Sports
As 'avalanche' hits NCAA and paying players debate continues, change is coming
With College Football Playoff expansion and NCAA men’s basketball tournament rights totaling $2.4 billion annually and women’s basketball’s most marketable player in history — Iowa’s Caitlin Clark — launching her sport to unprecedented television viewership, collegiate sports appear healthy, vibrant and lucrative. That goes for everyone except the participants.
Questions are brewing from college officials to legal scholars about whether athletes should receive a piece of the postseason revenue. Those discussions have spilled over to athlete rights and employment status, both of which likely will be determined in federal court.
NCAA president Charlie Baker, who spoke briefly before Sunday’s women’s championship game, said he wants “to make some changes to how support for student-athletes works in Division I.”
“We’ve done a number of things that are ready to deal with that, but I’m not going to get ahead of the membership on that sort of thing,” Baker said. “I’m sure it’s a conversation we’ll be having.”
But where does the membership stand on paying players? Judging from a recent panel discussion at the University of Iowa, legal scholars and experts are all over the place. With lawsuits threatening to blow apart the current amateur model and the prospect of a college football super league looming in case it does, the questions are endless. But authorities agree change is coming — fast.
“The avalanche has officially hit the NCAA,” said Dan Matheson, Iowa’s director of sport and recreation management program and a former NCAA associate director of enforcement.
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In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 9-0 Alston ruling in 2021, which allowed athletes to receive compensation for name, image and likeness (NIL), legal issues continue to mount for the NCAA. A National Labor Relations Board regional director ruled this year that Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees. In a complaint filed with the NLRB and testimony ongoing, the National College Players Association considers USC athletes employees of the university, the Pac-12 and the NCAA. In addition, a class-action antitrust lawsuit regarding past NIL rights could cost the NCAA and its membership more than $5 billion.
With players allowed to generate income off their NIL, employment is the last step in the blurry barrier between amateur and professional status. It’s the most difficult one for most experts to navigate because no one can agree on the parameters. Is it just the athletes from revenue-generating sports or all of them? How will it impact Title IX? How much will each athlete earn? Will non-revenue sports survive?
Looking forward to a riveting panel discussion AND 2.0 CLE hours for all you lawyers in the area! There’s a livestream option here: https://t.co/6iM16S9F7y pic.twitter.com/TZSgHoCUga
— Dan Matheson (@DanMatheson) March 27, 2024
Alicia Jessop, a Pepperdine sports administration professor who doubles as the school’s NCAA faculty athletics representative, demanded the NCAA shift course and accept that athletes are employees. Jessop, a member of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball oversight committee and a practicing attorney, argued that putting up resistance and talk of collateral damage is “fear-mongering.”
“The NCAA continues to unsuccessfully and to the tune of millions of dollars in lobbying fees try to persuade Congress to grant it antitrust immunity,” Jessop said. “The likelihood of Congress passing such bills is as good as Caitlin Clark not being the No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick.”
Husch Blackwell law partner Jason Montgomery, a former NCAA lead investigator, disagreed.
“It’s clear that the NCAA is on the worst losing streak in sports since the Bills’ four Super Bowl losses. They are terrible at litigating,” he said. “But current and well-established law in this country says that college athletes are not employees. The Department of Labor says they’re not employees. No federal court has ever said they’re an employee.”
Universities are concerned employee status and compensation would bankrupt athletics departments. Paying athletes could force some departments to eliminate many non-revenue sports, which form the lifeblood of Olympic rosters. Nevius Legal attorney Libby Harmon, who worked as a lead NCAA investigator for 10 years and also served as compliance director at Michigan, said of the 626 athletes for Team USA in the 2020-21 Olympics, 76 percent were current or former athletes from 171 different institutions.
To Jessop, any attempt to trim Olympic sports is an excuse. She cited numbers from USA Today that most Division I coaches averaged a 15.3 percent salary increase in 2021 — after the pandemic financially crushed many departments — plus soaring salaries alongside modest scholarship increases. In the 2023 fiscal year, Ohio State athletics spent more than $90.7 million on coaches and staff salaries while paying $23.8 million for athletic scholarships, according to figures obtained by The Athletic. Harmon brought up Texas A&M’s $75 million buyout of football coach Jimbo Fisher saying, “That could fund Division I athletic departments multiple times over.”
