As court rulings across the country whittled away the NCAA\u2019s power and rulebook, gambling was a red line that seemed uncrossable. The possibility of participants betting on their games \u2014 and potentially swaying outcomes \u2014 was too integral to the integrity of college sports to earn leniency.<\/p>\n
Not anymore.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the upshot of a four-page order signed Monday granting Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby a temporary injunction<\/a> to play for the Red Raiders this fall \u2014 despite his admission that he made at least 40 bets on Indiana football when he was on the Hoosiers\u2019 2022 roster. Although Sorsby wagered on many other sports \u2014 including men\u2019s basketball games at Indiana and Cincinnati when he was enrolled at those schools \u2014 betting on your own team\u2019s games has been a cardinal sin in college and pro sports for more than a century. The NCAA acknowledged as much in a statement Monday, saying it\u2019s \u201cdeeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome \u2014 which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports.\u201d<\/p>\n All that history makes Monday\u2019s ruling in the 99th District Court in Lubbock County (Texas) remarkable. The red line, at least according to one judge in one court regarding one Red Raiders player, no longer exists. The NCAA can, and will likely, appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n This decision is different from others that have gone against the NCAA in recent years, whether it\u2019s rules limiting transfers (West Virginia, 2023<\/a>), eligibility (Vanderbilt\u2019s Diego Pavia<\/a>, Ole Miss\u2019 Trinidad Chambliss<\/a>) or former professionals returning to the college game (former G League player Charles Bediako playing at Alabama<\/a> briefly this season). Those complex situations were unique to college sports, affecting roster management but little else.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re thinking about the world of injuries or the world of NIL (name, image and likeness), these are really complicated issues,\u201d said Daniel J. Ain, who has worked with athletes as a partner at the Reavis Page Jump LLP law firm. \u201cHere you have what seemed like a black and white rule.\u201d<\/p>\n Apparently not.<\/p>\n The ruling challenges the NCAA\u2019s ability to regulate a core aspect of sports and its existence: The idea that the outcome of the game you\u2019re watching is legitimate because athletes on both sides are trying to win.<\/p>\n Sorsby\u2019s attorneys argued he was addicted to gambling, which means the NCAA was \u201ceffectively punishing Mr. Sorsby for suffering from a mental health condition.\u201d If that argument holds up through the inevitable appeals process, the slippery slope is obvious. Sorsby didn\u2019t bet on games he expected to play in, but someone else could do so and escape punishment if he also suffered from a mental health condition.<\/p>\n On the field, the ruling is enormous for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders won the Big 12 last season and, assuming Sorsby remains eligible, will be College Football Playoff contenders again this year, too.<\/p>\n Still, the ramifications remain the largest off the field. Ain cautioned that this was only one ruling by one court, but he also said it shows the \u201cwaning power\u201d of the NCAA after years of adverse rulings chipped away at its ability to govern itself.<\/p>\n And if the organization no longer has authority over one of its key functions \u2014 enforcing rules regarding the integrity of its events \u2014 what does the NCAA have left?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As court rulings across the country whittled away the NCAA\u2019s power and rulebook, gambling was a red line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,2256,27,29,28,415],"class_list":["post-328269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-football","tag-sports-business","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}