LAS VEGAS – NCAA President Charlie Baker was downright dismayed.
Baker, speaking as part of a Q&A session to close Tuesday’s festivities at the annual NACDA Convention, was asked for his response to a ruling that will allow Texas Tech quarterback Braden Sorsby to play this fall despite placing thousands of dollars of bets in recent years, including on his own team.
“I spent eight years as governor of Massachusetts and three years and change in this job,” he said. “This was pretty much a new low and I’ll leave it at that.”
Baker has been an adamant opponent to sports gambling and the issues it has created for college sports leaders and atheltes alike. He’s also among the slews of administrators who condemned the idea of Sorsby being able to play this fall.
A one-time Indiana and Cincinnati signal-caller, Sorsby has admitted to placing tens of thousands of dollars of bets throughout his college football career. The NCAA had previously ruled him permanently ineligible before a Texas judge on Monday morning granted a temporary restraining order that would allow him to play for the Red Raiders. A trial was scheduled for February 2027, long after the season ended.
“Look, the rules on this one are pretty clear and they apply to everybody who plays sports at the amateur and professional level everywhere,” Baker told SBJ Publisher and Executive Editor Abe Madkour, “But if you think about it, three or four of the most challenging issues that Division I faces are all the result of a court case. And in most cases, it is one student athlete. The judge looks up, sees that one student athlete and makes a decision based on that, but the consequences ripple all over the place.”
Speaking with reporters from Sports Business Journal and The Athletic following his stage session, Baker did note the ruling could be a spark to assist with federal legislation efforts.
Sens. Maria Cantwell and Ted Cruz introduced the Protect College Sports Act last month, while hearings remain ongoing. Cantwell and Cruz have a roundtable discussion with a number of coaches and administrators scheduled for Wednesday and spoke in separate 30-minute conference calls Tuesday with SEC presidents and chancellors and Big Ten presidents and chancellors. The hope from Baker and other college sports leaders is that the bill would provide some level of stability for an enterprise that has been anything but stable since the advent of NIL and player compensation.
“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.”