Bipartisan bill introduced in Congress to fix NCAA Infractions Process

I don’t need to tell you the NCAA’s infractions process is pretty terrible. It’s 2022 and we’re still waiting to hear what will happen to Louisville and Kansas for their involvement in the 2017 pay-to-play scandal. The NCAA’s system is so broken even Congress is getting involved, with two senators from across the aisle teaming up to fix it.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Cory Booker (D., N.J.) will introduce a bipartisan bill, the NCAA Accountability Act of 2021, this week to establish due process requirements for the NCAA’s investigative process. The 10-page bill creates a deadline for investigations (eight months within a school receiving a notice of investigation), shortens the statute of limitations on violations from four years to two, and establishes a new appeals process. It also prohibits the NCAA from using “confidential sources” as evidence for a decision. And hey, there’s even accountability!

The proposal also requires the NCAA to submit an annual report of investigations to the U.S. attorney general and each state’s attorney general while also charging the Department of Justice to ensure the governing body of college sports follows the bill’s statutes. Violations will be dealt with severely. The bill authorizes the Department of Justice to fine the NCAA as much as $15 million and to order the removal of any member of the NCAA’s highest governing body, its Board of Governors.

Sports Illustrated

In 2018, the NCAA created the Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) to handle complex cases like those in the pay-to-play scandal. The IARP is such a failure the NCAA Board of Governors stopped referring cases to it earlier this year in hopes it would help the unit close its five unresolved cases: Memphis, Kansas, Louisville, Arizona, and LSU. All five schools have received notices of allegations, with hearings set for at least Louisville and Kansas this spring. (Maybe.)

You know things are bad when Congress is looking rational by comparison.