WEBVTT - NCAA: Foul Play? 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:14.680 Ah, you're doing fine. Just just tell your story, just 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:19.919 how it came about. Don't worry about that prepared statement there. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.840 It's kind of difficult, but anyway, that's NFL star Dexter 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:33.040 manly testifying before Congress in three years ago. Uh that 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.280 I just begin learning to learn how to read and write. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:41.400 At the time, Dexter was thirty years old before going pro. 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.280 He'd played for Oklahoma State University, somehow majoring in marketing 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.680 while remaining functionally illiterate. I took an a CT test 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.360 and on school to six. He'd never received the right 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.440 help for an undiagnosed learning disability, but he'd managed to 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.560 mask the problem. He may morized how certain words looked, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.240 cheated on tests, duck girls to do his homework, and 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.360 he passed his college classes even though he couldn't read 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.920 the team playbook. And that that really hurt me because 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.959 then I remember back when I was in grammar school, 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:17.960 you know what I was told, And I just felt 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.080 like that I am done when I was stupid, and 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.120 that I would have the ability to learn or learn 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.480 how to read or write. The governing body of college sports, 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.440 the National Collegiate Athletic Association, claims that education comes first, 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.919 But how can that be true for players like Dexter 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.200 Manly who go to college because they excel on the 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.240 field and then leave utterly unprepared to do anything else. 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:55.440 Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.280 gap between what companies say they stand for and what 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.600 they actually do, and what they would need to change 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.760 to practice what they preach. I'm your host, time onto you, 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.080 and I've spent over a decade helping companies define what 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.600 they stand for, their purpose and then help them to 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:20.120 use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.360 at a lot of companies and organizations today, there's still 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.240 a pretty wide gap between word and deed. That gap 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:33.280 has a name. We call it bullshit. But, and this 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.040 is important, we believe that bullshit is a treatable disease. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.560 So when the bullshit detector lights up, we're going to 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.840 explore things that a company should do to fix it. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.400 In this episode, we're going to look at the n 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.240 C Double A, the institution that shaped college sports into 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:03.400 what they are today. The n C Double A says 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.640 its purpose is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:12.120 and sportsmanlike manner and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.639 education so that the educational experience of the student athlete 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:21.760 is paramount. Man, what a mouthful. But lately there's been 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.800 quite a bit in the news about a darker side 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.560 of the n C Double A. We will hear argument 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:33.880 this morning in case twelve National Collegiate Athletic Association versus Austin. 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:39.480 Then double A has produced iconic matchups, launched professional sports careers, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:44.280 and made billions of dollars, but not for the students 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.640 playing in these big games. Here is late with the sad. 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.680 The n c a A didn't even allow schools to 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.200 offer athletes scholarships until nineteen fifty six. Before that, the 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.840 only compensation for playing pride, and for decades, the n 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.240 C Double A has had a long list of rules 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.920 restricting payments to athletes that is finally starting to change. 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.360 The Supreme Court has handed a massive victory to college 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:17.880 athletes in their efforts to receive fair compensation. The justices 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:23.480 unanimously rejected the n double AS rules limiting benefits colleges 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.280 can provide athletes things like laptops and science equipments or 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:32.800 postgraduate paid internships. Interestingly, the Court ruled that by limiting 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.960 these educational benefits that the n c A would actually 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.920 be violating antitrust laws because it would make it harder 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.719 for schools to compete for athletes not about direct and 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.120 thanks to a separate decision earlier this year, athletes can 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.680 now earn money by endorsing products and businesses like the 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.520 local car dealership or pizza parlor. But while these changes 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.080 are a big deal for players who have in many 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.839 cases been forced to live in poverty, many people don't 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.800 think they go far enough. A growing number of athletes 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.680 and activists claimed the n C Double A is basically 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.039 a cartel, fixing prices and using the unpaid labor of poor, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.479 mostly black and brown athletes to rake in billions. The 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.280 n C Double A, on the other hand, says they're 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.760 just trying to preserve the idea of amateur status while 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.800 helping student athletes get a college education. This is a 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.080 complicated story, so let's start with a quick history of 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:36.600 the debate. It all begins in back then, college football 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.920 looked a lot different than it does today. Teams used 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.520 a formation called the flying wedge, where the players linked 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.360 arms in a V shape and sprinted down the field 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.240 in one big mass, and many of them didn't even 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.039 wear helmets. As you can imagine, a lot of people 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:01.440 got hurt. Eighteen players die in the nineteen o four 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:05.799 season alone, and basically Teddy Roosevelt called in the presidents 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.440 of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which of course we're major 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.960 football powers back then, and said, you figure out a 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.360 way to clean this up, or I will shut down football. