NCAA Investigation

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Whoa, Chuck Person, that looks serious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/sports/ncaa-adidas-bribery.html

[thedoper]

Whoa, Chuck Person, that looks serious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/sports/ncaa-adidas-bribery.html

The funny part of that article is how shocked and appalled everyone in these organizations are.

[Monster]

This seems like a pretty big deal. It's not shocking at all to me except the Feds are in on this so some real stuff will likely happen to some of the offenders. It's sad how some of these athletes have gottened screwed out of some money by these shady guys and basically nothing was done to prevent more stuff from happening.

[thedoper]

This seems like a pretty big deal. It's not shocking at all to me except the Feds are in on this so some real stuff will likely happen to some of the offenders. It's sad how some of these athletes have gottened screwed out of some money by these shady guys and basically nothing was done to prevent more stuff from happening.

It all goes back to these companies who I guarantee are going to get off scott free on all of this. They are allowed to bribe the shit out of these kids and have a variety of fall guys and they stay apalled that this is happening. The FBI should be putting Addidas on warning with this.

[Monster]

This seems like a pretty big deal. It's not shocking at all to me except the Feds are in on this so some real stuff will likely happen to some of the offenders. It's sad how some of these athletes have gottened screwed out of some money by these shady guys and basically nothing was done to prevent more stuff from happening.

It all goes back to these companies who I guarantee are going to get off scott free on all of this. They are allowed to bribe the shit out of these kids and have a variety of fall guys and they stay apalled that this is happening. The FBI should be putting Addidas on warning with this.

Like the Dunc'd On guys said in their last podcast there is too much money and opportunity that to take advantage of it is a crime and so it simple creates a black market. They said it's simple economics. They also thought that people are probably not that interested in making any significant changes because nobody is really that interested in changing the status quo.

The other thing is that the shoe companies both good and bad have done a lot to further the game by putting a lot of money (legally) into various camps etc. Will anything significant change? I doubt it but some people are gonna take the hit. And who will probably get hurt the most? As usual some of the athletes caught up in all this some of which who didn't do anything wrong.

[Lipoli390]

Doesn't the FBI have more important things to deal with?

I'm probably alone in thinking this investigation is a colossal waste of law enforcement resources. We have an opioid epidemic, escalating violence in many inner cities and terrorists around world as well as some foreign governments trying to kill us, disable our infrastructure through cyber attacks and who knows what else. The fact that money passes under the table to and from college coaches, shoe companies or agents to steer top amateur basketball players to one college or agent over another seems awfully trivial to me in the broader context and doesn't seem to merit a major, expensive, time-consuming investigation by our nation's top law enforcement agency.

This seems like an issue for the NCAA. Is the NCAA effectively handling the issue? I don't think so. Well, then the colleges who believe they're being hurt by these payments should push for better NCAA enforcement or reforms to better address the issue. In any event, I suspect that as long as there is so much money at stake in certain sports like basketball, we'll always have these sorts of under-the-table payments no matter what the NCAA does. That's unfortunate, but I think there are far more important things to worry about. And certainly there have to be much higher priorities for our Nation's top law enforcement agency.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Doesn't the FBI have more important things to deal with?

I'm probably alone in thinking this investigation is a colossal waste of law enforcement resources. We have an opioid epidemic, escalating violence in many inner cities and terrorists around world as well as some foreign governments trying to kill us, disable our infrastructure through cyber attacks and who knows what else. The fact that money passes under the table to and from college coaches, shoe companies or agents to steer top amateur basketball players to one college or agent over another seems awfully trivial to me in the broader context and doesn't seem to merit a major, expensive, time-consuming investigation by our nation's top law enforcement agency.

This seems like an issue for the NCAA. Is the NCAA effectively handling the issue? I don't think so. Well, then the colleges who believe they're being hurt by these payments should push for better NCAA enforcement or reforms to better address the issue. In any event, I suspect that as long as there is so much money at stake in certain sports like basketball, we'll always have these sorts of under-the-table payments no matter what the NCAA does. That's unfortunate, but I think there are far more important things to worry about. And certainly there have to be much higher priorities for our Nation's top law enforcement agency.

You're absolutely right there are more important issues out there, but the FBI has over 35,000 employees and I'm sure there are many more of them working on those issues you mentioned. The issue of money in college sports (I'd guess football is even worse than basketball) is a problem though and the NCAA has mostly looked away rather than really doing its job over the years. I hope this really sparks the NCAA to make some serious changes.

