(bright music) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week on "Unspun," the politics of college sports.

It's not just the pros who are getting paid anymore.

Now college athletes are cashing in too, even high schoolers.

So how did big time college sports turn into big business?

Our guest is former UNC basketball coach, Matt Doherty.

Plus, I'll count down the top five new realities of college sports that politicians don't wanna talk about.

In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in here on "Unspun."

(spirited music) Good evening.

I'm Pat McCrory, and welcome to "Unspun," the show that tells you what politicians are thinking but not saying.

Here in the Carolinas, coming back to campus for a college football or basketball weekend brings back all those yearbook memories, right?

(crowd chanting and applauding) (crowd cheering and applauding) Yep, back then, those Old State versus Carolina rivalry games were a pretty big deal for players on the field and for fans in the stands.

But today in college sports, the biggest deals are financial.

A sports scholarship isn't just tuition anymore.

Last year, more than 4,000 college football players made over $1.6 billion on what the NCAA calls NIL deals.

It's the same story in college basketball and many other sports too.

NIL stands for Name, Image, Likeness, with student athletes now getting big bucks from schools and alumni booster groups for endorsements and commercials, and they're also switching teams, looking for the best offer, just like the pros.

And when you follow the money, that's when you find politicians playing the game too.

Individual states, including North Carolina, are passing new laws, lifting college restrictions on the NIL payments.

And last season, North Carolina high schoolers were also okayed to get paid.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump is considering an executive order getting the White House involved in those NIL deals.

So this year, when you head to your homecoming, remember that the good old days of college sports are pretty much gone for good as colleges trade those yearbook memories for today's checkbook realities.

Joining us now to talk about the politics of college sports is former UNC basketball coach, Matt Doherty.

As a player, Matt won a national championship with the Tar Heels and Coach Dean Smith.

He has also been an assistant coach at Davidson, an assistant at Kansas, and the head basketball coach at Notre Dame and Southern Methodist University.

Matt, it's great to have you here.

- Good.

- It's fun.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you for having me on the show.

- A lot is going on in college sports, major changes.

When you were back playing with the Tar Heels, winning the national championship, what were the pressures on you at that point in time and your fellow teammates to follow the rules?

- Oh, gosh, Coach Smith was a stickler for the rules, you know?

You know, back then, like, you couldn't take a meal from a booster, you know, at a restaurant or, you know, things like that, selling tickets and all those things that now seem like you're allowed to do.

I think, imagine the team that we had, for those that follow college athletics, you know, Sam Perkins, James Worthy, Michael Jordan, Jimmy Black and I were the starting five.

And I think about the NIL money now.

Like, I think I'd be getting a cool million a year.

And, you know, if you think of like Jordan, you know, four or 5 million.

You know, like, it's ridiculous what the money is in the game.

And I think players should get a piece.

- Yeah.

- Because I remember I was on campus, I walked into the bookstore, and on a mannequin was my jersey.

And I thought, "That's pretty cool."

Like, "They're selling my jersey."

- Right?

- And it made me feel good.

And then I thought, "Well, that's a little weird."

Like, they're selling my jersey, and I'm not getting a cut.

- So you were thinking that way back in the '80s?

- Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

- Wow.

- And so there needs to be, to me, some balance.

- But when you were coaching, and you went into coaching at major programs, including UNC Chapel Hill, the biggest, there were rumors of other players being paid.

- Oh, yeah.

- You know, at UNLV, there were always rumors that other programs.

Even UCLA had controversy with alumni.

- Sam Gilbert was their biggest booster.

- Exactly.

- And he financed, you know, people don't talk about it.

You know, Sam Gilbert, those that know, know, you know, that John Wooden would walk out of Pauley Pavilion and didn't wanna look to the right because that's where all the players' cars were.

And they were nice cars.

And so- - So was it almost like an underground economy that everyone knew about?

- Yes, yes.

And up to, you know, just recently when the NIL came out, you know, what the NIL stands for, the Name, Image, Likeness, on the streets?

- What?

- Now It's Legal.

