the BigAmateurism monologues

By: Richard Ford
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  • Summary

  • A series of events over the last 18 months—some unforeseeable—have created a perfect storm that will change college sports forever. The NCAA's bait and switch campaign in Congress on name, image, and likeness, a historic case in the US Supreme Court, COVID, race-based social unrest, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (and the ascent of Amy Coney Barrett,) the Georgia special elections, and more have conspired to make this era perhaps the most consequential in the history of American sports. In this perfect storm, nothing is as it appears to the public. The NCAA and powerful conferences have marshaled some of the most powerful corporate, legal, public relations, media, and political forces in the world to wage war against a small group of elite revenue-producing athletes—overwhelmingly African American—who threaten to disrupt the NCAA cartel in the 15 billion-dollar-a-year college sports industry. The NCAA is one bill in Congress and one Supreme Court decision away from achieving the Iron Throne of college sports regulation. If that happens, the athletes whose talents underwrite the entire industry will have no recourse in federal courts to challenge the NCAA's amateurism-based compensation limits and state legislatures will be powerless to pass laws that protect athletes' basic economic liberties. Join former Duke basketball player, attorney, academician, and athletes' rights advocate Richard Ford as he dissects the NCAA's war against revenue-producing athletes and the institutions, interests, decision-makers, and motives behind it.
    © 2025 the BigAmateurism monologues Richard Ford
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Episodes
  • “National Champions”: Hollywood Does Athletes’ Rights (again)

    “National Champions”: Hollywood Does Athletes’ Rights (again)
    Jan 7 2025
    On December 10th, 2021, Hollywood debuted its most recent depiction of corruption in college sports with the release of “National Champions.” The setting is this years’ football championship game (the “College Football Championship” rather than the “College Football Playoff”) between teams from the SEC and Big 12. The African American Heisman Trophy-winning SEC quarterback joins forces with a less talented white teammate to boycott the title game. The hastily conceived boycott begins in earnest 73 hours before kick-off. Filled with forced plot lines and the best intentions, “National Champions” serves up fumble after fumble in its attempt at relevant social commentary. This episode discusses the movie and contrasts the Hollywood version of self-help labor tactics with the realities of those complex options. In 2022, we will likely see more discussion of labor rights and athlete options. However, as with all NCAA/Power 5 regulatory issues, the real battle lines will be drawn in the trenches of federal litigation and stealth lobbying in Congress. Revenue-producing athletes are nowhere near prepared to effectively pull off a self-help labor option outside the protections of federal and state labor laws.
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    1 hr
  • Herbstreit and Howard Flap Suggests Growing Values Dissonance for ESPN and Power 5

    Herbstreit and Howard Flap Suggests Growing Values Dissonance for ESPN and Power 5
    Jan 4 2025
    On New Year’s Day, ESPN analysts Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard went old school to criticize NFL-caliber football players who opted out of increasingly less consequential bowl games to avoid career-altering (or ending) injuries. Herbstreit questioned these players’ love for the game, and Howard described them as entitled. Facing immediate blowback online (and presumably after consulting with ESPN higher-ups), Herbstreit issued a “clarification” that was essentially a poorly disguised double down. This episode discusses why Herbstreit’s and Howard’s comments reveal a growing values-based imaging and messaging problem for both ESPN and the Power 5.
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    55 mins
  • Did Booker and Blumenthal Hang a U-Turn on Athletes’ Rights?

    Did Booker and Blumenthal Hang a U-Turn on Athletes’ Rights?
    Aug 3 2023
    On July 20th, 2023, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) released a discussion draft of a bill titled “College Athletes Protection and Compensation Act of 2023.” The bill is largely a cut-and-paste job from Moran’s 2021 bill, the “Amateur College Athletes Protection and Compensation Act of 2021” and Booker/Blumenthal’s 2020 bill, the “College Athletes Bill of Rights” (rereleased in 2022). The Moran bill gave the NCAA and Power 5 everything they wanted to obtain regulatory supremacy in college sports and, in the process, end the athletes’ rights movement. The Booker/Blumenthal bills were an equal and opposite counterweight to Moran’s bill and others like it introduced by NCAA/Power 5-friendly Republican Senators. Booker and Blumenthal built their legislation around a civil rights philosophy, particularly the financial and educational exploitation of African American Power 5 football and men’s basketball players. On the crucial question of who will sit on the Iron Throne of college sports regulation, Moran and Booker/Blumenthal have been on opposite sides of the earth. Both would use a federal corporation to oversee the college sports issues covered by the legislation. However, Moran would require that NCAA and Power 5 insiders run the federal corporation, replicating the NCAA bureaucracy with the protections and powers of the federal government. Booker and Blumenthal would exclude those decision-makers from involvement with the federal corporation and instead rely on athletes and experts in relevant fields. The new “compromise” bill not only jettisons Booker’s and Blumenthal’s civil rights focus but also adopts Moran’s NCAA/Power 5 governance model for the federal corporation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the new bill would grant the NCAA subpoena power to wreak havoc in its infractions and enforcement operations. This episode analyzes the new bill and what it may mean for Congressional action and perhaps the future of athletes’ rights.
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    1 hr and 20 mins

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