Congressional Intervention

EXAMINE CURRENT SPORT BILLS BEFORE CONGRESS - Read an overview of the current sport-related bills before Congress.
UNITED STATES CONGRESS – COLLEGE ATHLETICS AND OLYMPIC SPORTS BILLS (Updated as of February 1, 2022) - The following listing of bills filed during the 116th (2019-20) and 117th (2021-2022) sessions of Congress represent the most likely bills to be considered during the 117th Congress. We anticipate that the 116th Congress bills listed are those most likely to be refiled in 2022 prior to the end of the session. SEE BILLS HERE
The NCAA Is Playing The Ball In The Wrong Court - The Drake Group President-Elect Andrew Zimbalist and Drake Board of Directors member Julie Sommer wield a mighty pen with a timely critique of the NCAA’s efforts in the courts to protect its profits – revenues derived from the labor of talented, hard-working—and disproportionately Black—college athletes, especially those playing in the women’s and men’s Final Four […]
The Drake Group Strongly Supports “College Athletes Bill of Rights” Introduced in the 117th Congress - On August 3, 2022, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Brian Schatz, Ron Wyden, and Alex Padilla re-introduced the “College Athletes Bill of Rights” legislation aimed at advancing justice and opportunity for college athletes. “The College Athletes Bill of Rights bill is long overdue and extremely important,” said Andrew Zimbalist, President of The Drake Group. “It protects college athletes’ rights […]
Drake Group Calls for Congress to Enact College Athlete Protections: A Legislative Proposal - On August 3, 2020, U.S. Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Christopher Murphy, Kirsten Gillibrand, Ron Wyden, Mazie Hirono, and Kamala Harris issued a “College Athletes Bill of Rights” statement that sought to advance justice and opportunity for college athletes and promised future legislation to realize their position. On August 13, they were joined by Senators […]
Reflections, 2016-21: A Sequel to an Odyssey of Reform Initiatives, 1986-2015. - Reflections, 2016-21: A Sequel to an Odyssey of Reform Initiatives, 1986-2015. Dr. Frank Splitt, Longtime Drake Group Member and Recipient of the Robert Maynard Hutchins Award has posted a sequel to his 1986-2015 Odyssey of Reform Initiatives. A prolific and nationally respected voice advocating for intercollegiate athletics reform, this new collection of writings continues to […]
Drake Group Urges NCAA Division I Presidents to Support the Establishment of a Presidential Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics - Listing eleven current conditions that threaten the financial stability of college athletics programs and the academic integrity of higher education institutions, The Drake Group issued a request to NCAA Division I college and university presidents and chancellors to support H.R. 2731 (a bi-partisan bill currently before Congress) that would mandate the appointment of a Presidential […]
Reclaiming Academic Primacy in Higher Education: The Revised IRS Form 990 Can Accelerate the Process - The revised Form 990, “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax,” filed by many public charities and other exempt organizations, has the potential to fully expose the Achilles’ Heel of the NCAA and its member institutions – the extremely weak, if any, educational basis for the current financial structure of big-time college sports. This would […]
Congress Granting a Conditional Limited Antitrust Exemption to the NCAA and Its Member Institutions - Absent an antitrust exemption, which only the Congress can provide, the NCAA will continue to be the target of antitrust lawsuits whenever it tries to implement educationally defensible reforms that have commercial consequences.