(Pat laughs) And it's true.

Like, the schools like the SEC has been known as the cheating league forever.

- Right.

- Big 12.

- And we were making the players criminals.

- Right.

- And we even took an Heisman trophy away from a football player.

- So we knew back when I was coming out of school the schools that would pay players.

You know, back then it was Kentucky, UNLV, UCLA.

And then there were programs like North Carolina that, you know, didn't.

When I went to school there and I saw James Worthy driving a beat up used Toyota Celica... - You knew?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right?

- Right.

- I mean, James Worthy.

And so, you know, we were all... And so, you know, you lose to a program.

Like, think about the Fab Five at Michigan.

- [Pat] Yeah.

- I mean, those guys were all getting paid.

And- - As freshmen.

- As freshmen, and they went to two final fours.

And we had a play, I was at Kansas- - But a lot of people were making money off of this.

- That's right, but it was against the rules.

- Right, right.

- So do you follow the rules or do you say, "Oh, this is..." You know, you justify it.

So now what I say is there's no wonder why the SEC is so good in sports now, basketball, because they have been wired to pay players for a long time.

And now NIL, now it's legal.

So they take what was under the table on top of the table.

They still have the same mentality.

We want the best talent.

And they have had the best talent.

Florida wins the national championship.

- So I was playing golf with a major athletic director not too long ago.

School won't be mentioned.

And he said, "We don't even have enough money to play this game anymore."

And this was a wealthy school.

- Wow.

- We don't have enough billionaires to participate.

By the way, I've noticed the Texas schools are doing real well.

They have a lot of billionaires in Texas.

- Well, I worked at SMU, Southern Methodist University.

- You were head coach there.

- Yeah.

And they have the oil money.

And David Miller is their biggest booster, and he's a good friend of mine.

Money is not an object there.

And SMU back in the '70s was the Pony Express with Dickerson and James- - And they canceled.

They threw out the school records.

- Because they paid the players.

- Right.

- Now they're allowed to pay the players, and they've got more money than anybody.

They had to, I think, foot the bill of $100,000,000 to enter the ACC and forego some TV money.

They raised $100,000,000 like that.

It's not a big deal.

They want to win.

They have pride, they have the resources.

That's why a guy like Andy Enfield leaves USC to go coach at SMU and the AD at Maryland just left to go to SMU to become their AD.

- He's going where the money is.

- You gotta go where the money is.

- And they're really general managers now, like the NBA or NFL.

- Yeah.

So the thing is, is like they're the New York Yankees.

They don't... And there's no cap.

There's no luxury tax.

There's no cap on salaries.

And that's where I think the NCAA needs to go, is to put some organization to the chaos.

And when Mark Emmert left the NCAA, in my opinion, they didn't address the issue, they didn't address the issue, they didn't address the issue of paying players and transfer portal.

And all of a sudden, just before he left, he gave it to 'em all.

They gave everything.

You can get paid and you can transfer whenever you want.

- And the head of the NCAA is a former governor I used to work with out of Massachusetts, Mr. Baker.

- And now you're trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

That's hard to do.

But there needs to be structure.

- President Trump just this week said maybe an executive order after talking to Nick Saban.

Is it outta control?

Can a politician, whether it be the president or governor or legislature, get any control of this?

'Cause there's gonna be winners and losers.

- Somebody's gotta get control because, ultimately, it's not good for the game.

Why do I say that?

Because a lot of people, there's still people watching, but they're losing a lot of fans because- - Purity is gone.

- They don't know the roster from year to year.

And they're saying, "Okay, we're just pay to play.

So whoever has the most money wins."

And, you know, you don't know, like, North Carolina's roster, I think they have two starters, two main players, rotational players that are coming back.

You don't know who's on their roster.

And you gotta say, "Well, we gotta pay this guy, you know, 3 million a year."

And it's a hard pill to swallow.

- Who's the boss now at an athletic program?

Is it the biggest booster?

The biggest booster will be calling the shots.

- You Know, Bill Belichick, you know, I think that that came through the back door, or you could say the front door with the booster.

