An almost death knell

 The NCAA lost in court again yesterday, and if that wasn't the muffled thump of a coffin lid you heard, at the very least you can figure the embalming has begun. 

The organization that so long has ruled college athletics like a private fiefdom is dead, or all but. The death knell is warming up; preacher's writin' the eulogy.

And, sure, that might be a touch melodramatic, given it was only a preliminary injunction a judge in Tennessee issued against the NCAA. But it bars the organization from interfering with boosters or athletes cutting NIL deals during recruiting or transfer portaling, which essentially means it's legal now to out-and-out buy the services of said athletes.

In other words, college football and basketball in particular no longer have to play-act.  They can operate as the professional enterprises they are, and frankly have been for a long time. 

The Name, Image and Likeness mechanism approved by the NCAA has in essence been a fig leaf for that, an obvious truth the judge in Tennessee seemed to acknowledge. It's difficult to believe the NCAA's battery of attorneys could come up with a legal argument otherwise that didn't sound ridiculous, not to say out of touch with reality.

All you've gotta do is read the NCAA's official reaction to the ruling to understand that.

"Turning upside-down rules overwhelmingly supported by member schools will aggravate an already chaotic college environment, further diminishing protections for student-athletes from exploitation," the statement read in part.

The Blob's first reaction to that: How quaint. They're still calling them "student-athletes."

Its second reaction: Who does the NCAA think created the "already chaotic college environment"? Santa Claus?

Its third reaction:  "Exploitation"? Really? The NCAA actually went THERE?

It takes some major cojones, not to say next-level delusion, for the NCAA to believe it's protecting "student-athletes" from "exploitation." Hell, it's been the very architect of that exploitation, for decades overseeing choke-a-horse TV contracts and apparel deals among its member schools. As the Blob has noted many times before, schools for years have been cutting sweetheart deals with apparel companies, part of which involved sending their "student-athletes" out there as human adverts, complete with prominently displayed company logos. 

For which the "student-athletes" were paid nothing, of course. Speaking of, you know, exploitation.

Yet the NCAA thinks of itself as a protector from all of that? Who are these people kidding?

Its defenders will say that without the NCAA, there'll be no one to keep vulnerable young people from being preyed upon by unscrupulous boosters and other shadowy NIL operators. But you could say the same thing about the young person coming out of college looking for his or her first pro contract. That's why they hire attorneys to negotiate those deals.

Presumably the vulnerable young people will do the same, because the dynamic in high-end college athletics now is pretty much the same. That horse is long gone, and it's the NCAA itself who opened the barn door. The aforementioned "chaos" is its attempt to stave off a palace revolt by its member schools, who've grown comfortable being corporate entities wholly separate from the university mission -- and who now want even more from that arrangement.

Which is to say, everyone's gotten greedy. And now they've outgrown the organization that nurtured and fed that greed. 

That muffled thump you just heard?

Yeah, it's the coffin lid, all right, closing fast on the NCAA. 

Final verdict: Death by suicide.