Peter Goplerud

Attorney/Law Professor-- Sports Law and Higher Education Law

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@WinterSportsLaw @samcehrlich @KYHSHistory I tend to agree, but am heartened by the Lorient decision today in federal court in WVa. Much that is in that opinion is relevant to the arguments upcoming in the 10th Cir. in Wisne

[Mit Winter @WinterSportsLaw]

May or may not be notable that this Senator also happens to be leading the charge for a college sports bill.

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@EricJBlevins The amount of evidence we presented in Wisne is significantly greater than Blythe, Elad, etc. Court carefully considered it and compared it to NCAA evidence.

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@WinterSportsLaw @NickSchultz_7 But it’s not Pay for Play?!?!

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@samcehrlich @sabo21 All I can say is, has he read the bill?

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@MarcEdelman Goplerud opposed

[Dan Wolken @DanWolken]

Congrats to Kirk for being as full of sh** as any human being has ever been in a 90-second clip.

Nearly every word of this is completely disingenuous.

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

Oluchi Okananwa, the star guard for the University of Maryland basketball team, and I take your questions about the Protect College Sports Act and how it sets back players’ rights by decades.

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@marcisenberg @marcisenberg like many others touting the "virtues" of the bill, including sadly many on the Hill, I doubt he has read the bill, much less understand the implications and nuances in the bill that disadvantage athletes. The House must reject this #Trump bill.

[Mit Winter @WinterSportsLaw]

The PCSA’s core purpose is to allow the NCAA to go back to engaging in illegal cartel behavior w/o consequence.

Namely to price fix & suppress the college athlete labor market.

The rest of the bill is just throw-ins to appease various parties.

Important to remember this.

[Nigel Carter @NigelCarter_]

There’s something familiar about the Protect College Sports Act. For generations, everyone in college sports was allowed to maximize their value. The coaches, commissioners, conferences, universities and networks. Everyone except the athletes creating much of that value.

That was called “amateurism.” Pretty good business model when you think about it. The labor does the heavy lifting while everyone around it participates in the economics. That arrangement looks familiar. Who has disproportionately created the value in the sports driving this debate? Who has historically controlled the institutions and who was expected to simply be grateful for the opportunity? American history gives us enough context to connect the dots, but I’ll leave that alone for now.

Then athletes gained economic opportunity and autonomy, and suddenly we started hearing words like “chaos,” “unsustainable” and “competitive imbalance.” Funny how the market is in crisis only when the athletes are finally allowed to participate in it.

College sports has never been more popular or culturally relevant. Enormous audiences. Packed stadiums. Massive media contracts. Billions of dollars being generated. Yet somehow college sports is now in “crisis.” Truly difficult times for college sports I must say.

Of course, the solution is greater control over where athletes play, when they can move and how they can be compensated. Funny how the emergency only begins when the people generating the value gain some leverage over the people who have spent years extracting it.

So look beyond the word “Protect.” Who is being protected? Who keeps the authority? Who writes the rules? Most importantly, who is being asked to give up their leverage?

[Scott Schneider @EdLawDude]

More people need to call BS on this sanctimonious nonsense.

John Calipari has made well over $100 million coaching basketball and left three college head-coaching jobs for other opportunities. Two programs he coached had Final Four appearances vacated.

Now he’s backing PCSA to “save college sports.”

Here are my questions: What is he putting on the table? A salary cap? A pay cut? Limits on his own mobility?

Everybody loves shared sacrifice when their share is zero.

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@franfraschilla @franfraschilla Right re the non-revenue and Olympic sport athletes. But, saying pass it and make changes later overlooks how long it has taken for Congress to pass a horrible bill and how little Congress has done on anything lately. If passed, it will handcuff athletes for years

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

@mitchgilfillan Wisne is different from the others in that significant evidence was presented regarding market definition. The basis for each of the others losing has been a lack of market evidence. Will see if that matters to the 10th Circuit.

[Zach Braziller @NYPost_Brazille]

We get it. The coaches want the bill. Of course they do. It takes away power from players. Congress doing the NCAA’s bidding.

[Liz Shuler @LizShuler]

The #1 thing the Protect College Sports Act protects is the mighty NCAA. Athletes are the heart and soul of college sports, and this bill would disempower athletes and their right to join a union.

Tell the Senate: Stand with college athletes. Vote NO.
https://t.co/CvkgG2CwJC

[NAACP @NAACP]

Don’t believe the hype. The #ProtectCollegeSportsAct would make it harder for student-athletes to organize, bargain collectively, and fight for fair treatment. Real protection means empowering athletes, not silencing them. Powerful institutions don’t get to profit off the backs of Black athletes while keeping them quiet. Sharecropping is over.

[Mit Winter @WinterSportsLaw]

Might be a worthwhile goal.

But why did this only become something that needs federal intervention once athletes are being paid?

Spending in college athletics has been rising rapidly for decades, even when athlete pay was fixed at the value of a scholarship.

[Peter Goplerud @PeterGoplerud]

The PCSA presser focused on chaos due to rising costs. Those are heavily due to new facilities and coach contracts--also the $2.8B settlement of an antitrust violation--none of those are the responsibility of college athletes.

[Dan Murphy @DanMurphyESPN]

"What we have right now is chaos. There are no rules," says Ted Cruz.

To make his point, he cited two very high-profile situations (LSU and Sorsby) where the college sports industry has successfully enforced its own rules this summer without any help from Congress.