There’s pandering, there’s shameless pandering, and there’s whatever this is.
Still a crook any way you look
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office threatened the Big 12 Conference with legal action if any attempt is made to sanction Texas Tech University over plans to play quarterback Brendan Sorsby in the upcoming season.
The NCAA banned Sorsby from participating in football after court filings showed the student athlete placed at least $90,000 in sports bets while attending Texas Tech and playing football at two other universities. He placed bets on his own team while playing at Indiana, and when in Texas, where sports betting is illegal, sent money to people in other states to bet on his behalf, according to court filings.
Sorsby sued to regain his eligibility, and on Monday a state district judge in Lubbock blocked the NCAA from prohibiting Sorsby from playing most of the upcoming season. The judge’s order also stipulates Sorsby must continue treatment for his gambling disorder and sit out the first two games of the season. The NCAA is appealing.
The judge set a Feb. 8 trial on the matter, after the football season concludes.
The ruling sparked criticism from officials at other universities and threats to cancel sporting events that include Texas Tech.
In a letter sent Thursday on behalf of Texas Tech, Paxton’s office warned the Big 12 that any effort to “disadvantage” the university would be illegal, prompting a swift reprisal from the attorney general’s office.
“The total exposure — for both the Big 12 and its members, jointly and severally — will be substantially more than $200 million,” said the letter signed by Thomas York, chief of the agency’s antitrust division.
The letter, first reported by The Athletic, came a day after Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair Cody Campbell said there would be a legal fight if teams or conferences boycott the university, calling it “an antitrust violation” on the Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich show.
See here for the background. I wasn’t planning to follow this story closely – it’s interesting at a high level because of how we’re sort of kind of trying to grapple with the explosion of gambling and how it infiltrates everything these days, but beyond that I have no opinion about or interest in Brendan Sorsby’s athletic career. I’ve noted before that a lot of the legal actions Ken Paxton says he’s pursuing are more press release than legal brief – he wants the headline, the outcome matters little, and as often as not he probably phones it in – but this may be the canonical example. You don’t have to be a lawyer to question what interest the Attorney General has in this dispute, or how any filing would survive first contact with the judge’s law clerk. To some extent, I’d rather that Paxton spend as much time as possible on sound-and-fury stuff, as that may mean he’s doing less real harm. But man, this one takes the cake.