1: essentially a cartel that artificially holds down wages in quotes
Speaker 1: for college athletes in a collusional and coercive manner. The
Speaker 1: economist advocates that it should just be an open marketplace,
Speaker 1: that players should get paid whatever the market demands, and
Speaker 1: that colleges should be forced to compete with each other
Speaker 1: for players and for coaches on the open market, and
Speaker 1: that the market would eventually sort itself out, in other words,
Speaker 1: having essentially no rules about who makes how much money
Speaker 1: in what college. Ever, what do you both think about
Speaker 1: that idea? Yeah, I see it. You know, it has
Speaker 1: as positives, but it has its negatives. Both sides have
Speaker 1: super extremes to them. If we're talking about an open market,
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of toxic environments. You would really
Speaker 1: see a major decrease in academic success in the education
Speaker 1: side of things, because it be like a professional league
Speaker 1: where say I could get X amount of dollars. Here
Speaker 1: people would be just hopping from one school to another.
Speaker 1: But there are the benefits where players do see an
Speaker 1: increase of financial success, you know, generational wealth, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of good things that could come from that.
Speaker 1: So before I let you go, I want you to
Speaker 1: think for a second and give the n c A
Speaker 1: a what we call a BS score, a bullshit score,
Speaker 1: So on a scale of zero to one hundred, one
Speaker 1: being the worst total bs and zero being the best
Speaker 1: zero bs. What would you give the n c A
Speaker 1: A on their level of achievement of their mission right now?
Speaker 1: I'd definitely say it's in that six seventy range just
Speaker 1: because they're not they're not seeking change at all, so
Speaker 1: that just jumps up to score a lot, you know, perfect,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ellen, Oh goodness, hold onto your
Speaker 1: hats and the gloves. Come on. Now, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get in trouble. But you know, if you parse out
Speaker 1: the language in that mission statement, you know, fair, equitable, ethical,
Speaker 1: it's no, no, no. So then student athletes in that term.
Speaker 1: And we know that student athletes was an invention by
Speaker 1: the n ci A to a order compensation. Keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that this is an association that's representing higher education,
Speaker 1: is where we're supposed to put a free mean on
Speaker 1: truthful and ethical condom. And so when I put all
Speaker 1: of those pieces together, I come at zero one is
Speaker 1: what you mean? Right? Total bs? Oh? Sorry, but yeah,
Speaker 1: a hundred good. I was never good mat me either.
Speaker 1: But I think it's deeply problematic because even this n
Speaker 1: I L situation, people are referring to this as reform,
Speaker 1: and this is not reform this is restoring a right
Speaker 1: that athletes had in the early nineteen hundreds. I would
Speaker 1: hardly say that this is progress. You know, it took
Speaker 1: over a hundred years to reverse that wheel. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean to be flipping here, but I think that
Speaker 1: the system really has failed and athletes deserve so much more,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I think that they have been the ones
Speaker 1: that have demonstrated the leadership here. Thank you both so
Speaker 1: much for being on the show today. It has been
Speaker 1: an honor to meet both of you, truly, so keep
Speaker 1: up the good work both of you and fight on.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Time and Dallas has been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: It has absolutely been a pleasure to listen to you
Speaker 1: as well. I'd like to end the show today by
Speaker 1: giving the n C double A an official bullshit score.
Speaker 1: You've heard our guests give their scores, so based on
Speaker 1: what I've heard today, because they stubbornly refused to change
Speaker 1: and have been dragged in front of the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: three times and lost, I give the n C double
Speaker 1: a n To weigh in with your own score, visit
Speaker 1: our website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. We'll track their
Speaker 1: behavior over time to see if they can bring that
Speaker 1: score down. You'll also be able to see where the
Speaker 1: n C Double A ranks on bullshit compared to the
Speaker 1: other companies and organizations we feature on this show. So
Speaker 1: if you're running a purpose led business or you're thinking
Speaker 1: of beginning the journey of transformation to become one, here
Speaker 1: are the three things that you should take away from
Speaker 1: this episode. One. Truly purpose led organizations align their interests
Speaker 1: with as many stakeholders as possible. In the case of
Speaker 1: the n C Double A, they haven't considered the needs
Speaker 1: of a major stakeholder, student athletes. Only by seeing to
Speaker 1: the needs of student athletes can the n C Double
Speaker 1: A hope to truly live their purpose. So the question
Speaker 1: for you is what stakeholders do you need to see to. Two.
Speaker 1: Once you've aligned on your purpose and your stakeholders, it's
Speaker 1: all about action. We've talked today about a number of
Speaker 1: actions the n C double A could take to achieve
Speaker 1: that alignment, offering student athletes scholarships for life, or using
Speaker 1: some of the billions they rake in not only to
Speaker 1: pay athletes directly, but also to fund a set of
Speaker 1: programs to make access to sport more equitable. In the
Speaker 1: first place, your actions will undoubtedly be different. The point
Speaker 1: is actions are a vital part of being purpose led
Speaker 1: and three. Change in any organization is led from the top.
Speaker 1: This is not something that can be done from the
Speaker 1: middle of the organization. In the n C double as case,
Speaker 1: Mark Emmert needs to model the n C double as
Speaker 1: purpose and use his bully pulpit to advocate for all
Speaker 1: of the n C double as stakeholders. In your organization.
Speaker 1: It's your founder or CEO who has to believe in
Speaker 1: your purpose and actively push it throughout the organization. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which, Mark Emmert, if you ever want to come
Speaker 1: on our show to discuss any aspect of today's episode,
Speaker 1: you have an open invitation our thanks to our guests today,
Speaker 1: Joe no, Sarah, dr Ellen Starowski, and Dallas Hobbes go
Speaker 1: to our site Calling Bullshit podcast dot com for their
Speaker 1: social media handles. You can also find a link to
Speaker 1: Joe's book Indentured, The Battle to End the Exploitation of
Speaker 1: College Athletes, which he co authored with Ben Strauss. While
Speaker 1: you're there, check out Allen's white paper This six billion
Speaker 1: dollar Heist and a link to some design work by
Speaker 1: Dallas Hobbes. Have any ideas for companies or organizations we
Speaker 1: should consider for future episodes. Submit them there on the
Speaker 1: site to Calling Bullshit podcast dot com and if we
Speaker 1: scored points with you today, subscribe to the Calling Bullshit
Speaker 1: podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast us. Thanks to our production
Speaker 1: team Susie Armitage, Amanda Ginsburg, d S. Moss, Andy Kim,
Speaker 1: Hannah Beale, MICHAELA. Reid, Lena Beck, Silison, Jess Benton, and
Speaker 1: Basil Soaper. Calling Bullshit was created by co Collective and
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Tai Montague. Thanks for listening, hath
Speaker 1: It and I supply before you go. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what you think about the show. Maybe you were
Speaker 1: inspired to take action, maybe you disagree of today's bullshit rating.
Speaker 1: Either way, we want to hear about it. Leave us
Speaker 1: a message at two one two five oh five three
Speaker 1: zero five, or send a voice memo to CBS podcast
Speaker 1: at co Collective dot com. You might even be featured
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode