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00:00Jared Sandler's coming up in about 15 minutes or so to preview Game 2 Rangers-Cardinals.
00:05The pregame coming up at 6 o'clock.
00:07Ari Temkin, Big 12 Radio, joins us now here on The Fan.
00:10Good afternoon, Ari. How the heck are you?
00:13I'm great, General. How are you, buddy?
00:15We're doing awesome here, man.
00:17You know, it's exciting to see all this sports news happening
00:22and the Texas Tech softball team and the Longhorn softball team and the Collision Corps.
00:25So hopefully you got some thoughts on that for us.
00:27But obviously the top story, Brandon Soresby and the trial there.
00:32When do you anticipate we're going to get a court decision on this?
00:37Yeah, I think it'll come down fairly quickly.
00:42Some of the indications I've seen have been within the week.
00:45There have certainly been some from the lawyer's side, things that the judge has to go over.
00:54But it's probably not as cut and dry as I think people anticipate it to be
00:58because you hear scambling, you hear gambling on his own team,
01:01and you think, oh, this will be pretty easy.
01:03But I think what the judge here is deciding is sort of between two different things,
01:07which is one, you know, does the NCAA, which has been ruled a monopoly by the Supreme Court,
01:12have the ability to create rules to govern the sport?
01:16And if not, then they can't do that.
01:18So therefore this rule is no and void and the injunction will be granted.
01:22The other one is, is this one of those things that sort of transcends that rule?
01:26And in sports we have to protect the integrity of sports,
01:29and therefore because of that the injunction will not be granted regardless of the validity of the rule itself.
01:34So it's possible the judge could decide it's not constitutional for you to block players from betting on their own
01:41team?
01:44The way you put it there, yeah, absolutely.
01:47Absolutely. And it really goes to the core of the NCAA's argument that it cannot enforce any of its rules
01:56because the Supreme Court said that it's a monopoly.
01:58And that's really what Jeffrey Kessler and many other lawyers have been after over the last few years
02:03since the Supreme Court made that decision, was continuing to strike down, you know,
02:07any sanctions or rules that they put in place.
02:09And so far, you know, most of the courts have handed the NCAA a bunch of L's
02:14when it comes to any of these sorts of rules that they're trying to enforce.
02:18And that's been their biggest issue.
02:20It's the reason they're, you know, lobbying as much as they have with Congress
02:24in order to get something passed that will give them some sort of power in order to, you know,
02:29put these rules together.
02:30It is sort of ironic in a sense too, Gavin, from the standpoint of the SEC and the Big Ten
02:34have already come out with this college sports commission, a different rule,
02:38and basically said, hey, even though we've established this college sports commission,
02:42which is going to oversee NIL, we don't agree or abide by these things,
02:45and we're not going to participate in these rules.
02:47So right now, rules are, with the NCAA, extremely fluid.
02:52Wow.
02:53So you think that there's still a good chance here that he plays this year for Tech?
02:58Yeah, no, I think he will.
03:00I absolutely think he will.
03:02And as we've done our kind of off-season previews over the last few weeks,
03:06I'm including Brennan Sorsby as if he's going to play for Texas Tech.
03:09And I understand, like, how that makes people feel.
03:12And if an injunction is granted, I know that there's going to be just a firestorm of media around it.
03:17And I'm sure a lot of it will center on this homerism in Lubbock County Court.
03:23Now, again, if the NCAA appeals this, it goes to a circuit court in Texas,
03:27which is overseen by four different Texas Tech alumni.
03:30So it goes deeper than that.
03:32But to me, it just boils down to these two sides, guys.
03:36It's on one side you have the NCAA's ability to enforce rules
03:40and the continued court system across the country saying you do not have the ability to do that.
03:46And that's where the injunction would come in hand.
03:48Or the other side of that, again, which is transcending all of this,
03:52is just the importance of, you know, the integrity of our sports.
03:56And this is the way the NCAA laid it out.
03:58Basically, if this injunction is granted, this would be the first time in American Pro Sports
04:02that somebody's been able to bet on the league they're playing in and continue to play in said league.
04:09What do you estimate the chances are, Ari Timken, Big 12 Radio,
04:13that you're wrong believing Sorsby will be eligible?
04:18I mean, I'd say it's probably 50-50, but I'm not a lawyer.
04:22Sometimes I occasionally try to play one on the radio.
