CLOUT

                What’s the most-potent lobby in Washington? There are many contenders for the honor.

                The NRA is on the list for sure, leading a minority that continually trumps the will of the majority. Ditto for AARP, which looks out for us oldsters. The AMA tends ably to doctors, the ABA to lawyers. Among corporate players, the one that represents “Big Pharma” stands out, spending millions to heap rewards in the billions.

                But from the standpoint of “W’s” and “L’s”—really the best way to measure such things—no group does better than the NCAA. The outfit that oversees big-time college sports has an enviable record in our nation’s capital as well as in those of the 50 states, keeping it and its constituent institutions largely clear of government intrusion. That most of its actions take place under the radar of public scrutiny is testimony to its effectiveness; in the world of sub-rosa advocacy, no news is the best news. And astonishingly, it operates on a reported annual lobbying budget of about $400,000. That’s less than some industries spend on a single night of Washington revelry.

 The NCAA can do this because it commands the sort of allegiance other advocacy groups can only envy. Just about every member of Congress (95% by published estimates) holds a college degree and, presumably, retains some affection for good old Alma Mammy. Even if their college memories were sour our senators and representatives are well advised to treat kindly the sports interests of the schools for which their constituents root. Any Nebraska legislator who doesn’t profess to live and die with the Cornhuskers won’t have his job for long.

How this works in practice was recently described by Donna Shalala. She’s been on both sides of the relationship as a congresswoman (from Florida) and a former president of the University of Miami and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. When a school has a legislative interest touching sports “the university president picks up the phone and talks to his state’s senators,” she said in an interview. The politics of college athletics “isn’t red or blue, it’s about conferences,” she added.

The subject of the NCAA’s political influence is appropriate now because some in Congress are growing restive about the economics of college sports. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, just put out a report called “Madness, Inc.: How everyone is getting rich off college sports except the athletes.” He promises to have more to say on the subject with an eye toward trying to legislate compensation beyond the minimal for student jocks. (Followers of this space know I disagree with that position, but that requires discussion.) Representative Mark Walker, a Republican from North Carolina, has gone farther by introducing in the House a bill he calls the “Student-Athlete Equity Act,” which would allow college athletes to “profit from the commercial use of their names and likenesses” by such as advertisers and video-game makers. By calling it a “free market” issue he hopes to line up support from his fellow Republicans.

That’s all well and good, but if the past is any guide it’s doubtful that the Walker bill, or any similar one, will get much traction.  The NCAA sees to it that things it doesn’t like don’t get a committee hearing, much less floor action. That was the fate of a bill last year that would have formalized the way colleges report and treat playing-field concussions. Innocuous as it was, the measure wound up in some committee-chairman’s drawer.

Just as important, the NCAA’s clout doesn’t end on the capital steps. Lawyers and judges also love their schools’ teams and can be counted upon to either support or shield them as the situation requires. No better example of this is the trial now in progress in New York that followed an FBI investigation of two years ago that threatened to reveal an extensive black market in college-basketball recruiting involving many if not most big-time U’s. Instead, it has turned into a hiccup with scant impact.

Initial charges in the probe fingered sports agents and would-be agents, a couple of low-level executives of the shoe company Adidas and a half dozen assistant hoops coaches in a scheme to use shoe-company money bribe recruits to sign up at Adidas-connected schools and, later, utilize the agents’ services. More would follow, prosecutors hinted, but not much has. One head coach connected to probe—Rick Pitino of Louisville—lost his job, but that seemed to stem mostly from his long and smelly history of previous depredations. That left only the hapless assistants to hold the bag, the way they do in just about all internally investigated NCAA probes.

 No top-level Adidas executives were hauled into court and nothing came out involving Nike, another big shoe company neck deep in promoting its wares through college sports. Indeed, Nike came off as the victim in Federal criminal actions against the mouthy lawyer Michael Avenatti, charged with using bribery tales to shake down the company.

The current New York trial concerns the sentencing of sports-agent Christian Dawkins and Merl Code Jr., an Adidas consultant, who have pleaded guilty to various charges. Lawyers for the two wanted to call as witnesses the head coaches Sean Miller of Arizona and Will Wade of Louisiana State, both of whom figured prominently in wire-taped phone calls that seemed to further the bribery scheme, but prosecutors moved to do without their testimony and the judge agreed. Miller and Wade have denied any wrongdoing, but putting them on the stand, under oath, almost certainly would have proved edifying.

No such luck, however. Move along folks, nothing to see here, those running the trial said.  The show must go on.