Justin Watkins

The persistent rush job should make reasonable people worried. The final text hasn't been circulated. This is a remarkably complicated piece of legislation. And the NCAA's letter asks the Senate to pass it "without delay." Not even read it. Pass it. This has become the pattern. Every consequential decision in college sports now arrives on someone else's deadline, with the text unavailable and the alternative framed as catastrophe. That would be worth questioning even if the NCAA had a record of getting things right. It doesn't. It has been proven wrong over and over again. Fought O'Bannon. Lost. Took Alston to the Supreme Court over $5,980 in academic awards. Lost 9-0. Refused to build an NIL framework for years. State legislatures did it instead. The NCAA's "interim policy" appeared on June 30, 2021, one day before those laws took effect, and said almost nothing. Then it tried to enforce the nothing, got enjoined in Tennessee v. NCAA, and signed a consent decree. Transfer restrictions: enjoined. Multi-year eligibility rules: Pavia, then a flood of cases. Employment status still live in Johnson. House, Hubbard, and Carter: roughly $2.8 billion. The enforcement record is no better. That is not a run of bad luck. That is an organization that has lost, settled, or reversed nearly every significant position it has taken in fifteen years and it is now asking Congress to make its authority permanent, on a schedule that prevents anyone from examining what that authority would be. Here is what I cannot get past. These are universities. Not one of them would approve a new degree program in 72 hours. Not one would let a faculty committee vote on a policy whose text hadn't been distributed. They run IRBs. They run faculty senates. They have entire accreditation regimes built on the premise that deliberation produces better decisions than speed does. They fail students for citing sources they didn't read. And they just endorsed federal legislation, sight unseen, on a deadline someone else set. This may be the greatest legislation in college athletics history. I'm skeptical. In any event, take the time to read the text.