Tua Tagovailoa – Noteworthy
Kent Syverud is just starting to realize the magnitude of the task ahead. Syracuse’s president is chair of an NCAA committee charged with asking nearly every school in the country to reveal its deepest, darkest athletic secrets. That is, providing accurate, reliable injury information about its athletes. “We are specifically charged with looking at the issue of player availability reporting,” Syverud told CBS Sports this week, “and that’s just one aspect of it.” Nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can legalize sports gambling, the NCAA seems to have quietly taken over the duty of closing what some consider a giant loophole in legitimizing the college games on which you wager.
Syverud is chair of the 13-member NCAA Board of Governors Ad Hoc Committee on Sports Wagering charged, for now, to work with schools to develop weekly injury reports. It’s never been much of an issue before. But with the Supreme Court decision in May 2018, the lack of mandatory injury reports in college athletics quickly became a huge concern. “Paying players, paying sources of information, paying trainers – [with injury reports] you insulate yourself from that,” said Tom McMillen, president and CEO of Lead1 Association, which represents FBS athletic directors. “That’s why the Security and Exchange Commission put in very tough insider trading laws. It will destroy the integrity of your market if you don’t.” Gambling experts will tell you that legal sports betting cannot succeed nationally without college injury reports similar to those in the NFL. Now comes the hard part: Convincing hundreds of NCAA schools to share their injury information. – WDEF News