https://twitter.com/SeanPaulCBB/status/1735130973430571417
Yay!
Just gimme da light
So did Louisville kick Koron Davis out by pretending that he is transferring? He was seen at the stand watching the game. I have no idea what the heck is going on there
while voluntarily choosing to associate may apply to the schools, it has no application to the student-athletes. They effectively have no/bad other options.
If I host a basketball game, am I required to let anyone play in it no matter what? What if I just want to play with my friends and not anyone else?
There needs to be some strong legal justification to violate free association. Everyone isn’t required to be 100% inclusive at all times for every scenario.
I think the only way you could legally justify this is if you just argue straight up that players are employees and playing CBB is a job, in which case the NCAA is a cartel and is engaging in illegal fixing of labor prices and thus should effectively cease to exist.
I think that argument is “correct” but there is no way to legally justify blowing up the transfer rule without just immediately speedrunning to professional sports. But I would guess that’s not the intention
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I think this is basically the whole thing.
“I think the message of all these developments is that this long battle to bring down the NCAA cartel is coming to a head,” he said. “And one way or another, whether it’s through us taking all these cases to trial and verdict, or settling them in advance, it seems increasingly likely (that) a fair system can be put in place for the athletes.”
I’m not exactly sure the motivation behind the specific cases but the overall intent of the legal effort (from a lot of the names you see on Twitter all the time) is to basically bring down the NCAA and rule everyone as employees.
The portal eligibility stuff just seems to be a way to get eager plaintiffs involved.
The overall motivation though is much much larger than RaeQuan Battle playing this year.
I think that’s the argument. I don’t think the free association thing applies here - obviously schools are not and will not be forced for to let anyone play. If Michigan wants to make someone sit out a year they are free to do so, but the entirety of college sports is not forced to observe that based upon the order of the NCAA.
Schools are the NCAA! The schools all agreed to have the NCAA make and enforce the rules.
The ruling is instead that the NCAA is illegal and isn’t allowed to make rules. Which is going to blow up a lot.
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Yeah if the intent is just “end the NCAA” then it makes more sense. Whatever summer after the case resolves is gonna be absolutely insane as the conferences try to generate a pro sports league on the fly
Right, that’s the amusing tension here!
I’m still trying to figure out this phenomena where the schools, in isolation, think all this sucks, but the body that is in theory the collective defends it.
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Obviously we all know that college athletes are exploited by the NCAA and essentially professionals without any professional benefits, regulations, control, etc. So on the one hand I don’t hate the idea of challenging the NCAA set up to enact change.
But here’s the issue - is someone actually going to start brainstorming a path forward? Or are we going to see the NCAA dig in and try to hold on to their archaic model? Because with NIL we saw no plan. No strategy. Just a fight until the end that resulted in chaos. Now here we are with free agency facing the same thing. If the NCAA leaders were smart they would get together with a think tank consultant and start planning for the future in a way that doesn’t destroy the sport.
These small stones being thrown so Battle can play and the NCAA can’t have any power over transfers are going to topple an empire if they aren’t careful.
They aren’t forced to, but the NCAA also can’t be forced to recognize the game as an NCAA basketball game.
Here’s my question… if the legal argument is that the NCAA is a cartel… Then why is the TRO only for the transfer rule and not other rules such as…. I don’t know, paying players?
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Yeah I think most people would argue that the structure of college athletics needs to change, and part of changing it is tearing down the existing framework. I’m not, as @AC1997 points out, optimistic however that this doesn’t just result in the eradication of a rule with no replacement, and essentially ushers in the Wild West. I mean, it almost certainly will for a brief amount of time.
If the organization had any foresight (LOL, I know) they’d try to institute some of these reforms before a court held a gun to their head.
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Well, that’s the direction here, right?
The BS behind this is that the NCAA is literally putting in reforms … Like the one-time transfer waiver… something that everyone agreed with because it allowed freedom of movement while also keeping some competitive balance.
Everyone agreed on the rules and now some people are pissed that the rules were followed so they went to grandstanding AG’s to try to sue the whole thing.
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I don’t think the NCAA is capable of being a pro sports league and also the main organizer for woman’s water polo. Any “next step” in college sports is gonna have to be its own thing negotiated outside the NCAA.
I guess the answer is probably just “they didn’t ask for it because the clients are getting paid by NIL anyway and only care about playing this year.”