04:24You know, I think, so to me, General, it comes down to, you know,
04:29Brennan Sorsby didn't hire Jeffrey Kessler as much as Jeffrey Kessler hired Brennan Sorsby.
04:33And I think he saw this opportunity to continually strike down, you know,
04:37these antitrust laws, sorry, these laws, the rules the NCAA is making through antitrust means.
04:44So, yeah, I mean, again, I think, like, most of the discourse I've heard nationally on this
04:48is nobody really wants him to play.
04:49I think it seems pretty cut and dried in terms of just how, like, we as a society view this
04:54sort of thing.
04:55And, like, you bet on your own sport, you bet on your own team, you can't play anymore.
04:59And, you know, so I imagine if this injunction is granted, it's going to create quite the storm and the
05:05stir.
05:05And if he plays in games, like, he's going to be enemy number one.
05:09And in many ways, Texas Tech has embraced that.
05:12It's happened in softball to them.
05:13And it's going to happen in football, the way in which they're, you know, really, you know,
05:17ruffling some feathers in recruiting.
05:19But, no, you know, in terms of am I likely to be wrong, I guess, of course, I'd throw a
05:2650-50 shot there.
05:27But I think it's, again, pretty cut and dried in terms of, you know,
05:31the NCAA doesn't have the ability to enforce its own rules because it was viewed as monopoly.
05:35And this is one of those rules.
05:37I love it.
05:37Ari Temkin here with you on the fan.
05:39And so how is this different from MLB's antitrust exemption that allows it to operate as a legal monopoly?
05:47Right.
05:48And NBA or NFL, the big difference is there is the collective bargaining agreement.
05:52And that is what many people have been calling for.
05:54To me, it's the only fix towards establishing rules and guidelines that both sides have to follow.
05:59And that is the way that all pro sports get out of being a monopoly is the collective bargaining agreement.
06:05And so what you have is on one side, the entire enforcement arm coming up with these rules.
06:10And even now, like today, as they meet with Congress and try to get all these bills passed through Congress
06:15and their lobbying efforts,
06:17they're not even including the dialogue with, you know, with student-athletes in on this stuff.
06:22So, like, they continually miss the boat here in terms of trying to figure out a common ground.
06:27And that's what led to all these lawsuits and all these losses.
06:30And, you know, look, I think collective bargaining would be extremely messy.
06:33It would not be easy.
06:34I think it would not benefit the players.
06:36I think this current situation benefits the players far more than a collective bargaining situation would.
06:41But the reality of the situation, guys, is there have been 40 bills that have been raised and written in
06:47either the House of Representatives or Congress.
06:49And none of those bills have gotten out of committee hearings.
06:52So, like, all these millions of dollars that have been spent by the NCAA on lobbying efforts, you know, everything,
06:59all the time they've spent lobbying Congress, all these bills that have been written and ballyhooed, none of them have
07:04made it out of committee guys, let alone made it to the floor to be voted on.
07:08So, there's very little progress being made.
07:11And, you know, again, as a monopoly, as viewed as a monopoly from the Supreme Court, they've got to figure
07:17out a way to collectively bargain rules.
07:19And I think, ultimately, that's what they're going to have to settle on.
07:21But it's going to take some time because they just do not want to view athletes as employees.
07:26And I get it, but it's probably the only way to create a salary cap, to create rules that will
07:31govern the sport and, you know, create a little bit of, you know, a little bit less of the confusion
07:37that's going on right now in college sports.
07:39Because it, in many ways, is a disaster.
07:42Hey, Ari, this is your stupid question of the day for me.
07:46What's up, Rodis?
07:47Yeah.
07:47I'm not going to ask you about, you know, what we're going on here, what we're talking about with the...
07:53Soarsby.
07:54Yeah, exactly.
07:55I'm not going to ask about the identity.
07:56That's a lot, Brian.
07:56Yeah, the identity.
07:57I'm not going to ask about the identity of tech right now or their softball team.
08:01But, listen, they keep talking about a commissioner.
08:06They keep talking about a Nick Saban.
08:09How close are we to this?
08:11Is that something that could help?
08:13Could it make things a little bit more stable as opposed to what we're going through right now?
08:22You know, I would say the short answer would be no.
08:25And the reason for that is because, you know, you've got Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC, and you've
08:31got Tony Petiti, the commissioner of the Big Ten,
08:32and you've got all these commissioners, and those two in particular are the ones in power.
