the BigAmateurism monologues

In his 2006 State of the Association speech, former NCAA President Myles Brand (2003-2009) articulated a theoretical rationalization for the big-time college sports business model. Drawing on his experience as a former university president, Brand debuted the “collegiate model” of intercollegiate athletics to reconcile the increasing tension between the professional products in big-time football and men’s basketball and the values/missions of higher education. Brand’s collegiate model mandates the maximum commercial exploitation of the two revenue-producing sports to fund “participation opportunities” for non-revenue sports and athletes that cannot pay for themselves. Brand argued this “massive redistribution of revenues” was consistent with the business model of higher education writ large. Lost in Brand’s explication of the collegiate model is that it requires the massive diversion of wealth created by black athletes to a range of white—and comparatively well-off—beneficiaries. This episode analyzes Brand’s theory as presented in his 2006 speech, including a stunning “CONFIDENTIAL” cover memo for a draft that provides a window into the NCAA’s true motives in mandating the maximum commercial exploitation of revenue-producing sports and athletes. This conceptualization of the big-time college sports business model was on full display at the September 30, 2021, hearing in the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce.