the BigAmateurism monologues

March Madness is in full swing. The NCAA and its corporate sponsors are set to make a killing in New Orleans. But the Madness of the Division I men’s basketball tournament pales in comparison to the broader college sports chaos narratives that in-system stakeholder market participants are spinning for public consumption. From deregulated NIL to the impact of the Alston ruling, to the power vacuum in the voluntary regulation of college sports, to CFP expansion talks, to continued fallout from the 2017-2018 college basketball “scandal,” to the quiet normalization of betting interests in college sports, BigAmateurism’s mighty media megaphones are working overtime to spread the word that the chaos in college sports is unsustainable. This episode explores how portrayals of the college sports chaos theory suggest solutions that are more aligned with protecting institutional and corporate interests than with protecting the interests of revenue-producing athletes whose labors underwrite the entire industry.