Saying Goodbye to 2022, One College Sports Saga at a Time

Happy Wednesday, SporticoU-ians, and welcome to the last SporticoU of 2022. What a year it has been. Let’s see if we can capture this year in just one paragraph—challenge accepted.

In no particular order: There was more NIL news than any one human could possibly keep track of, as rules loosened, collectives capitalized and athletes cashed in (or, in some cases, attempted to). The heated debates around amateurism, the age-old foundation of the NCAA, and athlete employment status raged on. The U.S. celebrated the 50th anniversary of Title IX and the popularity of women’s sports including basketball, softball, volleyball and gymnastics fittingly continued to surge among college fans and viewers. We saw blockbuster television deals and a decision to expand the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 after months of back and forth on the issue. Claims of pandemic-caused payment cuts continued amid an ongoing multi-media rights mess, as did the cascade of legal conversations as lawsuits and congressional conversations pressed on, undeterred yet largely unresolved. We can’t forget about the strengthening super conferences, or all the people in college sports who got paid in 2022, or the news that capped the year: that NCAA president Mark Emmert’s replacement will be Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker. He’ll take the mantle in March.

Phew. What a mouthful. Is your brain scrambled yet? Same. And that’s without even getting into any of the nitty gritty. Good luck, Gov. Baker.

Forgive the cringey buzzword but, the bigger theme in all of this has been what the NCAA itself identified as “transformation.” It’s defined the last several years for the college sports governing body, though it’s been largely unwelcome by those at the very top who have staunchly defended the established system and resisted change. That positioning will likely soften at least somewhat under new leadership, but if I had to guess, we’re still probably in for more upheaval in 2023. Do I want to speculate beyond that? We could be here all day.

But if I had to pull a second theme from 2022, it’d be money, the current momentum behind athlete-employee arguments, NIL itself, all the donor dollars flowing into collectives, CFP expansion, super conferences and never-ending coaching salary boosts. All of these conversations center around cash, because college athletics has become big business, especially in the two decades or so—that’s why we’re even talking about things like athletes becoming employees or forming unions. There’s so much money involved now, the dynamics have completely changed.

College athletics is, on its own, a uniquely American system. But college athletics doubling as undeterred big business? How patriotic.

We’ve kept up with it all at Sportico. In honor of those valiant efforts, I had each of my colleagues send me their favorite college sports story they wrote this year and rounded them up below. In my humble opinion, they’re pretty good and worth a few minutes if you missed any throughout 2022. (We won’t be offended, we know there was a lot to keep up with.) Without further ado, drumroll please…

Bonus submission—I’m nominating Libit’s ‘The Professional Collegiate League: An Amateur Case Study,’ (co-written with Patrick Hruby, now with the Washingtonian), as a worthy long read to cap the year.

Thanks for reading, and a special thanks to our insightful guest columnists who contributed to SporticoU throughout 2022. We couldn’t have done it without you all. Enjoy the end of the year, enjoy the bowl games, and enjoy this video of Texas winning the NCAA volleyball championship over the weekend. Hook ’em.

Happy holidays from all of us at Sportico, and a Happy New Year. We’ll be back in 2023!