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.840 That's Joe No Sarah, co author of indentured the battle 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.200 to end the exploitation of college athletes. You got rid 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.080 of the flying wedge, and they started to allow the 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.200 forward pass. The next big turning point in n C 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.919 Double A history came in ninety eight, after a series 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:36.080 of sports scandals that involved bribes, gambling, and point shaving. 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.440 Enter the Sanity Code. It forbade any form of merit 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.080 pay to students in exchange for their services as athletes. 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:52.760 In other words, they should not profit in any way. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.280 In nineteen fifty one, the n C Double A got 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.560 its first full time leader. And this is where the 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.080 story gets really interesting. They think you have to understand 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.440 about the n C A is it was almost toothless 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.640 for fifty years, and it wasn't until the mid fifties 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.360 that a guy named Walter Buyers took it over and 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:20.880 turned it into a powerful, and bureaucratic and ruthless and 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.040 you know, one step removed from the National Rifle Association. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.760 Buyers has been described as a force of nature, secretive, despotic, 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.720 and stubborn. And he got right to work doing two things, 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.840 finding creative ways to monetize America's growing love affair with 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.720 college sports and ruthlessly enforcing the Sanity Code, which meant 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:49.960 that athletes got none of that money. Today, the n 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.800 C Double A is a money machine, generating and estimated 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.480 nineteen billion dollars a year, and despite years of litigation 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:03.080 until just this year, the players themselves, current and former, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.120 were barred from profiting from their name, image, and likeness 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.400 for life, and they still aren't paid for the very 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.880 labor that makes that nineteen billion dollars possible. After three 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:19.800 trips to the Supreme Court, after multiple athlete protests and lawsuits, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.840 after several attempts to organize the players and even unionize 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.760 them to get a fair shake, the n C Double 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.440 A maintains that the educational experience of the student athlete 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:35.040 is paramount. So is that actually true or is that 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:46.600 just a bunch of bullshit? To get to the bottom 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.440 of this, I called up Joe No Sarah, who, as 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.800 you heard earlier, is the co author of Indentured, The 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:58.800 Battle to End the Exploitation of College Athletes. Joe, welcome 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.000 to calling bullshit. Thank you very much for being here today. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.240 Thanks for having me so. I loved your book. It 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.920 was a real eye opener starting out. I think, like 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.040 a lot of people, I had this image of the 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.080 n c a. A is this hallowed organization that brings 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.040 joy to millions of people. There's this kind of mythic 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:22.160 image of these student athlete warriors, both men and women, 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.200 who get to go to college on a full ride 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.160 and play their sport on the national stage while getting 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.320 an amazing free education, and then graduate and go on 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.280 to either a lucrative professional sports career or a career 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.640 in their chosen field of study. How accurate would you 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.400 say that picture is? Let me stop laughing. I think 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:46.760 if we went and passed that description, every single piece 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:53.000 of it is wrong. Okay, so let's just say not 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:59.560 very accurate. Yeah, it's an eye poppingly big business college sports. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.280 Can you talk a little bit about where that money 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.560 comes from. Sure, the majority of it comes from TV contracts. 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.800 That's where the real big money is. Just the college 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:15.040 football playoffs alone. ESPN has a multibillion dollar contract to 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.439 air what amounts to three games a season at the 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.880 end of the season. The Big Ten not only has 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.440 deals with you know, ESPN, they also have their own network, 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.440 so they generate money from advertising and from subscribers. But 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:36.880 there's also sponsorships, selling the jerseys in the student union, 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:44.120 there's all kinds of naming rights of the stadiums. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.240 So who gets that money when it flows in? Mostly 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.640 the schools do I mean, if you're the SEC, if 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.520 you're the Southeastern Conference and you generate forty to fifty 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.360 million per school through your TV contracts and other means, 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.960 you um parcel that out to the schools. Now, what 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.880 the schools will say is that the money that is 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.120 made from basketball and football is used to subsidize all 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:18.400 the non revenue sports like softball and field hockey. It 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:24.280 basically means two sports that are fundamentally played by African 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.560 Americans are subsidizing lots of sports that are played by 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:34.560 upper middle class white students. Absolutely. Some would say that's 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:39.720 not equitable. Yes, some would say some have said, okay, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.920 So the universities get the lion's share of this nineteen 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.160 billion and they use it to build these massive, cathedral 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:50.079 like facilities. A lot of it goes to the coaches. 