Booster has the money.

Bill Belichick, I want you as our coach.

- And the Rumor is the head of the trustees made that deal without anyone else's involvement initially.

- Yeah, yeah.

I think I heard that from you, actually.

So, you know, (Pat laughs) and it's always been political.

Listen, college campuses are a political minefield, and I didn't realize that till I became a head coach.

You know, I had coach at Notre Dame, they had 60 board of trustees.

At North Carolina, when I got the job at North Carolina, you know, it's not the purity of, "Okay, recruit good players, and I get them to play hard and we win."

It's like, what rings do you need to kiss?

Who are you offending?

And I wasn't prepared for that side of it.

- You and I agree on one thing.

I wasn't prepared for it as governor about the politics and universities, and you had the same issue as coach.

- Yeah.

- You said things that politicians are afraid to say and even coaches are afraid to say.

I appreciate you- - Yeah, my pleasure.

- That was fun.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you for having me on the show, Pat.

- Next up, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier takes "Unspun" on the street, asking what you think about payments to student athletes.

- Yeah, this is kind of a tough issue to sort through.

Sure, the student athletes probably deserve some fair share of that athletic revenue that they help bring in.

But at the same time, do we really wanna de-emphasize the college education in the process?

- That's not something I think that I would be in favor of.

It's seems like it'd be a little bit of a slippery slope because then you just sort of invite the competition of, you know, paying these athletes more and more and more.

So I think that if you're going to university, you know, your education should sort of be the primary focus of things, at least at first, and then move on to professional sports afterward.

- I have a daughter in college.

She goes to the University of Alabama.

She's not playing sports, but she did mention to me that either they're considering paying the, like, the football players in particular to play in college.

I know she doesn't agree with that, and she's going to the college.

And I just think a lot of times, there's too much focus on the college athletes.

- [Jeff] What do you think about the idea of paying college athletes to play sports in college?

- I think that's a great idea.

- [Jeff] Why is that?

- I feel like they bring a lot of revenue to the school.

I mean, obviously, people are tuning in to watch certain athletes who are performing well.

So I feel like, why not pay them?

- Personally, to me, it's a little tough.

What you're doing is creating a semi-pro set of college students, and it's not equitable for the rest of the students and the college athletes that are doing the exact same training, the exact same thing.

It's losing contrast for team and bonding and realizing that, you know, you're a separate entity.

You're doing better than everybody else.

And if I leave, it doesn't matter.

I think that was the thing about being a college athlete, that, you know, your team was your family, and it's really hard when all of a sudden you're looking at other people and it's like, you're better at this sport, so now you're gonna get paid a whole lot more.

You're gonna have all these other things.

- Yeah, a lot of what we're talking about, like sponsorships for student athletes or money from booster clubs, well, that used to be banned by the NCAA.

Now it's apparently gonna be part of the NCAA's future.

- Pat.

- Thanks Jeff.

So what do you think about the issue?

Let us know by tagging PBS Charlotte, when you post on social media about this week's show.

Let us know what you like and don't like about tonight's program.

(spirited music) All right, tonight on our "Unspun Countdown," the top five new realities of college sports that politicians don't wanna talk about whatsoever.

Let's start out with number five.

Number five, the cost of national sports conferences.

Yeah, the fact of the matter is, in field hockey games, tennis games, baseball games, a team has to go from North Carolina all the way out to California for an ACC tournament game.

Are you kidding?

Can you imagine the cost?

And can you imagine these tennis players then having to return the next day to take an exam?

Which gets us to number four, graduation rates and grades.

You don't hear coaches anymore talking about and bragging about their graduation rates or talking about the high point grade point average of their great team.

They only talk about how many points they score and how many wins they have.

Number three, the gambling money.

I'll tell you right now, gambling is infiltrating everything, including the state of North Carolina.

The celebrities are advertising it, the politicians are making money off it and getting campaign donations on it.

The announcers for NBC and CBS and ESPN are all doing advertisements for it.

It's just a matter of time before the players start taking some of that money.

