Potential fallout from US Attorney’s announced investigation into college basketball

Maybe the NCAA will finally change

Obviously Tuesday’s revelation were earth-shattering for the college basketball world and it’s possible that the landscape as we know it will be turned upside down, but there’s also the possibility that it could lead to positive change for the sport. There are a couple of potential outcomes.

The first one, and potentially the most likely, is a massive cleanup operation that removes relationships that are used to manipulate and take advantage of young student-athletes with the potential to make millions as professionals. Certainly many onlookers would be happy to reduce the influence of shoe companies and so-called advisers in order to allow those student-athletes to make informed decisions on their own.

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The second one is less likely, but arguably a better outcome. The reason that these deals exist is in large part because college basketball players with NBA potential are worth significant sums of money. They know it and so do the people around them and because the NCAA does not allow schools to compensate those players for their labor, they look elsewhere. If the NCAA reformed its laws to allow players to either be compensated by universities and/or to earn money via endorsements, it’s highly likely the incentive to do these deals would decline.

Perhaps neither outcome occurs, but it seems certain that the college basketball landscape is headed for a shakeup whatever that may be.