08:37And they talk about wanting to do it to the best interest of the sport.
08:41They talk about wanting to do it to the best interest of college athletics, but they don't.
08:46They want it in their own best self-interest.
08:48And it's hard to argue against that because they're all, as commissioners of these leagues and stewards of those leagues,
08:53looking out for the leagues themselves and their own viability and survivability.
08:58And so, like, the latest thing we talked about with this college sports commission, right?
09:03So millions of dollars were spent to establish this college sports commission and this, you know,
09:09essentially algorithm that deals are plugged into, and then they, through the algorithm, decide the legitimacy of those deals,
09:17meaning they're paying X for Y action, and are they actually doing it, and is this an actual viable deal?
09:24Well, many of these schools, particularly Broadus and the SEC, promised money against NIL deals that they then co-wrote,
09:34or underwrote, I should say, with the Learfield Sports, with the Playfly, you know, with essentially their media partners.
09:42And what the college sports commission has said is that is not a viable NIL deal.
09:48And so you have a bunch of SEC schools that have promised all these dollars to these players that will
09:54be funded through Playfly or Learfield
09:57that are no longer, based on the CSC, going to be able to be funded.
10:01So this is a long way to say that now the SEC has come out and say, well, we may
10:06leave this,
10:07not even, you know, ascribe to the rules of the CSC and basically create our own rules,
10:12so that they have superseded any sort of goodwill rules that exist around, you know, around fair play to say,
10:21well, because this doesn't work for us, and even though we spent a bunch of money to establish this,
10:25and even though we've said we want to do this, we don't actually want to do it.
10:28And so I think, like, again, like, nobody really wants this.
10:32Everybody just wants to be able to use the money they have to put together the most lucrative teams
10:37and, you know, and make money and obviously win championships.
10:41And so, you know, again, it sounds great for Nick Saban or somebody to be a commissioner.
10:46I think it all starts with collective bargaining, and then at some point you have to put together kind of
10:50a system in place
10:51that's sustainable for a playoff, and then you probably get to a commissioner at that point in time.
10:56But to me, it's sort of the commissioner is, in a sense, sort of the last hire because it's all
11:00backwards.
11:01And, again, as much as they might say it publicly, none of them actually want rules.
11:05They only want other people to have rules.
11:08Yeah.
11:08Well, what about last week when we saw with Kirby Smart talking about Georgia will take their ball and go
11:13somewhere else?
11:14Is he just being Kirby Smart?
11:16What's going on with our teams really believe in that, that they can go out on their own and be
11:21Notre Dame-like or BYU-like?
11:23I know BYU is now in the Big 12, but BYU wasn't independent for a bit.
11:27Yeah, I think a lot of SEC schools were playing into the Sankey comments about, again, not wanting to play
11:36ball through this College Sports Commission bylaws.
11:40So it started there, basically, with Sankey coming out and being like, oh, yeah, we can create our own league,
11:45and we'll create our own system and our own rules, and we'll govern ourselves.
11:51And, I mean, basically, that is what the Supreme Court said the conferences had to do, that together as an
11:58NCAA, all these conferences are a monopoly.
12:00But individually, if they create rules and govern themselves, that is not a monopoly.
12:04And so I think they're sort of using that as leverage to try to get what they want.
12:09In terms of Georgia, I mean, yeah, sure, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, like there's certainly some brands in college sports
12:16that could go independent and, you know, make more money than they're making right now.
12:19I mean, think about it from Notre Dame's perspective, that you might look at their TV money and think it
12:24pales in comparison to the SEC and the Big Ten, and it does on spec.
12:27But when Notre Dame makes the playoffs, they get money for every round they advance the playoffs, like they did
12:32a couple of years ago when they played the national championship game.
12:34And they don't have to share any of that money with the rest of the conference as the SEC does,
12:39the Big Ten does.
12:39So, ultimately, they have much more upside.
12:42So, yeah, I could absolutely see a Georgia or a Texas or an Ohio State or a Michigan, you know,
12:48quote-unquote, taking their ball and going home and, you know, creating their independent league conference, independent league schedule, and
12:57playing that and doing fine.
12:59But there are few and far between brands that can actually do that and thrive in that world.
13:04Ari Temkin, Big 12 Radio.
13:06Terrific report, man.
13:07We'll catch up with you soon, and have a great week.
13:10Take care, guys.
13:10Be well.
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