Number two, tax exempt status.

I always asked about this as governor.

These are no longer non-profit sports.

These are for-profit sports.

So why should they be getting an exemption on sales tax and property taxes that help pay for our streets and our police and our fire?

A politician's gonna have to have the courage to bring that up in the future.

And number one, no one talks about the billionaire donors and big media because politicians don't wanna irritate the billionaire owners who are giving all this money because they're the same ones giving to the politicians.

(spirited music) PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier joins me now for "Unspun" One on One - Boy, that interview with Matt Doherty was an eye opener, wasn't it?

- He was unspun.

- Yeah.

- He didn't hold back.

And that's exactly what we want on this show, is people saying what you're not allowed to say, and Coach Matt did that.

- Well, let's talk about the politicians that aren't saying anything about this subject.

Why the silence, you know, on the part of the politicians?

- Well, I think Matt talked about it.

There are a lot of politics in our universities at both the private and public and powerful alumni.

And alumni don't want to mess with the sports programs and they don't want politicians messing with the sports programs.

This isn't new, by the way.

We had the controversial Jim Martin report on African American studies at Carolina.

I was pressured.

And I didn't fall for the pressure not to release that report at one time because Carolina was gonna have a winning basketball team that year, which they did.

So there's a lot of political pressure, a lot of money, and a lot of voters on the campus.

So politicians know there's something wrong.

But how do you intervene is gonna be a major, major political issue for both Republicans and Democrats.

It's bipartisan.

- Well, let me ask you something else.

Now, the players want share of the revenue, but, you know, taxpayers have a dog in this fight too.

I mean, these are publicly-funded universities in many cases.

Is this gonna open the door for others, like taxpayers, to say, "Hey, where's our share of this money?"

- Well, by the way, the private schools get state money too.

All in-state students are given several thousand dollars.

As governor, I was asking that question behind the scenes going, "Wait a minute, I've got a deficit of $2 billion."

This was during the recession in '13.

You're overflowing with money in your athletic department.

You're building new stadiums and expanding your stadiums, and now you're paying your players?

And I can't afford nurses?

- [Jeff] Right.

- In my Health & Human Services area?

Why don't you share some of that money?

Believe me.

The political pressure was, "You better be quiet, Governor."

We don't do that.

Leave our universities alone.

It's almost as though they were a separate nation within our state, and they had power to back them up.

So...

But at a certain point in time, even the billionaires who are giving some of this money or the millionaires who are giving this money are gonna go, "Is this really worth it, and can I continue to do this?"

- Yeah.

So the president goes down to Alabama to give a graduation address, meets with Nick Saban, the old football coach.

And suddenly, he's interested in possibly issuing an order that would maybe reform or change the system.

Nick Saban says it doesn't need to be scrapped, but there need to be changes made.

Would a presidential executive order put pressure on politicians to step in, do you think?

- Well, let's first talk about, I like Nick Saban, but there's a little hypocrisy here.

- Yeah, I think so.

- Nick Saban went from LSU to Alabama, was making five to 10 to $15 million a year.

So he was trading in on the sport too, which gave an unfair advantage to other schools who couldn't afford the coaches at that point in time.

Now everyone's caught up.

We're paying assistant coaches two, three, $4 million a year in the major programs.

I don't know if President Trump has that authority.

You know, he's getting heat for a lot of the executive orders.

So did Obama in the past.

So did Biden in the past.

This executive orders are all gonna be challenged.

And also, does the federal government have authority, or will they use the leverage of federal funds, like he's doing with Harvard, on other things?

So, the state politicians might get involved, but then if the state politicians say, "Okay, Carolina and State, you can't do what you're doing," the alumni are gonna go, "What?"

But we're playing Tennessee and Alabama and other teams that can win the national championship.

We don't play the game, we lose the game.

- Yeah.

Speaking of politicians, I wanna talk a little bit about high schools.

A lot of folks aren't aware of this, but starting last year, last football season, high school football season, the legislature passed rules that allow high football players, high school athletes in all sports, to get paid, similar to the colleges.

