the BigAmateurism monologues

On September 30th, 2021, Mark Emmert made his fourth appearance in Congress over twenty months to plead for federal protections and immunities to protect the NCAA from itself. Like the high-powered NCAA lobbyists that orchestrated the hearing, Emmert knew no shame in pumping propaganda that should now be irrelevant. In late 2019 and throughout 2020, the NCAA’s built its Senate campaign around obtaining complete antitrust immunity, the nullification of any state law or regulation that overrode NCAA’s amateurism-based compensation limits. The NCAA pitched these extraordinary federal protections and immunities as essential preconditions to the existence of any name, image, and likeness opportunities for athletes. Using decades-old scare tactics, the NCAA predicted that if state NIL laws went into effect on July 1st, 2021, then college sports would be brought to a fatal collapse. With the nascent NIL market taking shape, the NCAA is desperate to slow or reverse market momentum. This episode analyzes the NCAA’s motives in its re-engagement with Congress and discusses the testimony of four witnesses.