To me, I think the economics of college sports has to change somehow to make things more fair and avoid this sort of corruption. A lot of these players are getting screwed. A very small number go on to become professionals and make millions, so I don't feel sorry for them. But for football in particular, these kids are helping to make their schools piles and piles of money by putting their brains at serious risk and the rules don't allow them to financially benefit at all. The Northwestern football team's attempt to get labeled as employees so they could unionize and qualify for collective bargaining was a really interesting move, and I'm not sure what ever happened to that. But there's got to be some kind of solution here.

[Monster]

Lip I feel ok with the FBI using some resources to lock up some guys that are ripping off millions from pro athletes in addition to all this other stuff from guys that aren't pro athletes. The way it sounds was that they caught one guy (I'm not sure they were even really searching out this particular stuff) and decided why not nail a bunch of people. There was some dumb stuff that was going on and while pro athletes make a ton of money a number of them don't deserve to have their money swindled out from under them by people that are supposed to have their best interest in them.

Andy Miller is an agent that's wrapped up in this thing and people including Justin Patton have dropped him.

As far as I know Jalen Brown still represents himself.

[Lipoli390]

Lip I feel ok with the FBI using some resources to lock up some guys that are ripping off millions from pro athletes in addition to all this other stuff from guys that aren't pro athletes. The way it sounds was that they caught one guy (I'm not sure they were even really searching out this particular stuff) and decided why not nail a bunch of people. There was some dumb stuff that was going on and while pro athletes make a ton of money a number of them don't deserve to have their money swindled out from under them by people that are supposed to have their best interest in them.

Andy Miller is an agent that's wrapped up in this thing and people including Justin Patton have dropped him.

As far as I know Jalen Brown still represents himself.

Monster -- I didn't see anything in the story about ripping off pro athletes. The story appeared to be about under-the-table payments used by some coaches and agents to entice top prospects to sign with certain colleges and/or to enrich themselves by steering certain top college prospects to certain agents or shoe companies. If someone is stealing from anyone, pro athlete or otherwise, then I'm fine with using law enforcement resources to bring them to justice even though I'd put a higher priority on other injustices that are worse and often perpetrated on more vulnerable people.

[Lipoli390]

Doesn't the FBI have more important things to deal with?

I'm probably alone in thinking this investigation is a colossal waste of law enforcement resources. We have an opioid epidemic, escalating violence in many inner cities and terrorists around world as well as some foreign governments trying to kill us, disable our infrastructure through cyber attacks and who knows what else. The fact that money passes under the table to and from college coaches, shoe companies or agents to steer top amateur basketball players to one college or agent over another seems awfully trivial to me in the broader context and doesn't seem to merit a major, expensive, time-consuming investigation by our nation's top law enforcement agency.

This seems like an issue for the NCAA. Is the NCAA effectively handling the issue? I don't think so. Well, then the colleges who believe they're being hurt by these payments should push for better NCAA enforcement or reforms to better address the issue. In any event, I suspect that as long as there is so much money at stake in certain sports like basketball, we'll always have these sorts of under-the-table payments no matter what the NCAA does. That's unfortunate, but I think there are far more important things to worry about. And certainly there have to be much higher priorities for our Nation's top law enforcement agency.

You're absolutely right there are more important issues out there, but the FBI has over 35,000 employees and I'm sure there are many more of them working on those issues you mentioned. The issue of money in college sports (I'd guess football is even worse than basketball) is a problem though and the NCAA has mostly looked away rather than really doing its job over the years. I hope this really sparks the NCAA to make some serious changes.

To me, I think the economics of college sports has to change somehow to make things more fair and avoid this sort of corruption. A lot of these players are getting screwed. A very small number go on to become professionals and make millions, so I don't feel sorry for them. But for football in particular, these kids are helping to make their schools piles and piles of money by putting their brains at serious risk and the rules don't allow them to financially benefit at all. The Northwestern football team's attempt to get labeled as employees so they could unionize and qualify for collective bargaining was a really interesting move, and I'm not sure what ever happened to that. But there's got to be some kind of solution here.

Drew -- 35,000 employees clearly isn't enough to deal with the far more serious law problems in our society that require law enforcement resources. There are never enough resource and I just don't see any justification for spending one dime on a problem that colleges themselves have to address given the far more serious societal problems we face. I think you nailed it when you identified the distorted economics of college sports as the problem. It's up to colleges and universities to deal with this problem either through or outside the NCAA.