SBJ College: The end of the Sorsby saga

It’s already been a big week in college sports, with more to come:

• The Big 12 filing a suit against Texas Tech, the Texas attorney general and more on Monday — hours before Texas Tech transfer QB Brendan Sorsby, who never played a snap in Lubbock, pivoted to the NFL Supplemental Draft.
• A Tuesday meeting among FBS conference commissioners that could include receiving a look at valuations for a 16- and 24-team playoff1 Like reaction.
• Thursday’s markup in the Senate around the Protect College Sports Act — the next step for arguably the most feasible legislation to date on Capitol Hill.

In less dramatic, but perhaps more fun, news, Tuesday is my wife’s, Ashley’s, birthday. “New Girl voice” Twenty-nine never looked so good!

Brendan Sorsby is no longer heading to Texas Tech, after all.

It was announced late Monday night the embattled quarterback will seek a spot in the NFL’s supplemental draft (the deadline to enter is June 22) rather than continue through the barrage of litigation that ensued over the last several weeks to ensure his eligibility despite placing bets on sports, including his own team.

“I am grateful for the support from my family, my Tech coaching staff, teammates, the community and so many others who have encouraged me to address and learn more about this important issue,” Sorsby said in a written statement. “As my journey continues, I remain fully committed to and focused on being the best I can be, both on and off the field.”

In a saga that included an outlaw football program, a billionaire oil baron and countless billable hours, Sorsby’s change of heart brings an end to one of the most tense recent episodes in college sports’ ongoing reshaping and the persistent fight for anyone — schools, conferences, the NCAA, etc. — to enforce any rules at all.

How’d we get here? Here’s a quick recap:

• March 11: The NCAA receives a tip from federal law enforcement via an online sportsbook that Sorsby has placed tens of thousands of dollars of bets between 2022 and 2025 and across his collegiate stops at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech.
• April 27: Sorsby enters rehab for gambling addiction after Texas Tech is notified of his prolific activity, which included 40 bets on his own team while at Indiana.
• May 18: Sorsby and his lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler of House settlement fame, file a lawsuit against the NCAA seeking a temporary restraining order that would restore his eligibility for the 2026 season.
• June 8: Lubbock County Judge Ken Curry grants Sorsby a temporary restraining order that will force him to miss the season’s first two games, but would permit him to participate in the rest of the season. The decision is met with immediate backlash from administrators across the country and eventually prompts a 21-minute video featuring Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec, AD Kirby Hocutt and coach Joey McGuire detailing their stance.
• June 15: The Big 12 files a complaint in federal court asking for authority to apply potential sanctions against Sorsby/Texas Tech should the Red Raiders chose to play him.

That brings us to Monday.

The morning began with the Big 12 filing suit against Texas Tech, the school president, athletic director, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other involved parties. The skinny is that the league sought a federal ruling that would grant it the authority to punish Texas Tech should it play Sorsby, who had previously been deemed permanently ineligible by the NCAA prior to receiving the TRO.

The Big 12 presidents and chancellors, too, met Monday to discuss options in the ongoing Sorsby saga, though no determinations were ultimately made.

The entire episode reached a resounding resolution when Sorsby’s camp and Texas Tech billionaire board chair Cody Campbell put out statements around 45 minutes apart from one another related to Sorsby’s decision.

“The bottom line is that Texas Tech did absolutely nothing but act with complete integrity through this entire process,” Campbell wrote.

There will be plenty who take issue that assertion, but the more pressing question is what, if any, lasting impact will this saga have on college sports moving forward?

The TRO in Texas didn’t necessarily mean athletes could suddenly gamble on anything and everything, but it did bring a collective feeling of the sky falling around the industry.

If the NCAA — and by proxy, the schools and conferences — couldn’t enforce a rule as simple as banning players who gamble on their own teams, what good are any rules at all?

For all the talk about self-governance (looking at you, SEC and Big Ten), the Big 12’s fight with Texas Tech felt like a Ground Zero for what’s to come.

Round 1 was a win for the conferences. But like all modern blockbusters, a sequel almost certainly looms.

It was another busy week on the campus side of the industry. NACDA brought thousands of administrators together to discuss the dozens of issues facing the industry. Here were a few other headlines you might’ve missed:

Vanderbilt’s revolution under Candice Storey Lee: This week’s SBJ included my cover story on Candice Storey Lee, this year’s athletic director of the year.