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.280 Some of the coaches salaries that are in your book, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.720 We're Crazy, Nick Saban seven million, Coach Achevski at Duke 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:02.240 ten million. There's people on the staff of some of 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.200 the universities, like the strength coaches are making three quarters 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.319 of a million dollars a year. And then there's the 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.600 leadership of the n c A Mark Emmett. He makes 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.520 two point seven million a year, and they're eight executives. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.280 They're making north of half a million dollars a year. 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.160 So a lot of people doing really well off of 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.400 this nineteen billion. What did the students get, the people 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:30.640 actually responsible for generating all of this revenue. They get 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.960 uniform that's something. They get training, they do get training, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.120 that's real. They sort of kind of get an education. 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.520 But the truth of the matter is that for many, many, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.160 many football and basketball players, that education is extremely substandard 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.480 because the goal of the coach is to keep the 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.600 player on the field, not to make sure he majors 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.080 in something that's usable after college. To put it bluntly, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.240 the players get screwed. Yeah, it feels like that. One 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.000 of the statistics that jumped out at me was that 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.800 of top level college athletes live below the poverty level, 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.440 and as you've already pointed out, many of them come 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.960 from poor families, many of them are people of color, 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.960 and the highly paid coaches and n c A executives 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:26.160 are mostly white. So this feels like essentially reverse affirmative action, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.680 is the way I think about it. The players are 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:36.959 often the poorest students on campus, and yet the ns 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:43.800 amateurism rules have long been aimed at preventing college athletes 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.920 from accepting money. That's what the whole goal was. So 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:54.440 for instance, if a upper middle class white kid wants 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:59.800 to go home for Thanksgiving, right, his parents just pay 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.800 war and there's no violation because parents can do whatever 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.040 they want. Right. If a disadvantaged black kid wants to 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:13.040 go cross country for Thanksgiving and his parents don't have 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:17.199 the money, he can't go because anybody who would give 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.200 him the money to make that trip would be putting 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.640 him in violation of n c A rules and he 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.760 would be suspended. So the n A basically says, we 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.240 treat everybody the same. We don't want anybody to have money. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:35.160 That violates the principles of amateurism. But in effect, it 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.440 affects the black kids a whole lot more than it 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.840 affects the white kids. In your book, you quote historian 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.560 Taylor branch As comparing the n c A system too 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:50.160 in quotes the plantation. What did he mean by that, Well, 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.160 he means sort of the same thing that I mean 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.320 by the title of my book, which is indentured, which 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.760 is that they're under the thumb of the athletic department 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.520 a coach. You know, if they don't play well, they 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.680 can lose their scholarship and be sent back. They often 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.480 wind up back on the street after their four years 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.080 are up. It's a system in which they have no power, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.000 or at least had no power until fairly recently. And 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.920 so these players who are making no money are making 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.680 all these white people, not all white people, if they're 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:29.920 always administrators, these adults rich, which is definitely the whiff 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:35.040 of the plantation. Absolutely, Joe, What is then, as rationale 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.600 for treating students this way? Let me back up one second, 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.880 and just say this, The combination of the recent Supreme 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.360 Court decision and the legislation in many states to allow 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.760 players to make money on their name, image and likeness 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.040 i e. Endorsements and signing autographs and that sort of 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.920 thing is changing things radically and quickly, and the n 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.320 c a A is trying to catch up. But let's 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.520 make believe we're still back in the era when the 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.720 n c a A. When it was their way or 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:11.480 the highway. Their rationale was that amateurism, that not paying 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:16.400 players is what separated college sports from professional sports. It 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.080 was kind of the secret sauce. And they would long 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:23.960 argue that if players were ever paid, it would turn 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.240 off the fans and people would stop going to the games, 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.280 and it would destroy college sports. It seems to me 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.160 that that is a testable proposition. Why hasn't anyone asked 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.360 them to prove this? Well, that's what these court fights 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.000 have been about. Amateurism, they would say, is not the 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.680 secret sauce. In fact, it's cartel like behavior that violates 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.320 the antitrust laws, and its purpose is to deprive the 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:54.080 labor force of wages. So each side has their economists 0:16:54.600 --> 0:17:00.280 and in court over the last fifteen years, judges at 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.120 every level, from the district court to the appeals court 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.320 of the Supreme Court have all said that the arguments 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:13.560 in favor of amateurism being something that is required to 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.760 have college sports, they have all ruled at that as 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:22.720 bogus and that in fact, what amateurism really is is 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:27.800 a violation of the United States antitrust laws. In June 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.760 of one, the n C Double A dropped its rule 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.400 prohibiting students from making money off their name, image, and likeness. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.880 That was a big win, but it wasn't the first. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.600 In two thousand and nine, there was another significant score 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.320 for student athletes in the Supreme Court. O'Bannon versus the 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.639 n C Double A. That's quite the story. Ed O'Bannon, 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.159 former n c A champion basketball player at u C 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.399 l A. He's working at a Las Vegas card dealership, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.400 goes to a party and somebody says, my kid saw 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:09.000 your image on a video game. So he goes and 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.239 looks at the video game and sure enough, there's an 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:15.040 avatar that looks exactly like him that has his number 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.439 on the back. So of course his first instinct is, 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:20.600 oh boy, this is kind of cool. But his second 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.680 instinct is, why aren't I getting paid for this? How 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:29.560 can they use my name my image without paying me exactly, 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.440 And that's what led to the verse truly important lawsuit 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.280 O'Bannon versus n c a A that was back in 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.919 two thousand and nine, and since then there's been a 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.800 real shift in how the public thinks about the rights 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:50.359 of college athletes. Now jump ahead to twenty nine. California 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.679 legislator named Nancy Skinners is at a Rotary Club luncheon 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.919 and she's listening to an economist named Andy Schwartz who 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.200 is giving a talk about the n c a A. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.879 And she thinks to herself, boy, this is awful. Somebody 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.400 should do something about this. And then she thinks, hey, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.080 I'm about to join the legislature. I could do something 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:16.080 about this, right, So she files the bill that says 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:24.280 universities in California cannot prevent or punish athletes for making 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.119 money on their name, image, and likeness. And here's the 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.520 amazing thing. In this polarized era that we live in, 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.480 it passed unanimously. That's incredible, in the House and the Senate. 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.199 And that really told you that things have changed. So 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.600 then what happens, a bunch of other states say well, hell, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.880 I'm not going to give California the advantage. We gotta 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.200 have one too, or we're gonna lose recruits. And then 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.439 the n c A says, hold on, everybody, let us 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.280 figure this out, you know, just stop, and by then 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.119 then has lost so much credibility that nobody is willing 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.000 to do that. Understanding that this was a losing battle, 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.119 the double A finally decided that they would simply allow 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:08.960 all athletes to make money from their name, image, and likeness. Now, 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.320 one of the great fears about this was that only 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.280 the quarterback would get a big endorsement deal, and that 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.840 the rest of the you know, the linemen, would get nothing, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.600 and that it would be dominated by football and basketball. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.160 That is not what has happened. It's amazing that so 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.560 many of these deals have revolved around women athletes in 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.679 sports that are not Olympic sports or across or just 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.399 it's really been Even Mark Emmert, the president of the 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.760 n c a A, said watching this evolve has been 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:47.760 quote unquote really neat. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.560 supposed to have an opinion. I'm interviewing you, but that 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.280 seems nefarious to me because, uh, I mean, I don't 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.840 understand how he suddenly got woke. Well, they're not that woke. 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.320 But I do think that acts really paying the players 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.199 is not far behind shifting gears for just a second. 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.280 Another thing that the n c A has said in 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.399 one of its by laws is that student participation in 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.439 intercollegiate athletics is an advocation, meaning a hobby, and student 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:23.080 athletes should be protected from exploitation by commercial enterprises. How's 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:27.880 that going? That has been the rationale, And it's so 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.119 ludicrous when they say it out loud in court that 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.359 even that even the judge has a hard time stifling 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:38.439 a laugh when they say that. It's has become so ridiculous. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:44.560 A collegiate model basically says that it's perfectly appropriate to 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:49.760 maximize revenue for the schools and the athletic departments, but 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:55.359 that the athletes remain students rather than employees. And they 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.399 always make this absurd distinction between students and employees. You know, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.280 when I was in college, I worked in the photo lab, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.119 so I was employee of the journalism school, but I 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.000 was still a student. But the n c A basically says, 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:10.720 you've got to either be a student or an employee. 