Don’t Reform NCAA – Replace It - By Dr. Donna Lopiano and Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published September 11, 2014 Three weeks after a trial over the NCAA’s use of college athletes’ likenesses ended this summer, U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller’s Commerce Committee began hearings on the welfare of athletes and included testimony from NCAA President Mark Emmert. Amid the senators’ skepticism and […]
Establishment of a Congressional Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics Reform - The Drake Group urges Congress and the general public to understand the need for comprehensive federal reform legislation that goes beyond the current singular focus on college athlete name, image, and likeness rights or a slight nod to athlete health and protection. There is a clear need for an independent Congressional Commission that examines the […]
After Penn State Scandal, Congress Should Make NCAA put Students, Education First - In light of the scandal at Penn State, which reveals how big-time college sports often overwhelm the core values of higher education, Congress should closely examine whether the NCAA is running a not-for-profit enterprise or a commercial entertainment empire. Follow this link to read the Christian Science Monitor article
Collegiate Athletics Reform: A Call for Federal Intervention - The American public’s seemingly unbounded love of college sports entertainment at any cost can be readily exploited by skilled marketing professionals to the long-term detriment of the integrity and health of higher education in America. The incremental cost of such exploitation to build an ever bigger college sports entertainment enterprise amounts to the cost of […]
Collegiate Athletics Reform: Ever More Likely Up to the Courts - “Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires,” Obama said in his State of the Union address—no doubt unaware of tax subsidies for numerous millionaire coaches and NCAA cartel as well as conference officials. »Read more
Collegiate Athletics Reform: Trilogy III - It is my view that the probability of an academic body emerging to rein in the runaway college sports entertainment industry is extremely low. Academic officials will most likely avoid taking on the powerful NCAA cartel and their governing boards so will continue to deal with related problems by looking the other way—muddling through will […]
College Sports Reform: A View of the Likely End Game Via Four Related Commentaries - It’s Time to Expose the Big Lie Congress has been reluctant to strip the NCAA and its member universities of their tax-exempt status and so help limit the seemingly uncontrolled growth of professionalized big-time college sports entertainment. »Read more
An Open Letter to the President - The challenge before us is to get academics-over-athletics priorities re-established at America’s colleges and universities that are held captive to the NCAA’s commercial interests in its sports entertainment businesses. Such interests appear to be first and foremost to the NCAA, not the interests of college athletes and American taxpayers. Simply stated, the NCAA has a […]
Scoreboard, Baby Notwithstanding, Things Do Not Bode Well for College Sports Reform in Washington - The latter question is likely on the minds of the Drakes as well as other reform-minded organizations and individuals. Will Secretary Duncan provide the leadership to change America’s dysfunctional system of higher education the mission of which has been hijacked by the sports entertainment industry, or, will he continue to flag problems but only provide […]
On Reforming College Sports and Curbing Profligate Spending - The challenges to meaningful reform have indeed been great. The clarion calls to university presidents, trustees, administrators and faculties have fallen on mostly deaf ears. Faculties responded as best they could but the opposing constituencies are truly powerful; and the perceived monetary and psychic rewards for maintaining the status quo are considered too great to […]
Don’t Give Up on College Sports Reform - Big-time football and basketball will not likely change any time soon—witness current discussions as to whether athletes in these money sports deserve to be paid given the substantial funds the sponsoring universities derive from their athletic prowess. The best higher education can hope for is that eventually universities will cut loose their programs in football and […]
How About FIPSE Proposals for College Sports Reform? - Big-time college football and men’s basketball programs ought to be a target for future FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education) college sports reform proposals. These programs have become a cauldron of profligate spending and corruption driven by the college sports entertainment industry. They not only threaten the integrity and the preeminent global position […]
Time to Put Childish Things Aside - Why hasn’t Congress or college presidents and trustees demanded appropriate measures of transparency, accountability, and oversight into the operations of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and a refocus of attention and resources on academics rather than athletics? Why the difficulty? A major reason is there is simply so much money to be made by so […]
College Sports: National Priorities and Unplugged Loopholes - In early 2006, the book, College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA’s Amateur Myth, by Allen Sack and Ellen Staurowsky, was recommended to House Committee on Ways & Means staffers. Why? Because it provided a good sense of the magnitude and the ubiquitous nature of the NCAA cartel’s powerful legal and […]
Congress Grills Commissioners: A Need to Do More - Cheating in college athletics not only makes cheating in professional sports pale by comparison, but also has more serious long-term consequences. There needs to be more intense scrutiny re: the efficacy of the NCAA’s drug-testing program as well as a demand for more transparency and accountability in the operation of the NCAA and the athletic […]
Time for Accountability - There are striking parallels between the uncontrolled, greed-driven, anything-goes operations and excesses on Wall Street, with its misrepresentation of material assets in the form of disadvantaged financial instruments, and those in the NCAA’s college sports business, with its misrepresentation of material assets in the form of disadvantaged academic instruments — so-called student-athletes. In articles exploring […]
