Duke pay to play???

[Capt. Tuttle]

Exactamente. I don't agree with those who make the "bite the hand that feeds you" argument. after the Supreme Court decisions in the 80s that gave the schools control over their TV rights, the only source of revenue for the NCAA in India-noplace became the TV rights to their championships. D-1A football is a non-championship sport. The NCAA gets a grand total of $0.00 from the regular season and the bowls. They whacked USC-w hard over Reggie Bush. That had zero effect on their revenue stream.

In basketball, the CBS contract is the moneymaker. The contract specifies exactly how much the NCAA will receive in a given year regardless of who is or isn't in the tournament for whatever reason. If dook plays in the tournament they get $X. If dook doesn't play because the VLF's back has fallen apart again and they have another losing record, they get the same $X. If dook doesn't play because they finally got caught and are on probation, India-noplace gets (you guessed it) the same $X. The contract runs through, IIRC, 2024.

There's no financial incentive for them to look the other way. Plus, if they whack a blue blood in a sport, the other schools that don't cheat feel the playing field has been made a little more level.

Yes there is. Come down too hard on blue bloods, and they will bolt and set up a separate athletic organization.
If the top 60 schools left the NCAA, it would go broke.

 

[Hoo's That]

Yes there is. Come down too hard on blue bloods, and they will bolt and set up a separate athletic organization.
If the top 60 schools left the NCAA, it would go broke.

I have to disagree. I find it hard to believe that Stanford would vote to leave the NCAA because they clamped down on USC-w or Arizona. I find it hard to believe that Iowa State would vote to leave because they came down on Kansas. The list goes on and on. The blue bloods are outnumbered in their conferences by the non-blue bloods. I can't speak for how SU would vote, but I'm 99.99% sure that UVa would not vote to leave the NCAA because dook, Clemson, or UNC-CHeat got caught and put on "no post season" probation.

 

[orange79]

Yes there is. Come down too hard on blue bloods, and they will bolt and set up a separate athletic organization.
If the top 60 schools left the NCAA, it would go broke.

People keep saying this will happen. And it has not happened.

It would be prohibitively expensive and complicated for schools to do this. The "NCAA" is the schools. They would need to recreate the entire governance structure. Impossible? No. Unlikely? Most certainly.

 

[JKinPhilly]

People keep saying this will happen. And it has not happened.

It would be prohibitively expensive and complicated for schools to do this. The "NCAA" is the schools. They would need to recreate the entire governance structure. Impossible? No. Unlikely? Most certainly.

Or just do away with any governance. Why bother to set it up if it's completely useless?

 

[orange79]

Or just do away with any governance. Why bother to set it up if it's completely useless?

A bunch of academics with no governance? Not likely.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I have to disagree. I find it hard to believe that Stanford would vote to leave the NCAA because they clamped down on USC-w or Arizona. I find it hard to believe that Iowa State would vote to leave because they came down on Kansas. The list goes on and on. The blue bloods are outnumbered in their conferences by the non-blue bloods. I can't speak for how SU would vote, but I'm 99.99% sure that UVa would not vote to leave the NCAA because dook, Clemson, or UNC-CHeat got caught and put on "no post season" probation.

If Kansas, Duke UNC Kentucky etc, left, no one would watch the tournament,.and the money would dry up

 

[Hoo's That]

If Kansas, Duke UNC Kentucky etc, left, no one would watch the tournament,.and the money would dry up

The question is, how many would leave? dook is about to experience a great bring-down when K leaves. The next coach is not going to get the leeway that he has. I don't think the dook academic leadership would let them leave the NCAA just because they got caught and put on probation. They would probably try to sue and get money from K, if he's retired, and fire him if he's still there. How much do the blue bloods actually move the viewership needle and how much will be there anyway? I'm not saying they don't move the needle at all,; I'm saying they don't move it as much as people want to think they do. How many people outside of their fanbase tune in specifically to watch {fill in name of blue blood here} and how many tune in to watch the tournament. Using the blueblood theory, this year's Final should have had just about no one watching instead of roughly being in the neighborhood of previous ones. on CBS (11.6 vs. low 12s for other recent CBS Finals).

 

[maxxyz]

I have to disagree. I find it hard to believe that Stanford would vote to leave the NCAA because they clamped down on USC-w or Arizona. I find it hard to believe that Iowa State would vote to leave because they came down on Kansas. The list goes on and on. The blue bloods are outnumbered in their conferences by the non-blue bloods. I can't speak for how SU would vote, but I'm 99.99% sure that UVa would not vote to leave the NCAA because dook, Clemson, or UNC-CHeat got caught and put on "no post season" probation.

Good points, but I wonder if the hubris of the blue blood schools makes them think that all the other schools will have to follow if they broke away.

I’m sure that there is a thought process to justify how they would be better off with a 16 team super conference. Maybe they would be.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Of course they can self-initiate. But where should they start? What "probable cause" (PC) do they have to get wiretaps on people that work for and the schools connected to Nike? The wiretaps that gave the treasure trove of evidence of violations were originally on a financial fraudster that they were pursuing and the people connected to Adidas started calling him and to talk about the under the table payments. That's how the Adidas case dropped into their laps. Once people started talking to the fraudster, it now allowed the FBI to expand the number of wiretaps because they now had PC to go after those people for "defrauding an institution that receives Federal funds" (the usual Federal funds used as the basis are Pell Grants and research money).

There's a line in the book Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith that's meant to be derogatory about the FBI, but it's still true. It's something along the line of, "They can't do anything without their informants." If someone in the Nike chain gets caught for something else and decides to cooperate with the Bureau to get a break on sentencing, that could give them the PC to go after wiretaps, etc., against dook, Can't-tucky, UNC-CHeat, and the others everyone "knows" are cheating.

I wasn't suggesting anything as drastic or intrusive as wiretaps. I'm asking about simple interviews. Which, if it's a crime to lie to the FBI, then the interviews would serve as a threat to perjury charges later—at any point in the future—if/when corroborative evidence is discovered. But, as mentioned above, i guess it's not a crime simply to pay athletes. My hope, though, was that paying athletes violates rules that govern athletes, and so it constitutes fraud.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Crimes without victims?

Why aren't you seeing "victims?" How are you defining that word?
There's a lot of money in play here, for schools, advertisers, alums, ticket buyers, fans, merchandisers. When the supposedly amateur players are steered to certain schools, it alters the competitive balance and contrives an economy that should not be designed by these megacorps. The 'victims' are every fan that wants/expects a fair and level playing field.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

So we have Michael Avenatti and Gilbert Arenas. I mean who wouldn't believe these two guys. I'm sure there have been 2 worse character witnesses at some point in recent memory.

You should read this article about Arenas, before you make up your mind about him:

Gilbert Arenas Has No Chill

Seven years after his star-crossed NBA career ended, Agent Zero is a BIG3 "rookie" ready to talk about anything, for better or worse.

bleacherreport.com

 

[Hoo's That]

I wasn't suggesting anything as drastic or intrusive as wiretaps. I'm asking about simple interviews. Which, if it's a crime to lie to the FBI, then the interviews would serve as a threat to perjury charges later—at any point in the future—if/when corroborative evidence is discovered. But, as mentioned above, i guess it's not a crime simply to pay athletes. My hope, though, was that paying athletes violates rules that govern athletes, and so it constitutes fraud.

Paying athletes is against the NCAA's rules not Federal law. I'm not 100% sure how they got to "defrauding an institution getting Federal funds" in the Adidas case. The big thing is that the fraud, etc., has to cross a state line to be something the FBI would handle. If someone in Texas gives a bag of cash to a football player from Texas to go to a Texas school, the FBI can't get involved because no state line was crossed, or a phone wasn't used for more than just "meet me under the bleachers at your HS at 9 PM."

