The NCAA’s ship is sinking. Not surprisingly, the politician who runs the toothless entity is doing whatever he can to salvage it.
The best lifeline has come from the ruling in the Brendan Sorsby case. The reaction to a Texas judge’s decision to let the Texas Tech quarterback play in 2026 (after sitting out two games) despite widespread violations of the NCAA’s gambling rules could create the political will necessary to let the NCAA, with the help of Congress, buy a set of dentures.
It’s no surprise, then, that NCAA president Charlie Baker is doing whatever he can to characterize the Sorsby case as a five-alarm fire.
“I spent eight years as governor of Massachusetts and three years and change in this job,” Baker said Tuesday at the NACDA Convention, via Ben Portnoy of Sports Business Journal. “This was pretty much a new low and I’ll leave it at that.”
He didn’t leave it at that. Baker later complained about the ability of individual players to challenge (and beat) the NCAA in court.
“The judge looks up, sees that one student athlete and makes a decision based on that, but the consequences ripple all over the place,” Baker said.
Baker also said the quiet part out loud — the Sorsby case could be the thing that helps the NCAA get from Congress the antitrust exemption it wants and needs.
“Look, I think it’s about as good an example as you’re ever going to have of a thunderbolt moment,” Baker said. “So many of the folks that I deal with every day, either through email or text or phone calls, were shocked by this. And I think for a lot of them, it’s going to create a more significant thought process, participation, engagement around where Senator Cantwell and Senator Cruz are. That’s probably a good thing.”
Of course it is. And it only reinforces my suspicion that no one from the college-football ecosystem (media included) said a word about how problematic a ruling for Sorsby would be until it was signed. Then, after Judge Ken Curry restored Sorsby’s eligibility, the hue and cry began. From athletic directors to coaches to conferences to media who harvest the sportsbook advertising dollars that help create the addiction that caused Sorsby’s problem in the first place, everyone who could have chimed in before the decision was issued began to publicly wring their hands and gnash their teeth.
The root cause of so much of the modern political divide is that we’re constantly being manipulated, usually by those who want us to be perpetually pissed at anyone who sees the world differently than we do. Is it crazy to think that the NCAA and its members figured out that the Sorsby case could be leveraged into the political outcome they so badly crave?
In the end, it possibly will give them the ability to restore supposed “order” by reducing the rights — and the revenues — of the players, without having to dirty their hands with collective bargaining.
Frankly, if the Sorsby case doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.