I’m not sure Congress is going to pass the NIL legislation introduced this morning by Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, I really have no idea. My guess at what has to happen from here for this legislation to become a law is that Senate leadership must decide to pursue it, the Senate must negotiate its way to an agreement on all points of the legislation, House leadership must decide to pursue it, the House must negotiate its way to its own agreement on all points, and then President Biden (or, depending on timing, whoever is president when the bill is voted through) must agree with it enough to sign it into law (or a veto-proof majority will need to exist, but that’s not really the point). I say all this to say: The initial obstacle for this bill is that it will need to convince Congressional leaders it is worth their time. However you feel about how congresspeople spend that time, it is a finite resource.
I also say all of this to indicate in what arenas the final version of this legislation will likely look different from its current form. I’m not an expert on our federal legislature, but my impression is that the health care and draft eligibility and scholarship guarantees and every other one of the bolded categories in Pete Thamel’s writeup of the legislation can be expected to be subject to negotiation. The overall structure of the proposed governing body in question—the “College Athletic Corporation”—seems unlikely to be negotiable. The CAC is the bones of the whole thing. The CAC is the answer to what college athletic departments have been asking Congress to do to even out the disparate NIL laws and approaches across states. Athletic departments said, “Do something,” and these three senators have said, “How about this?” and showed it to the country, and said, “We’ll call it the CAC.” If the CAC gets axed from the legislation, the rest of the proposal is not only likely gone but much less consequential. If the CAC gets axed from the legislation, the issue goes back to the drawing board.
At its core, your reaction to the CAC, a proposed “non-government-operated corporation” with subpoena power (that’s new, the NCAA doesn’t have that) should probably depend on how you feel about the effectiveness of the more apolitical government agencies out there, and on how you feel about the effectiveness of the NCAA. What these senators have proposed is, in its essence, a new NCAA to work alongside the existing NCAA, removing a chunk of what the NCAA used to do (the enforcement of professional/amateur status, most simply summarized) and giving it to a new body with more teeth. Its structure is unclear—the biggest immediate question I have regarding the proposal is who would lead the organization if the federal government isn’t operating it—but it probably looks something like either the Farm Credit Administration or, again, the NCAA (pick another bureaucracy if the FCA is more political than I realize). If you think an organization built like either of those would do a good job of governing collegiate eligibility, you should probably support the creation of the CAC. If you think such an organization would function better if created voluntarily by individual colleges or conferences, or if you think no such organization should exist, you should probably oppose the creation of the CAC.
Personally, I’m on board with an organization like the CAC existing. I’m very ok with a regulator of eligibility existing for college sports at the national level. I would prefer, though, that schools work with one another to create it themselves, voluntarily agreeing to play under the same rules. I’m wary of this proposed Congress-created agency just being another NCAA, and I’m wary of this proposed Congress-created agency being something the federal government kind of runs and kind of doesn’t. Neither of those designs sound like they would be as effective as such an organization needs to be to justify its own existence. This is not a matter where having something is better than nothing. The current “Wild West” is immensely preferable to a world with a poorly-run CAC, because at least in this “Wild West” nobody can point to the clowns in the corner and say, “Oh, it’s fine, they’re running it,” like we did for the last few decades with the struggling and stumbling NCAA. If college sports are to be a national entity, as they are, then sure, they could use someone to run them on the national level. Should that someone, however, be Congress? (Also, it’s not that wild of a Wild West. Decommitments are up, transfers are up, confusion and frustration about NIL are high, but college sports are still a big ol’ bucket of fun, and the competitive balance isn’t very different from what it’s always been.)
Two other thoughts on this, both very peripheral:
First, I’m curious what would happen here if a college didn’t want to play by these rules. In the current setup, schools can leave the NCAA. That’s an option. NAIA exists, and other, more competitive organizations theoretically could. If Congress is dictating the rules of college sports, though, what happens to NAIA schools? What happens to anyone who wants to play with a different setup? Would this legislation make it illegal for a group of schools to decide to leave the NCAA and pay players directly? Is that already illegal?
Second, with this initiative originating due to the discrepant nature of state laws on NIL, I’m curious if the proposed CAC could survive a Tenth Amendment legal challenge. Does the Constitution grant the power to regulate NIL payments in college sports to the federal government? It might! I am not a constitutional lawyer. I don’t know. Maybe it’s covered under interstate commerce or something. But it’s on the mind, and I’m curious. Mostly because I find that interesting, not because I think anyone would actually bring a Tenth Amendment challenge to this thing even SEC leaders are begging Congress to create.
The Mountain West Backed Down
If the Mountain West Conference made San Diego State work for it, they didn’t make them work for too long. The Aztecs are back in the league, and the only thing they’re having to pay is the conference’s legal fees from the back-and-forth. It’s a little anticlimactic, and it runs counter to the theory that the MWC had nothing to lose, but maybe it did have something to lose. Maybe there’s a world where the Pac-12 dissolves but the Mountain West gets strong enough on scraps to hold some national weight in a post-power conference era more like what we saw in the days of the Southwest Conference. It’s unlikely, but even a small possibility of that future might be worth a little friendliness for the MWC (also, they may have had few legitimate legal options, but that’s territory where, similarly to constitutional law, I know pretty much nothing).
