The Mayo Mess
May 21st, 2008 - byO.K. Last OJ Mayo article I write. I promise. After reading Stephen A. Smith’s bizarre rant about the issue, I decided one more time to present a saner view of how the NCAA could potentially police the issue. Strangely enough, it comes from one the more outspoken personalities in the NBA, Mark Cuban.
Cuban used his blogmaverick to advance the idea of the IRS cracking down on this obviously illegal behavior. I find it amazing that no one else has even discussed the legality of the issue, instead focusing only on the moral implications. Cuban writes:
So what should be done ? I can tell you that an NBA study, as well as an NBA / NCAA joint effort would be meaningless. Why ? Because the root of the problem is that there will always be those that try to profit from other people’s dreams. It may be a dream of playing in the Olympics. It may be a dream of playing in the NBA. It may be a dream of being rich. It may be a dream of going to college. Unless there is an efficient market of information going between those who can make the dreams come true and the dreamers, which I don’t think is possible given the way the NCAA and High School organizations interact with student athletes, then there will always be room for the scammers to capitalize on those dreams.Fortunately there is a simple solution.Bring in the IRS. I think I can say with certainty that there were not any contracts signed between the parties giving and receiving money on the behalf of High School students. Agree ?I think I can also say with certainty that those who gave more than 10k dollars in gifts did not pay any gift taxes on amounts given to individuals. If the amounts were given to charities, I’m guessing some, if not most of those charities were either not qualified or did not live up to their certification requirements.
Get the IRS involved, and I bet not only would the investigation pay for itself with untold millions coming back to the US Treasury in taxes and penalties, but the agents would clean up their acts very , very quickly. It would also clean up much of what ails “amateur” basketball. Its a world that has become dependent on a thriving underground economy. its a cash business. Just the kind the IRS should and could step in to clean up.
Hey, it worked on Al Capone, and the reality is, some of the agents in the game today, are not much more legit.
This is actually the same type of case the IRS brought against University of Michigan booster Ed Martin. He famously paid multiple players and eventually the school was forced to erase every single victory during the Fab 5 era.
If this type of illegal behavior was at least policed more strictly it would at minimum make an agent think twice before they throw thousands of dollars at a “runner.”