The U.S. Congress, Higher Education, and College Sports Reform: Signs of Progress, Truth, and Consequences - Almost all untenured faculty members are too busy working to get tenure and are not in a position to challenge administrative policy on intercollegiate athletics. In either case, faculty members who defend academic integrity can be considered subversive25—inviting intimidation and career-threatening retaliation by school administrations. Also, the fear of being ostracized looms large. »Read the […]
Cheating in College Sports Via Performance Enhancing Drugs and Academic Corruption - Those tied to the financial fortunes of the elite level sport colluded for years in the fiction that super-sized bodies are the natural result of good habits, healthy living, and hard training. Sadly, the same could be said of the NCAA and its member institutions about academic corruption and the likely widespread use of PEDs […]
More on Taxing the Sports Factory - The context within which college athletics functions is compromised academic integrity that enables out-of-control commercialization with its distracting influence on school officials, on America’s youth, and on the nation’s diminishing prospects as a leader in the 21st century’s global economy. All too often, secrecy, deceit, and deception, are hallmarks of the business of college-sports entertainment […]
A Revised IRS Form Can Serve as Occam’s Razor for the Core Problem in College Sports - The core problem of academic corruption in big-time college sports is directly related to institutional misbehavior. By this is meant that institutions of higher education have become masters of deception – scheming and cheating to field competitive, professional-level teams, especially in big-time (NCAA Div 1) football and men’s basketball. “The Gordian-knot-like dilemma in college sports […]
Don’t Overlook the Congress for Serious College Sports Reform - Federal tax policy will continue to force parents, students, and other American taxpayers to help foot the bill for multimillion-dollar salaries for coaches, ‘stadium wars,’ tax breaks for wealthy boosters, NFL and NBA minor league teams, and other artifacts of the big-time college sports arms race while the NCAA will work to effectively thwart any […]
Academic Corruption in Big-Time College Sports Demands Federal Intervention in Accreditation - Breaches of academic integrity exist at multiple levels in America’s higher education enterprise where integrity can be compromised by schools intent on winning at any cost. Rubber-stamp accreditation by weak, or, intimidated accreditation organizations make the breaching task a no-brainer for big-name schools. »Read more
The Congressional Challenge to the NCAA Cartel’s Tax-Exempt Status - The House Committee on Ways and Means needs to zero in on intercollegiate athletics. A hearing would expose the NCAA’s secretive ways to the light of day. Furthermore, a hearing would call attention to the need for corrective actions that stress transparency (with related academic disclosure), accountability, and oversight – »Read the full article
The U.S. Congress: New Hope for Constructive Engagement with the NCAA and Intercollegiate Athletics - Given the enormous broadcasting revenues at stake, the NCAA faces a conflict between its sometimes-contradictory roles as promoter and governor of intercollegiate athletics. Consequently, the NCAA cartel is incapable of reforming itself to stem the growth of commercialism. Worse yet, reform is impeded by greed, fanatic sports fans, a mostly apathetic public and inconsistent government […]
How About A Congressional Hearing on College Athletics? - After a century of ineffective efforts to reform college sports, there is a growing concern over out-of-control commercialization that is driven by the college-sports entertainment industry to further its financial interests – exploiting college sports and its participating athletes while limiting access to higher education by real students. Accounts of the problems and issues surrounding […]
How About A Congressional Hearing on College Athletics? - The NCAA’s use of the phony collegiate model and ’student-athlete’ term to defend their tax-exempt programs and modus operandi has served the NCAA well in the past, but at great cost to America’s institutions of higher education. This model and terminology have, to various degrees, spawned a culture of academic corruption in colleges and universities […]
The Student-Athlete: An NCAA False Claim - According to Walter Byers, who served as NCAA executive director from 1951 to 1987, the term ‘student-athlete’ was coined by the NCAA in the 1950s to counter the threat that its newly implemented play-for-pay, grant-in-aid athletic scholarship policy could result in NCAA athletes being considered paid employees by Workers Compensation Boards and the courts. The […]
How About a Quid Pro Quo for Athletes? - Scandals and multi million dollar coaching contracts make for attention-getting headlines and stories. However, the core of the issue surrounding the tax-exempt status of the NCAA cartel and so-called ’student-athletes,’ is this: lacking tangible and verifiable evidence, the government must presently take the word of school administrators that athletes are really students on track to […]
Reform in College Sports Requires Government Intervention - Over the years the NCAA cartel evolved a modus operandi that has proved to be eminently successful at expanding its commercial interests in the big-time college sports entertainment business while maintaining its tax-exempt status as an institution of higher education and thwarting significant reform. The latter has been accomplished by creating illusions of reform as […]
Questioning Tax Preferences for College Sports - Questioning the tax-exempt status of the NCAA — is considered to be a significant milestone on the path to reform in big-time college sports. This reform could lead to a reversal of the priorities seen on many of our big-time college campuses. Simply stated, these priorities are athletics-over-academics and Sports-over-STEMS, where STEMS stands for Science, […]
Kudos for Uncovering the Ruse - What’s the ruse? It’s the school’s admission, rostering, and – in many, if not most, cases — exploitation of highly talented, but educationally disadvantaged, athletes to build cash-generating, competitive (quasi-professional) teams for their college sports entertainment businesses. Many of these academically unprepared athletes must pretend to be students while having a full-time athletic job, […]

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