“Don’t buy that there is no money in the system,” Jessop said. “This will require the reallocation of funds. Top college coaches will see pay reductions, strength trainers will no longer earn $1 million per year.”
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Still, it is naïve to expect athletics departments not to continue to invest in football and men’s basketball, the only two sports that generate profits at most power conference schools. Disrupting the system to include employee status, Montgomery argued, could bring it all down. Over the last three years, athletes now have money-making opportunities from NIL, full-ride scholarships up to the cost of attendance and around $6,000 each year in educational rewards.
“The popularity of college sports is at an all-time high,” Montgomery said. “The popularity of television in college sports is at an all-time high. Women’s sports are at an all-time high. And NCAA membership schools in the system produce the most Olympic athletes. So things are going really good in college sports. Let’s change everything. That makes very little business sense and it makes very little practical sense.”
In addition, if athletes are considered employees, programs could hire and fire them based strictly on performance.
“If student-athletes become employees, what does that relationship look like?” asked Josh Lens, an Arkansas sports and recreation professor, who formerly worked in Baylor’s compliance office. “I think it becomes more of an arm’s length relationship between the athletics department and coaches and their athletes, and it resembles more of a professional mode.
“There are great coaches out there and great people out there who truly care about their athletes; that doesn’t necessarily go away. But I think the dynamic changes if an athlete knows that they can have their scholarship taken away.”
The future
So what happens in five or 10 years? Most experts believe changes will take place, including those who want the current system to remain in place. But how extreme remains up for debate.
“This domino is going to fall. It’s not if, it’s when,” Jessop said. “There’s going to be widespread employees at some colleges.”
“I think it’s either going to be some employment model or some other revenue-sharing model. Either way, athletes are going to be compensated outright in the next five years,” Harmon said. “What that looks like remains to be seen.”
“I vehemently disagree that we should change our successful model that is the envy of the world to go to an employment-based model,” Montgomery said. “We can come up with different distributions, and there are areas certainly that the collegiate model needs to improve in. But I think it’s still going to be litigated in the next five years.”
Some believe a school or a conference will direct revenue toward athletes. Lens said he knows plenty of athletic administrators who want to bargain with their athletes right now.
“The NCAA might try to kick them out,” Lens said, “but somebody is going to take a very progressive step and do that on their own.”
Many, if not most, athletic departments are preparing for the next step and want closure as soon as possible. In an interview with The Athletic, Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz said, “There’s not a day that goes by where we’re not talking about what the future of college athletics would look like.” That also includes discussion of a super football league, reported last week by The Athletic, in which one entity would control college football with a union and collective bargaining. That would offload the antitrust issues the NCAA perpetually faces.
“We all want what’s best for college athletics and college sports and if you’re really trying to figure that out, putting limits on ideas that come out, I don’t know if that always makes sense,” Goetz said about the football super league. “Whether or not this is something that we really should pursue, I don’t know yet. But there might be some pieces of that that actually lead to a solution. … I think those are good conversation starters.”
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Caitlin Clark hit in throat during WNBA loose-ball scramble, sparking backlash and game suspension
WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark was hit in the throat during a loose-ball scramble, sparking outrage and a one-game suspension for Alyssa Thomas. Fox News’ Garrett Tenney reports on the ‘absolutely unacceptable’ incident and the coach’s reaction. Political analyst Gianno Caldwell discusses Clark’s immense impact on WNBA viewership, including a $2.2 billion deal, and the role of gender and race in the controversy.
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Phoenix Mercury All-Star Alyssa Thomas is the latest villain to Caitlin Clark fans after punching Clark in the throat during a game on Wednesday night.
The referees missed the punch in real time, but fans and the league office did not.