Lee has received her share of praise, but digging into the efforts she’s spearheaded in Nashville was genuinely eye-opening. It’s hard to overstate how impressive her five-plus year tenure at her alma mater has been.

I thought this quote from football coach Clark Lea around why he’s stuck around at Vanderbilt despite his success over the last two seasons summed up Lee’s efforts well:

“Opportunity gives you a chance to evaluate where you are and really take a good look at where it’s headed and what’s the best thing. Because this isn’t charity work. This is your profession, and you want to win. I want to win a national championship.

“As I’ve gone through that process, the thing that I come back to over and over again is the people. This is not necessarily about the place for me. A lot of people think that because I’m an alum from Nashville that this would be where I choose to be. It’s not that. I’m way too competitive for that. But the people that are ahead of me, Chancellor [Daniel] Diermeier and Candice, it’s the best chancellor-AD tandem in the country. They literally are superheroes as they’re doing their jobs, and the way they clear the path ahead of us and, again, allow us to have this aggressive vision for sustained success.”

Oklahoma is the latest school to re-up its Learfield deal: This may have gotten lost in the NACDA/Sorsby/Senate hearing shuffle last week, but Oklahoma and Learfield announced a new deal last week.

Negotiations around an extension have been ongoing for the better part of a year, while the finalized agreement will see Learfield help develop the Sooner Evolution Center, an on-campus facility geared toward helping Oklahoma athletes activate NIL deals.

The deal is another boon for Learfield, which has been on a run of re-upping clients for lengthy renewals. OU’s previous deal was slated to run through 2032, and will now conclude in 2037. This also marks Learfield’s 40th renewal or extension over the last two years and its 15th in the Power Four in that span.

Sticking with the Texas Tech-Brendan Sorsby theme, I chatted with a handful of legal experts about the suit filed Monday and, well, before Sorsby decided to leave for the NFL.

The answers were wide-ranging, but they touched on a few of the more crucial legal issues and potential broader impacts. Here is a sampling of the most interesting points:

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Kevin Paule (litigation attorney, Hill Ward Henderson) on what the average fan should know: “This is not the first time that a school or a player over the past two years has filed a lawsuit seeking to be eligible or seeking some sort of finding by a court that they’re able to play, notwithstanding what NCAA rules may say.

“This one is a little bit different by the fact that it deals with behavioral and disciplinary things. It deals with the one rule that nobody’s allowed to violate: betting on your own team.”

Mit Winter (attorney, Kennyhertz Perry) on what the lasting impact of the Sorsby saga might be: “It’s really galvanized people to want to get to some model, whether that’s a model that is governed by a federal law or some other model, if it’s employment, collective bargaining or something similar to that. People just want to get to a place where every rule is not going to be subject to a lawsuit and where there’s certainty about the rules, so there’s not just constant litigation and trying to get around the rules all the time.”

Ryan Regula (partner, Snell & Wilmer) on what this portends for college sports and how conferences govern themselves: “The analogy I think of is Major League Baseball had the steroid era. This is now the governance era for collegiate athletics. We’re in a whole new ballgame, whether people want to be admitting it or not. ... To me, what does college sports look like moving forward? It’s no longer a thought experiment. We’re seeing this play out in real time, potentially through litigation, through legislation, and it’s going to dictate what our favorite teams look like moving forward.

“... Gambling is part of the story, but it’s way bigger than that. And I think the quicker everyone kind of figures that out, perhaps we can stop the Titanic before it ultimately goes down.”

• Army agreed to a 20-year sponsorship deal with USAA. The agreement is believed to be one of the more significant in recent college sports memory and among the most lucrative in the Group of Six.
• Learfield’s Kim Damron tells me how women’s sports is emerging as the next big battlegrounds for sponsors.
• As part of our coverage of Vanderbilt’s Candice Storey Lee’s AD of the year coverage, my SBJ colleague Emma Grace Patrick looks at college ADs who are either starting just their jobs or are in the early days in their tenures.
• Missouri picked Sodexo Live as its athletics venues concessionaire, reports my colleague Bret McCormick in his latest SBJ Facilities newsletter. Sodexo Live takes over from Levy.