While Congress might not be able to agree on crypto clarity, lawmakers appear to be on the same team when it comes to college sports.
Now, this week on Capitol Hill, the U.S.
Senate invoking cloture and beginning consideration of the Protect College Sports Act.
Now, the bill represents a major legislative effort to establish a united federal framework for college sports.
And this comes while there is ongoing antitrust litigation as well as name, image and likeness rule changes as well as conference realignment.
Now, President Trump weighing in, posting on Truth Social that the current landscape of college sports will lead to bankruptcies and disaster for many colleges.
Well, joining me ahead of the weekend is Rick Horrow Fintech TV sports business analyst and CEO of Sports Ventures.
Rick, happy Friday to you.
While the Senate decisively advancing the bipartisan Protect College Act through a cloture vote and Trump supporting the legislation, so do you think the bill will pass this year and what will the impact be?
Look, every time that there is legislative inertia or anything, when enough Congress people say it's chaos.
We can't afford not to do this.
Even if they don't agree on the specifics, it's going to happen.
That's what's happened.
Now, 74 cloture votes, obviously on the Senate side and 370 universities have said this is better than nothing, better than most anti-trust issues.
And I issues one free transfer in the portal.
There are structures for how to allocate, among other sports, $1 billion over six years for historically Black colleges and universities, a pooling of media.
There are a whole lot of good things going on here, and whether we're talking about having a tinkering with it down the road, which we will or not.
Yeah, it's probably going to pass.
Yeah.
And Rick, it is finally Friday after a long week.
I do want to shift our focus on over to the NFL Kansas City Chiefs.
Tight end Travis Kelce named as a victim in a Ponzi scheme here.
And this had to do with investment fund Swift Art Ventures, founded by Sid Jawahar, who was living the high life here.
So what happened here, Rick?
And what is the DOJ saying about this?
Well, we don't know yet because I'm a lawyer now supposed to talk about it, but apparently he raised $35 million and spent ten.
That doesn't add up to anything.
That's why there's an 11 year penalty at the back end of this.
Kelce is one of 64 victims identified by the DOJ.
Now we don't know how much we don't know what percentage.
And we don't know the culpability of the CEO relative to Travis Kelce.
We do know that this is not something that he wanted to advertise.
And we do know that athletes are very, very susceptible to these kinds of Ponzi schemes.
A, they have a lot of money.
B, some of them aren't financially educated.
Not to say Travis isn't, but this is a recipe for disaster, so he'll come out of it.
Okay?
We're not going to hold a bake sale for the Swift family just yet.
Yeah, and before we move away from the NFL situation with wide ranging political implications playing out as musician, Macklemore was dropped from Ed Sheeran's U.S. tour.
And this is as venue owners, which include Gillette Stadium as well as Patriots owner Robert Kraft objected to his presence here.
And I'm sure many of us do wish that we could separate entertainment from politics.
But how could this impact the sport itself as well as the owners?
Well, well, the PR folks got a hold of this, so I think it's going to be a little easier in the future.
You know, Macklemore obviously talking about Free Palestine and his concert, Robert Kraft on the other side of it.
He owns the stadium.
He can do what he wants.
He's contributing dollars through Ed Sheeran.
Remember Ed Sheeran played his first major concert at Kraft Stadium in 2015, and his top selling tour, The Mathematics Tour, there in 2023.
So also remember that MetLife, SoFi, Hard Rock Stadium, among the ones with Gillette are private, so you can do whatever you want.
But the bottom line is Ed Sheeran contributing dollars to the general cause of peace.
Robert Kraft doing the same thing.
Macklemore doing the same thing.
So this goes beyond a specific Palestinian versus Israeli issue.
This is free speech, but supporting general causes and looks like all of them are saying the right thing.
Yeah.
And while we're looking at New England here, I do want to get your perspective on what unfolded yesterday.
So Bill Belichick's son Steve abruptly resigning as the defensive coordinator for the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Tar Heels defense had only allowed 13 points in two games.
So take us through this situation.
And what do you make of this?
How do you think this could shake up North Carolina's outlook this year?
Well, we're not going to know it from the Belichick family because they're tight lipped anyway and even more tight lipped now.
Uh, the, uh, the head coach was talking about this as a medical leave.
The text from the North Carolina people say, quote, certain actions demonstrated disregard for Columbia, for Carolina values.
So something else is going on here.
At the end of the day, the athletic brand of the Tar Heels on the football side is $572 million, according to a lot of the entities, at 26 in all of college sports.
That's $63 million in revenue.
They're off to a good start in between their executive Lombardi and another Belichick.
They can't afford any other front office slip ups.
And Rick finally before I let you go.
The NASCAR playoffs are underway.
And FedEx Freight striking a long term partnership with NASCAR's Truck Series.
So take us through the details quickly.
And how could this drive both of the organizations forward here?
Yeah, Remy, this is a big deal because they're an independent organization, obviously tied up, tied into FedEx, but they have 40,000 employees, 365 locations.
They want to expand their brand.
First big sponsorship for them of any kind.
Low eight figures, they say, although we don't have that confirmed and team and series dollars with NASCAR that $770 million annually going up higher.
And the good thing for NASCAR is no matter what happens with them, it's always important for them to get new corporate blood into the sport.
And this is that.
Well, Rick, always appreciate your time.
There's so much going on.
So thank you so much for sharing your perspective and have a great weekend.
