the BigAmateurism monologues

On January 3rd, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors Transformation Committee (TC) released its final report. Far from providing “transformative” change, the final report is a case study of bureaucratic misdirection and Power 5 indifference to the needs of athletes. The TC’s high-power spin doctors navigated the Committee’s public misdirection campaign from the very start. Soon after, the NCAA’s and Power 5’s lawyers joined the discussion to frame and control all aspects of the Committee’s work on “student-athlete benefits and support.” Not to be left out, the invisible hand of the NCAA’s/P5’s silk-stocking lobbyists left its mark through the integration of the NCAA Board of Governors Subcommittee on Congressional Engagement into the work of the TC. In Part I of this series, I discuss the history of the TC and some big-picture issues. In Part II, I will break down the report itself.