Chicago —
Tony Petitti chuckled at the question, clearly amused at its bluntness if not the essence of the query. “I was wondering, Tony,’’ the reporter asked the Big Ten commissioner at his annual football media day, “is it a little bit sad that y’all have had to turn college athletics over to the federal government to save you from yourselves?”
Created to bring order to the chaos of college sports, the reality is the Protect College Sports Act was born because the people in charge had cannibalized themselves into near financial extinction.
Preferring the ostrich approach to name, image, and likeness, the NCAA and its membership were overrun when the courts forced the end of its long-standing amateurism rules, losing its collective shirt in 2021 when the Supreme Court ruled that schools could not collude to limit NIL earnings for athletes.
A year ago, the final accelerant was added to the bonfire of unrestrained spending when the House vs. NCAA settlement led to a massive wealth transfer from schools to athletes.