IRT interviews, what would be the legal basis for calling in the VLF, Calipari, a cheating football coach, etc., for an interview? Plus, as seen on TV, once they say the magic word "lawyer", the interview is over.

 

[Sherman20]

All true and the other point is that payments to recruits/players is only mildly interesting as a crime, which is the FBIs province. They really have to stretch to fit it into the definition of criminal conduct that they should be expending resources on.

It fits squarely into the definition of NCAA rules violation. Unfortunately, the NCAA doesn't have the invetigatory tools available to it that the FBI does. And some would argue it doesn't have the motivation to conduct the investigation even if it did have the tools...something about it being dumb to bite the hand that feeds you.

Nor does the NCAA have subpoena power. It really ties their hands.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I wasn't suggesting anything as drastic or intrusive as wiretaps. I'm asking about simple interviews. Which, if it's a crime to lie to the FBI, then the interviews would serve as a threat to perjury charges later—at any point in the future—if/when corroborative evidence is discovered. But, as mentioned above, i guess it's not a crime simply to pay athletes. My hope, though, was that paying athletes violates rules that govern athletes, and so it constitutes fraud.

Why should the FBI waste time with this? It needs to worry about it's own house and real crimes with actual victims.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

To my knowledge, NCAA never investigated the Duhon article.

10 reasons why Duke is hated: They are not as clean as you think (No. 4)

Is Duke really as "clean" a program as it is made out to be?

www.syracuse.com

 

[AZOrange]

So we have Michael Avenatti and Gilbert Arenas. I mean who wouldn't believe these two guys. I'm sure there have been 2 worse character witnesses at some point in recent memory.

Kato Kaelin and Al Cowlings?

 

[Cusefan0307]

If Kansas, Duke UNC Kentucky etc, left, no one would watch the tournament,.and the money would dry up

Nope. Gambling.

And what are the blue bloods going to do? Play each other only? People always worry about doomsday scenarios when it comes to this and paying players.

 

[Shark58]

1- the tourney money is set for a while, no matter what teams play. the next contract is years away.

2- any breakaway from the NCAA will only happen if there is more money at play for the teams involved.

 

[Shark58]

I have to disagree. I find it hard to believe that Stanford would vote to leave the NCAA because they clamped down on USC-w or Arizona. I find it hard to believe that Iowa State would vote to leave because they came down on Kansas. The list goes on and on. The blue bloods are outnumbered in their conferences by the non-blue bloods. I can't speak for how SU would vote, but I'm 99.99% sure that UVa would not vote to leave the NCAA because dook, Clemson, or UNC-CHeat got caught and put on "no post season" probation.

Assume the Cali 4 gets kicked out of the NCAA and there is a model for big money for schools that would make the jump, Dook, even if under penalty, prob wouldn't be one of the first to sign up.

if you are looking for a real potential hypothetical domino to make a big run from the NCAA happen, look to UT. If they can be an early player in any new alignment involving the big boys, and can figure a way to make a little more by being a first mover, I could see them running point. Other schools with big booster bases, and/or who (in a righteous world) would be looking at big infractions would have to listen. That includes LSU, Arizona and Kansas. With 5 PAC schools and Tx, prob with a little brother or two, and KU, that would cripple 2 of the current P5 and the whole system could collapse. I'm sure SEC schools and others like FSU would listen. If they ever got THEosu and Mich on board, almost anyone they wanted to would come running Schools with sweetheart NCAA relationships like ND, Dook and prob Bama will be a bit harder to convince. It would be a conference realignment tsunami bigger than ever before. The UVAs, Iowa Sts and SUs of the world will beg to be invited.

 

[SBU72]

There's nothing to see here. Duke University conducted a full, exhaustive, wall-to-wall, thorough and thorough-going, complete, in-depth, all-out, all-encompassing, all-inclusive, all-embracing, replete, extensive, intensive, meticulous, detailed, definitive, painstaking, sweeping and encyclopedic investigation and found no evidence of basketball players being paid. Case closed.

So they asked Coach K if he pays kids out of his wallet and he said no. Case closed!