the BigAmateurism monologues

The NCAA and Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC) are in the midst of an audacious regulatory power grab in Congress and the US Supreme Court. Under the guise of name, image, and likeness "compensation" for NCAA athletes, the NCAA and Power 5 have quietly laid the foundation for a war to eliminate external threats to their regulatory authority and their revenue streams in the 15 billion-dollar-a-year college sports entertainment industry. The NCAA and Power 5 seek extraordinary federal immunities and protections including (1) absolute immunity from federal fair competition laws (antitrust) in suits filed by revenue-producing athletes that challenge NCAA amateurism-based compensation limits; (2) the nullification of any state law that conflicts with NCAA amateurism-based compensation limits (federal preemption); and (3) federal protection from attempts by athletes to form unions (anti-employee provision). If these immunities and protections—which are unprecedented in college sports—are granted, the burgeoning athletes' rights movement will come to an abrupt end and eliminate the possibility that revenue-producing athletes will have the same economic freedoms that all other Americans enjoy. The NCAA and Power 5 campaigns in Alston and Congress are directed to a small group of elite football and men's basketball players, the substantial majority of whom are African-American. These athletes provide nearly all of the value in the college sports marketplace and they receive no compensation for their rare talents and labor above the existing athletic scholarship limit. The NCAA/Power 5 regulatory power grab has played out in a perfect storm of events that will likely make the period 2019-2021 the most consequential eras in the history of college sports. The elements of the perfect storm include: (1) the first wave of athlete-initiated antitrust suits beginning in 2006, one of which is now pending in the US Supreme Court (Alston) and could provide the NCAA and Power 5 immunity from liability under federal fair competition laws; (2) the NCAA and Power 5's dishonest campaign for name, image and likeness "compensation" in the US Senate in their effort to achieve the Iron Throne of college sports regulation; (3) the disruption of the college sports marketplace due to COVID which exposed substantial cracks in the foundation of the business model of college sports; (4) race-related social unrest arising from the murder of George Floyd and other events that temporarily shed light on the racial component of the NCAA/Power 5 business model; (5) the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 and Amy Coney Barrett's ascent to the Supreme Court which has important implications in the pending Alston case; and (6) the January 5th Georgia special elections in which the Senate flipped from Republican to Democrat and eliminated the NCAA/Power 5's political advantage; and (7) the NCAA's abrupt decision immediately after the Georgia special elections to cease its claimed work on voluntary name, image and likeness rules changes. This episode lays the foundation for a detailed analysis of the perfect storm and why it is so important.