Now, parents have to be involved, school boards have to sign off on this.

But still, how is this a good idea?

- First of all, can you imagine a parents being involved with a 16-year-old, and then the parent says, "I want a cut of the action too."

- Well, the parents have to be a partner in any high school deal.

And who's to say, I wonder if they don't have two parents.

They have to bring both parents in, and I wonder if the parents take all the money for the long term.

I mean, and the agents getting a cut of the action.

There is so much danger in this, but I had to tell you the truth, like Matt did.

When I was refereeing high school basketball in the Charlotte area and throughout the state 30 years ago, there were rumors going around of, you know, high school coaches being paid by the shoe companies.

That's when Nike and Adidas and Converse were all challenging each other, and all these shoe reps would come to the AAU basketball games, which I used to referee.

There was money being passed around then, at least rumors of it that people have said, "Yeah, that was true."

- Now, it's legal money though.

The high school quarterback, the point guard, the starting center, they all potentially could be earning, you know, earning big bucks for, you know, in high school.

- But what happens when they have a bad year?

- Yeah.

- Or they fake their injuries because they're willing to transfer to another school?

It's out of control, but that's capitalism.

But it's capitalism being subsidized by the taxpayers because who's paying the health insurance for the coaches?

The taxpayers of North Carolina.

Who's paying the... Who's building the buildings tax-free, not having to pay sales tax on construction costs?

The taxpayers of North Carolina.

And no one's talking about that.

- We got 50 states, 50 different potential sets of rules on these deals for athletes in college and high school.

Do we need one kind of federal set of rules so that everyone's playing the same rules and the same game?

- It's getting into state's rights at this point in time.

What control does the federal government have?

I mean, are you gonna have to have a constitutional amendment on this?

But we're becoming a minor league sports, professional minor league sports.

You know, we ought to probably do what the Olympics does.

And the Olympics are no longer amateur sports because everyone was making money.

By the way, the big people making money on this are the ESPN announcers and owners and the people doing the sports.

They're making millions of dollars too, but they don't like to talk about it because they're profiting from this.

- Yeah, and you kind of answered this already, but last question.

If you're not a sports fan, why should you still be interested?

I guess if you're a taxpayer, that's why you're interested.

- Well, the other issue is college students are paying students sports fees at almost all of our universities now, whether they go to the games or not.

And that's adding to their educational debt, which is another major problem in our country right now, is paying off educational debt.

And students are being forced to pay for these athletics.

- Yeah, interesting show, interesting topic.

Thanks, Governor.

- Tough issue.

- Yeah, thanks.

(spirited music) - Well, during the 1980s, before I entered politics, I actually worked as a basketball referee.

It was a tough job, especially in games when I had to make the tough calls.

And more than a few games, I remember sprinting out of the gym with angry fans on my heels.

I even whistled Michael Jordan for traveling.

Yeah, that's me.

It was during the 1984 ACC all-star game.

For me, it was another tough call.

And afterwards, another quick exit.

But even back then, I began to notice cracks forming in the foundation of amateur sports.

High school coaches were offered college jobs if they steered their players to the right school.

AAU tournaments weren't just showcasing the top players anymore, they were also showcasing shoe companies, handing out free gear at the games.

And university staffers were changing grades and turning in term papers for their so-called student athletes.

And there were loud whispers of cash changing hands between wealthy alumni and star athletes.

Yep, what used to be a shadowy free-for-all has now stepped boldly into the spotlight.

College players and coaches are raking in millions, while TV networks and big money donors call the shots, deciding when games are played, where games are played, and even who gets to play.

So when politicians intervene, are they ready to referee the runaway revenue growth that's taking the amateur out of amateur athletics?

Will they make the tough call that's needed on college sports or will they just duck the fans and run for cover like I did after calling traveling on Michael Jordan?

Well, that's the reality as I see it.

I hope you'll come back next week as we tell you what politicians are thinking but not saying right here on "Unspun."

Goodnight, folks.

(bright music) (lively music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.