{"id":1611,"date":"2018-03-15T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T14:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2018-03-15T09:00:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T14:00:47","slug":"bracket-busted-ncaa-compliance-the-clear-loser-of-march-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/?p=1611","title":{"rendered":"Bracket Busted: NCAA Compliance the Clear Loser of March Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard W. Shepherd<\/em>
\nAssociate Editor<\/em>
\nLoyola University Chicago, J.D. 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

For the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), March is supposed to be a showcase of the best about college sports, and the ideals the NCAA claims up uphold.\u00a0 March is about student-athletes representing their schools, in a tournament full of upsets, uplifting stories, and some of the more dramatic moments in sports.\u00a0 However, this March, the spectacle of March Madness is overshadowed by headlines of criminal conduct, corruption, rules violations, and plenty of criticism for the NCAA.\u00a0 While many of these stories are just beginning to unfold, there are several ethical and compliance issues raised, which have application to all areas of compliance.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Overview of NCAA Compliance<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the first official collegiate sporting event\u2014a regatta between Harvard and Yale\u2014Harvard sought to gain an advantage by recruiting non-students.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, the need for the regulation<\/a> of college sports was born.\u00a0 The NCAA was founded in 1906 \u201cto protect young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletics practices of the time.\u201d The creation<\/a> of the NCAA is also often tied to President Roosevelt\u2019s almost-ban of football in 1905, which he had considered because of the dangerous nature of the game.\u00a0 Instead, President Roosevelt convened a committee of football representatives to discuss a safety agreement\u2014which later evolved into the NCAA.<\/p>\n

As the NCAA grew in membership and prominence, the need for regulation grew.\u00a0 The first NCAA regulation was called the Sanity Code<\/a>.\u00a0 Adopted in 1948, the Sanity Code permitted the awarding of scholarships and jobs to college athletes, but only if they demonstrated financial neediness.\u00a0 In 1956, the NCAA allowed scholarships to be awarded to all student-athletes.<\/p>\n

Since then, the NCAA\u2019s rules and regulations<\/a> have continued to grow in length and complexity.\u00a0 Most are aimed at protecting student-athletes and maintaining the amateurism of college sports.\u00a0 The NCAA also regulates student-athletes\u2019 ethical conduct, prohibits any compensation, requires the maintenance of certain academic standards, prohibits participation in outside competition, and heavily regulates the recruitment process.<\/p>\n

History of NCAA Sanctions <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mix a complex set of rules and regulations with a billion-dollar industry, and you are going to have rules violations.\u00a0 The NCAA infractions process<\/a> includes investigation, enforcement actions, review by the committee on infractions, an appeals process, and a monitoring regime.\u00a0 The worst penalty ever imposed in the history of the NCAA was the \u201cdeath penalty<\/a>\u201d levied on the Southern Methodist University football team.\u00a0 SMU had produced some of the better teams in college football\u2014however, it did so by bribing high school athletes to choose SMU.\u00a0 The NCAA, perhaps seeking to set an example, suspended the program for two seasons.<\/p>\n

The Mustangs eventually started playing football again, but they did not make a bowl game for over 20 years.\u00a0 The NCAA has been reluctant<\/a> to use the death penalty again, even in the wake of the Penn State Jerry Sandusky scandal.<\/p>\n

There have been numerous<\/a> NCAA scandals over the years, with various responses by the NCAA.\u00a0 Debate over the harshness, or lack of harshness, of the sanctions continues<\/a>.\u00a0 More recently, an FBI investigation into college basketball revealed a system of payments to high school athletes and their families, and an impermissible endorsement arrangement with Adidas<\/a>.\u00a0 The FBI has further revealed<\/a> an underground recruiting operation in college basketball, involving several prominent programs, sports agents, and numerous athletes and their families.\u00a0 The investigation could result in sanctions on 20 universities and 25 players and their families.<\/p>\n

The NCAA released a statement claiming the parties involved have no place in college sports and created an independent commission to investigation the allegations.<\/p>\n

Ethics & Compliance<\/strong><\/p>\n

The full extent of this underground recruiting operation is still unknown, at least until the FBI concludes its investigation. However, we can still analyze the compliance and ethical questions the situation presents.<\/p>\n

The NCAA system of rules and regulations is based on one idea: amateurism<\/a>.\u00a0 Collegiate sports are a multi-billion-dollar undertaking, and the only people who aren\u2019t getting paid are the athletes.\u00a0 In the eyes of the NCAA, this maintains the purity of collegiate sports.\u00a0 Every rule and regulation promulgated by the NCAA reflects this ideal.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, universities and agents are still finding ways to pay athletes to play at their school.\u00a0 Many commentators, from athletes<\/a> to President Obama<\/a>, have called for the NCAA to be reformed, and feel that the frequent violations are due to an outdated system.<\/p>\n

For compliance professionals, this raises some interesting questions.\u00a0 Is there an ethical duty to comply with rules and regulations that are unfair, unjust, or antiquated?\u00a0 Further, if a system of rules and regulations is clearly broken, what is the ethical duty of an organization?\u00a0 These questions could be asked about any area of compliance, but only one industry has thousands of Americans filling out brackets and scrutinizing its every move in the coming months. And with so much uncertainty, the top seed doesn\u2019t matter\u2014everyone loses.<\/p>\n

Go Ramblers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), March is supposed to be a showcase of the best about college sports, and the ideals the NCAA claims up uphold.\u00a0 March is about student-athletes representing their schools, in a tournament full of upsets, uplifting stories, and some of the more dramatic moments in sports.\u00a0 However, this March, the spectacle of March Madness is overshadowed by headlines of criminal conduct, corruption, rules violations, and plenty of criticism for the NCAA.\u00a0 While many of these stories are just beginning to unfold, there are several ethical and compliance issues raised, which have application to all areas of compliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[259,317,468,762,1281,1390,1876],"class_list":["post-1611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletic-regulation","tag-basketball","tag-bracket","tag-compliance","tag-ethics","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/compliance\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}