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.879 You can't have both, can't be both. So the collegiate 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.040 model is the athletes are students, so they can't be paid, 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:23.639 but every other aspect college sports is a revenue maximizing enterprise. 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.560 So far, the whiff of n c double A bullshit 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.600 is pretty strong. It's clear that a lot of student 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:41.520 athletes have been financially exploited, but what about their education? 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:46.159 The n c double A mission states that education is paramount. 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.000 Since the students aren't getting any of that money, are 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:55.880 they at least getting a good education. So one example 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.159 of the n c A wanting to put education first 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:04.040 is their rules about how many hours per week the 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.280 athletes can practice. So let's say it's twenty hours a week. Well, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.560 that sounds pretty reasonable, but then it turns out that 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.239 let's say they have a game on Friday night in 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:21.680 Texas and they're in West Virginia, but the only hours 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:25.280 that count towards the twenty hours are the two hours 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.399 that they're on the field, and the rest of the 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:32.440 thirty six hours or forty hours don't count. So there's 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:36.360 all kinds of loopholes like that. But more importantly, when 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.840 an athlete is recruited, it is made abundantly clear that 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.600 their sport comes first, so that means they can't take 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:50.080 any classes that conflict with practice or games, which means 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.280 that even those who are really quite studious have a 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:57.760 very hard time finding a major that's legitimate. And a 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.480 lot of the players, you know, they're major is communications 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:04.080 or physic but really they're what I like to say 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:10.880 is they're majoring in eligibility. What's happening is that their 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:16.719 academic advisors are directing them to classes that they know 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:20.119 they'll be able to pass or they you know, have 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.159 a good likelihood of passing that will allow them to 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:28.919 remain eligible. Right and how many actually graduate? Do you know? 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:33.080 There is some controversy over that. The n c A 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:36.879 would say it's over. I would say for football and basketball. 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:40.160 A guy named Richard Southall at the University of South 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:44.119 Carolina has done a lot of work dissecting that and 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:49.399 using the federal government's graduation numbers and has concluded that 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:52.840 it's much much lower than that, and for black players especially, 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.639 it can be in the range depending on the school. 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:01.080 It's crazy that these kids come into the school, they 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.159 work on average fifty hours a week on their sport 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:07.040 and then have school work on top of it, and 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:10.439 many of them don't graduate. It's a terrible grind. You know, 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:12.760 you get up at six o'clock in the morning, you 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:15.320 go to the weight room. Uh, then you know, you've 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.600 got classes from maybe nine to three. Then you have practice, 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:21.480 then you have mandatory study hall, and you know, go 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:24.439 to bed till eleven or midnight. It's really hard. And 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:26.359 then you know, a lot of the players are not 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:28.720 ready for college work because they've been pampered in high 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:31.639 school and a lot of them think they're gonna be pros, 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:36.200 so they don't spend enough time thinking about scholastics, right, 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:38.600 and how many of them actually go on to professional 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:42.960 sports career something like between one and two m Joe, 0:25:43.280 --> 0:25:48.600 just another question for you about this, essentially the injustice 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.360 of this system. Why don't some of the sponsors use 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:54.840 their cloud to force the n c A or the 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:59.119 college is directly to solve this problem. Um, because they 0:25:59.160 --> 0:26:04.359 make too much money. There's too much money at stake. So, Joe, 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:11.879 is the n c a A a bullshitter? Well, of 0:26:11.880 --> 0:26:15.120 course it is. I don't even. I don't even. There's 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:18.080 nothing else to say. Of course it is seems like 0:26:18.119 --> 0:26:20.639 that is the only thing to say. So on a 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:25.639 scale of zero to a hundred being the worst, what 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:29.239 would you rate the level of bullshit at the c A. 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:36.080 The real bullshit factor to me about the n c 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:40.480 A is how orwellian the language is. Say more about 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:44.960 that that they screw player in a dozen different ways, 0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:48.920 and yet they always characterize what they're doing as being 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:50.760 the force for good, as being the people who are 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:54.960 trying to to save the college athlete. Last question, what 0:26:55.200 --> 0:26:58.119 is the one thing you would do to change this problem? 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:07.600 Pay the players? Okay, folks, it's time to make the call. 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:10.960 Is the n c double A really governing competition in 0:27:11.000 --> 0:27:16.040 a fair, safe, equitable, and sportsmanlike manner and integrating intercollegiate 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:20.199 athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of 0:27:20.240 --> 0:27:24.520 the student athlete is paramount Based on what I've heard 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:29.760 so far, I gotta call bullshit. But remember, bullshit is 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:34.400 a treatable disease, So after the diagnosis, we always prescribe 0:27:34.400 --> 0:27:38.040 a cure. After the break, we'll hear solutions from some 0:27:38.119 --> 0:27:42.320