A viral clip of the punch in slow motion spread across social media, pouring gasoline on the ongoing culture war surrounding Clark’s physical treatment by opposing players, which has been a controversial issue dating back to Clark’s rookie season in 2024.
And Less than 24 hours after the incident, the WNBA slapped Thomas with a one-game suspension for what was deemed a “reckless” and “non-basketball act.”
Who is the woman behind the punch?
If Thomas wasn’t in the WNBA, she says she would go pro in combat sports
In a 2019 interview with Nike PLAYlist, Thomas answered what sport she would have gone pro in if she didn’t go pro in basketball.
“Either boxing or MMA,” Thomas said.
If Thomas never went pro in any sport, she said she would have gotten into dentistry.
“Since I was a kid, I loved going to the dentist. I just was fascinated with teeth and still am. I’m passionate about that whole process of cleaning,” according to a profile on WNBA.com.
The first time Thomas stepped on a basketball court, she threw a ‘hissy fit’
Thomas was signed up to try basketball for the first time at the age of five by her mother, Tina, per the WNBA.
Thomas said she “Threw myself all down the stairs, down the hallway,” while her mom said “She just threw an absolute hissy fit.”
WNBA SUSPENDS ALYSSA THOMAS FOR ‘RECKLESSLY’ HITTING CAITLIN CLARK IN THROAT DURING SCRAMBLE
Her parents didn’t let her win a popular board game
Thomas’ parents never took it easy on her when they played “Candyland” as she was growing up.
“We weren’t the parents that were just going to let you win,” Tina said, per the WNBA.
“In life, you have to fight, and how are you going to fight if you don’t teach your kids to fight? So if she fell over, ‘get up, you’re alright,’ and if she didn’t get up, you knew something was wrong.”
It was a parenting tactic also used by the father of New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter, who famously never let Jeter win in board games or card games when he was growing up, to instill harsh competitiveness at an early age.
Thomas added that her mom was especially hard on her and helped develop her toughness.
“By no means was it easy, and it’s still not easy,” Thomas said.
Thomas plays more physically because shoulder issues hinder her shooting ability
Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas scrambles to get up over Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark during a game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on June 24, 2026. The Phoenix Mercury defeated the Indiana Fever 111-109. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
Thomas currently plays basketball with torn labrums in both of her shoulders.
The injuries are so severe that she completely lacks the structural integrity to lift her arms and shoot a traditional, fluid jump shot. Instead, she is forced to use a rigid, one-handed pushing motion from her chest just to get the ball to the rim.
Because she cannot rely on outside shooting, Thomas adapted by leaning entirely into her physical frame. She drives directly into the teeth of opposing defenses, absorbing heavy contact in the paint to score closer to the basket.
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark shown after falling in the lane while Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas watches the ball at Gainbridge Fieldhouse Indianapolis, Indiana on June 24, 2026. (Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
That brutal, driving style requires her to initiate intense physical collisions on nearly every single possession.
Despite the mechanical limitations and constant pain, the tactical shift worked. She transformed herself into a six-time All-Star, three-time First-Team All-WNBA, an Olympic gold medalist and the undisputed triple-double queen of the WNBA.
Thomas has been the center of immense criticism this week
The throat punch on Clark ignited a fierce wave of backlash.
Indiana Fever Head Coach Stephanie White led the charge, completely unloading on Thomas and the league’s officials during her postgame press conference.
“We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called,” White said, pointing directly at Thomas’s actions. “Absolutely unacceptable.”
White argued that Thomas regularly crosses the line from playing physical defense into inflicting dangerous, non-basketball contact.
“It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful,” White continued to fume to reporters. “The fist in the throat is crazy. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous.”
On Thursday, Fever President Kelly Krauskopf released a statement praising the decision to suspend Thomas.
“Player safety should be paramount in our league. We appreciate the WNBA’s review of last night’s incident and the action taken. Right now our focus is on Caitlin and our entire team as we prepare for Saturday,” Krauskopf wrote.
Former Minnesota Vikings captain and prominent conservative activist Jack Brewer said the punch would be considered a “hate crime” if the roles were reversed.
