RobnPod

After revealing Week 4's card, Eben and the Commissioner dive into:

• What schools should the Pac-12 dip into next, and does adding any school that isn't a "national brand" matter to the Pac-12's aims of returning to "Power" relevance
• Why Stanford and Cal won't dip into their endowment to scrounge for couch change to pay ACC exit fees
• Adam Silver reminds Eben (directly!) of his desire for a federal sports betting framework on the day that legislators drop a federal sports betting framework
• Why a famous former Michigan football player suing the NCAA for $50 million is trying to get his case made part of the current class action settlement – and extend the window for athlete payments to several years earlier
• Would a rejected mechanism in the House settlement (that would've attempted to root out fraudulent NIL deals) have resulted in the unfair suppression of player wages?
• The FBI's investigation of more college basketball corruption – this time re: an Atlantic 10 team Summer Bahamas junket gone wrong. It's giving Fyre Festival.

Before things go off the rails completely, Steve the Imaginary Producer gives kudos to Week 2 winner Downtown Tyler Brown, Eben chronicles what's next in the House v. NCAA settlement debacle, and we debate the most recent Big 12 and Mountain West realignment shenanigans.

Then, everything we talk about somehow keeps coming back to the MAC, the Commish tells some disturbing stories, and Eben develops an unhealthy and unexplained obsession with the Saint Francis (Pa.) Red Flash.

ESPN's David Purdum joins us for a discussion recapping his recent reporting on the NFL's new (and old) policies and procedures to help ensure betting integrity, steps than emerged amongst a litany of NFL player betting-related suspensions in the past several years.

We cover:

• Whether not knowing the rules, or not caring about the rules, contributed more to the NFL's many betting-related suspensions
• What comprises the NFL's newly instituted player education curriculum, and the new tactics intended to make it resonate
• Why "Integrity" means totally different things to different people, simultaneously, and what the NFL means when it invokes the term
• The difference between protecting the optics of a product versus protecting the actual "integrity" of that product
• What element of "integrity" the next big NFL betting scandal is likely to involve

The new season is upon us. After the Commissioner explains Robn's new-ish, weekly Prediction Tournament format for college football, and exclusively reveals the games on the Week 1 Prediction Tournament Card (releases Aug. 28th), Sportico's Eben Novy-Williams stops by to talk the business-i-fication of college athletics. The discussion hits on how feasible it is for schools to potentially tap endowment earnings to cover growing athletics deficits in the 'House' era, how B-list programs looking to keep up with the Joneses in the college athletics cash race are unwittingly creating a buyer's (or lender's) market, and if Private Equity takes a stake in a college program, who their buyers are 5-10 years down the line.

Ippei Mizuhara officially pled guilty earlier this month to defrauding Shohei Ohtani. But many of the accusations in the illegal betting scandal continue to make no sense, especially as the net widens to include actual MLB players (and a casino executive).

PGA communications czar Brian (“Papa Bear”) McGuigan joins the pod to reveal the winner of the 2024 Robn Golf Sweepstakes, discuss the ongoing dance between golf's two largest governing bodies, and recount the demise of the Pac-12 as he witnessed it from the front row. Plus, the Commish announces some tweaks to the format of the upcoming Robn College Football Tournament, builds off of last week’s discussion around college sports realignment and sources an update for us on the Most Famous Pants In The Country.

Sportico's Eben Novy-Williams ("The Innovyter") joins the pod to analyze venture capital's initial foray into college athletics as well as the landmark athlete-compensation settlement last week in House vs. NCAA. We also tackle the sad hilarity of the Red Lobster bankruptcy, while the Commissioner details what wasn't HQ's finest week in the Robn Golf Tournament, leading to pandemonium atop the leaderboard with one week to go.

Chapters:

2:33 - Week 7 Tournament Recap: Points Like The Venezuelan Bolivar

7:46 - We Forgot "Field" (Ft. Davis Riley)

10:25 - The Top 40 Parlay Fiasco (Ft. Max Homa)

17:35 - Robn College Football Is Back!

18:39 - Grand Intro: Sportico's Eben Novy-Williams

21:00 - LIV/PGA Stalemate: Everyone Loses

23:48- Red Lobster Bankruptcy: A Tiramisu Cake Of Fu**ery

28:45 - Redbird and Weatherford Injecting Capital Into College Athletics: The Jaden Rashada Relief Fund?

45:51 - House v. NCAA Class Action Settlement: Don't Love It For The Smaller Conferences

57:05 - Will College Football Still Be As Enjoyable To Watch Going Forward? (Ft. A Very Strained Pepsi Analogy)

PointsBet executive Jake Williams ("The COO") joins the Commissioner to debut RobnPod on same day - coincidentally! - that the best golfer in the world gets arrested, gets released, then shoots five-under in a major championship round.