The NCAA had a hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday. I haven’t gone to the trouble of figuring out what exactly the case is about. I consumed the news through Twitter, which is full of people who (understandably) hate the NCAA, so I mostly just read the passages where the NCAA got roasted by old people wearing robes, and now that I read that over again, let me clarify that they were big robes, not bathrobes. This wasn’t a gathering of UGA shadow donors at the Lake Oconee Ritz Carlton. My impression, based on this method of consumption, is that it went terribly for the NCAA, and that the NCAA as we know it will be no more. This is, again, probably a flawed impression, akin to reading a 2016 American presidential debate recap written by Russian state media, consuming nothing else about it, and forming a strong opinion nonetheless. But here we are. The NCAA is on its way out.
What does this mean for the NIT? Let’s ignore the inconvenient fact that the NCAA runs the NIT for a minute (brutal way to tell any of you this who don’t know—apologies if this is a stunner, there was a big lawsuit fifteen or twenty years ago about the NCAA banning certain teams from playing in the NIT and I think it got settled out of court and the end result was that the NCAA now owns and operates the NIT). Or actually, let’s include that. We’re making all of this up. We won’t remember what we said months from now when the decision comes down. What we said won’t matter. We’re hyping up NIT fans here. But only temporarily. That’s how things work with the Supreme Court, and with the NCAA: You get all fired up and whatever happens is much more moderate than you expected. This is a rule of existence, and is why the two are a perfect match. (There was definitely institutional romantic tension between the two yesterday, with one definitely whispering to the other, Can you believe those liberals want to change us?)
Here’s what I expect to happen, based on nothing but a handful of tweets and my imagination:
The Supreme Court is going to rule that the NIT be set free from the NCAA’s grasp, and that the NIT can pay players as a marketing entity under name/image/likeness rules. College basketball teams, wanting the recruiting benefits that come from players having routes to getting paid, will not only be allowed to opt into the NIT instead of the other tournament, but will also actively choose to do that, since the NIT can pay their players and they want their players to get paid.
In other words, the judicial branch of the federal government is about to free the NIT from the NCAA’s tyrannic rule. And by extension, free the rest of us as well.
Liberté.
Égalité.
Énité.