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“This would be considered a hate crime if it were the other way around,” Brewer told Fox News Digital.
Other critics have expressed their own outrage on social media.
Sports
Parents of ex-NFL player Doug Martin allege excessive force by Oakland police in wrongful death suit
The parents of Doug Martin filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that police officers used excessive force in trying to subdue the former NFL running back while he was “experiencing a mental health crisis” last October.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Northern District of California, also claims that paramedics contributed to Martin’s death by failing to “provide timely medical care.” The city of Oakland, several police officers and emergency medical service provider Falck USA/Northern California were named as defendants.
Martin died Oct. 18 in a hospital following his arrest by officers responding to reports of a break-in at a residence. He was 36. His death remains under investigation by Oakland police.
According to the Alameda County coroner’s office, Martin’s autopsy reports still are being finalized. Martin family attorney John Burris told the Athletic that an independent pathologist told the family that Martin potentially died from restraint asphyxia.
“Plaintiffs allege, on information and belief, that Decedent Martin died from restraint asphyxia caused by Oakland police officers and the FALCK NORCAL paramedics’ failure to provide timely medical care,” the lawsuit states.
The Oakland Police Department and Falck Norcal did not immediately respond to messages from The Times.
According to the complaint, Martin was “experiencing a mental health crisis” when his mother called for paramedics. He then fled and hid in a neighbor’s basement, where officers found him.
“After a brief struggle, defendant police officers physically restrained him,” the complaint states. “During the restraint, decedent Martin was placed face down while one or more officers pressed on his back. After a period of time, defendant Officers turned him onto his side.
“When they did so decedent Martin was unresponsive seemingly unconscious; However, the defendant officers initially believed he was sleeping or pretending to be sleep. When decedent Martin remained unresponsive, an officer requested medical assistance.
“Plaintiffs are informed and believe that decedent Martin did not receive immediate medical attention. Falck paramedics arrived over 15 minutes after the call for service and, and when they arrived, did not promptly provide medical care.”
A Stockton native, Martin was a first-round pick by Tampa Bay in the 2012 draft. He played six seasons for the Buccaneers, making the Pro Bowl in 2012 and 2015, before spending his final season with the Oakland Raiders in 2018. In his career, Martin rushed for 5,356 yards and 30 touchdowns.
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With 48 teams competing and a grueling path through the knockout stage, reaching the semifinals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be an accomplishment in itself.
Only four nations will survive the tournament’s first 100 matches and earn a spot in the final four, putting themselves within two victories of lifting the most coveted trophy in sports.
Let’s take a look at the latest odds to reach the semifinals at FanDuel Sportsbook as of June 26.
This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports.
To Reach Semifinals
Argentina: +100 (bet $10 to win $20 total)
France: +110 (bet $10 to win $21 total)
Spain: +120 (bet $10 to win $22 total)
England: +165 (bet $10 to win $26.50 total)
Portugal: +210 (bet $10 to win $31 total)
Brazil: +270 (bet $10 to win $37 total)
Netherlands: +300 (bet $10 to win $40 total)
Germany: +330 (bet $10 to win $43 total)
USA: +380 (bet $10 to win $48 total)
Norway: +550 (bet $10 to win $65 total)
Colombia: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Belgium: +700 (bet $10 to win $80 total)
Morocco: +750 (bet $10 to win $85 total)
Switzerland: +800 (bet $10 to win $90 total)
Mexico: +850 (bet $10 to win $95 total)
Japan: +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Croatia: +1300 (bet $10 to win $140 total)
Ecuador: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Canada: +1700 (bet $10 to win $180 total)
Austria: +1900 (bet $10 to win $200 total)
Here’s what to know about this oddsboard:
The Top 10: Argentina, France, Spain, England, Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands and Germany — all considered powerhouse countries — stand at the top of the board, with each nation listed at +330 or better to reach the semifinals. But right after that group? The USA and Norway. The Americans have never made it to the semifinals of the World Cup, and this is Norway’s first appearance in the tournament since 1998.
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