Brendan Sorsby injunction may hurt NCAA attempts to punish players for gambling, but isn't necessarily sports-wide

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What does the Brendan Sorsby injunction mean for leagues' attempts to enforce bans on players gambling?

There have been many discussions about sports gambling scandals over the years, and those have only increased in the past decade with the growing legalization of sports betting. But the situation with Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is one of the most fascinating.

Sorsby transferred to the Red Raiders from Cincinnati this offseason, and was widely thought to make that team (which won the Big 12 and earned the fourth seed in the College Football Playoff last year) even more of a national title contender. However, he announced last month that he was taking a leave of absence from the program and entering a residential treatment program for a gambling addiction.

Around that time, it came out that Sorsby had made thousands of online bets on sports. Most notably, that included 40 bets on games involving Indiana football in 2022 while he was on that team. Following an investigation into that, the NCAA declared him ineligible for this season. Sorsby then sued for legal relief, claiming that this was a punishment for a mental health issue, and he was granted a temporary injunction earlier this week that could let him play this season. There are still plenty of things that could change that (the NCAA has appealed the ruling, and the Big 12 also is considering intervening), but the remarkable reaction from players and coaches across college football indicates just how significant this story is. Here's some of that:

Why is the Sorsby case drawing such strong reaction? Well, a key element to keep in mind with any of these discussions is that not all sports gambling stories are created equal. There are a wide range of potential severities, from athletes placing small, legal bets on different sports in a way proscribed by their league to athletes betting on different games in their own sport to athletes betting on games involving their own team to, most severely, athletes being accused of altering outcomes for gambling purposes. The last accusation hasn't shown up in the Sorsby case to date (he was a true freshman in 2022 and didn't play in the games in question), but betting on games involving one's team is hugely problematic. A player or coach has plenty of potential inside information on their league, and even more on their team. And Stricklin isn't wrong that not betting on games involving your team "was a pretty fundamental tenet of American sports."

It is worth noting, however, that this court ruling doesn't necessarily wipe that away for all sports. NCAA sports in general and NCAA football in particular have several unique qualities relevant to this. For one, they're tied to universities, and for two, they're overseen by an organization (the NCAA itself) that's extremely limited in its powers relative to professional sports leagues, especially in this era. But perhaps most critically, NCAA football is the primary pathway to the NFL, and that's a key part of the argument advanced by Sorsby's legal team that prohibiting him from playing would be unjust. None of that applies if a professional sports league wants to ban a player for betting or altering outcomes; indeed, the NBA did that years ago with Jontay Porter without too much pushback. (He's now playing in the United States Basketball League.)

It remains to be seen exactly what comes of the Sorsby situation. If this ruling holds, it would be a massive change in terms of what the NCAA can and can't do. However, it's far from the first time that judicial rulings have overridden the organization, with the national name, image, and likeness era coming from Supreme Court case NCAA v. Alston in 2021 and building off the O'Bannon v. NCAA case a decade earlier. And courts have intervened more specifically with eligibility recently as well, including with Alabama basketball player Charles Bediako (who was able to play for five games this season due to a restraining order despite his G-League past), Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia. Yes, all of those are eligibility disputes not involving gambling, but they illustrate that courts telling the NCAA who they can and cannot ban from competing has happened without the college sports landscape, or the wider sports landscape, caving in.

The NCAA is in an odd position thanks to its weak organizational powers (much of the usual "league authority" in college sports actually rests with the conferences), to its composition of teams representing colleges rather than single-focus professional teams, and (perhaps most critically here) to its status as a prospect-training league for professional sports. That's especially true in football, where NCAA football is by far the most common source of players for the NFL, and few alternative pathways exist. That strengthens the argument of players like Sorsby that NCAA punishment is depriving them from work opportunities. And this situation does perhaps call for some level of change to provide actual deterrence of players gambling on their own teams; maybe that comes from conference rulings rather than NCAA ones. But it's worth keeping in mind that while this situation is fascinating and well worth watching, it's extremely specific to college sports. There are definitely wider issues with player gambling across professional leagues as well, but those leagues' abilities to punish players for doing so have not yet been taken away.