The Kyle Hendricks Trade Possibility
I hadn’t thought about Kyle Hendricks as a trade possibility before Bleacher Nation brought it up yesterday, but yes, absolutely, he definitely is a trade possibility. Owed just a $1.5M buyout in 2024 (or a $16M team option) and sporting a 3.38/4.23/4.22 ERA/xERA/FIP across eleven starts and 64 innings of work, Kyle Hendricks could be a nice little pickup for a team looking to bolster the back end of its rotation. This makes me very, very sad. The Cubs didn’t draft Hendricks—he was acquired from the Rangers in 2012 in the Ryan Dempster deal—but he came up with the Cubs, and he’s now the longest-tenured player on the roster. Needless to say, he feels like one of our own. He is one of our own. His 2014 debut (six quality starts in a row from his second through his seventh outing) was incredible, an early hint at what a year 2015 would be for the Cubs as a franchise and for those of us following along at home. How in the world was 2014 so long ago?
Of course, if the Cubs are indeed out of contention next weekend, as expected, and if there’s a buyer for Hendricks, the Cubs should take that deal. He is not a good enough pitcher anymore to justify the $14.5M effective cost to retain him next year (though he’s close—if emotion carries the day, it’s not the worst time for it to do that). Take the value, this franchise needs all the value it can get. It’s a little heartening, too, that Hendricks is pitching well enough to make this a question after how rough so many of his outings were in 2022. Good for him. He made it back. But if the Cubs trade him, it will be sad.
My personal favorite Hendricks memory is his outing in Game 1 in Washington in 2017. Seven shutout innings, only five walks and hits combined, nothing hit for extra bases. There have been a lot of great outings in the history of the playoffs, but that was still one of them, and it was the first MLB playoff game I ever attended in person, making the trip to D.C. for Games 1 and 2. It’s a really special memory. So, if last night was one of his last with the Cubs, and if it was his last at Wrigley, it was nice—again, personally, I’m sure others have other special Kyle Hendricks memories—to have that little callback come with it.
If it was The Professor’s last start at Wrigley, he said goodbye with a strong lecture, bouncing back from two dinger-filled outings to shut down the Nats and get the Cubs to a spot where they could win the ballgame. It got dicey from there, but the Cubs won the series, and winning series is almost always all you can ask. Big four games here. Big, big, big four games. If the Brewers do keep running away (they won again today), at least the Cubs have a chance to hold the Cardinals down while they both drown.
One note on tonight’s matchup: Remember when a certain set of Cubs fans threw a temper tantrum when the Cubs failed to sign Steven Matz in 2021? Before we ended up with Marcus Stroman, I mean. Just putting that back out there.
R.I.P. Dedric Willoughby
Iowa State great Dedric Willoughby passed away yesterday at the age of 49. The leading scorer on the 1996 and 1997 teams, Willoughby was the Big Eight Tournament MVP in ’96 and scored 34 against UCLA in the ’97 Sweet Sixteen.
Willoughby played before my time, but from what I know he was an instrumental figure in the Tim Floyd era, helping that ’96 team overachieve so dramatically in Floyd’s second year and nearly earning the Cyclones what would have at the time been their first ever trip to the Elite Eight. I admittedly know very little about his personal life, and as with any passing, especially one at such a young age, the life lost is bigger than what was done on the court. Prayers for him and those who love him, and condolences to the many who grieve.
In other Cyclone hoops news, the Big 12 announced home and away matchups for basketball today. The men’s team will play BYU, Houston, Kansas State, Oklahoma, and TCU both at home and on the road; visit Baylor, UCF, Cincinnati, and Texas; and host Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and West Virginia. The women’s team will play BYU, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia both at home and on the road; visit UCF, Houston, Texas, and Texas Tech; and host Baylor, Cincinnati, Oklahoma, and TCU.
Seems…pretty balanced? On the men’s side, the trips to Houston, Texas, TCU, and Baylor are the toughest games on paper, with the best opportunities for wins coming at home against Oklahoma, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, and BYU. The road game at UCF should be winnable as well. If the necessary conference record to make the tournament for Iowa State is 9–9, then (which is on the upper end of what it could be), you could think of five games as ones where the Cyclones need to take care of business, four games as very unlikely victories, and the remaining nine as the tossups. Win even four of those and do enough on each side of the big-spread games to balance the other out, and Iowa State should be dancing if that’s paired with the median nonconference scenario.
On the women’s side, I count four clear should–win and four clear should–lose games, so with the Big 12 not enjoying the same outrageous strength it does in men’s hoops, we’re maybe looking at needing a 6–4 or 7–3 mark in the tossups. The schedule doesn’t change that.
