Episode 56: Raging Against the (College Sports) Machine with David West and Ricky Volante

In this episode of The End of Sport, Derek, Johanna, and Nathan are joined by David West and Ricky Volante, co-founders of the Professional Collegiate League — an upstart professional basketball league that aims to enable athletes to benefit directly from their labor by offering both an education and compensation – to talk about recent developments in the league, what is happening in college basketball, and to rage against the college sport machine and sports media complex.

In the first half of the show, we chat with David and Ricky about the PCL and where it has gone since we last spoke with Ricky in the summer. We talk about the release of the PCL’s first team, the Washington Stealth, and the FRESH release of its second, the Carolina Flight. Then, in the second half of the show, we shift the discussion to everything going down in college basketball, including the to be applauded comments made by Pittsburgh Head Coach Jeff Capel about so-called ‘amateurism’ in college basketball, the watered-down version by Duke’s Coach Krzyzewski, and the ongoing harm being done to unpaid college athletic workers, including the tragic events that took place over the weekend when Florida basketball player Keyontae Johnson collapsed mid-game.

A return guest, listeners will be familiar with Ricky Volante, who serves as the league’s Chief Executive Officer and he is also an attorney at The Volante Law Firm, LLC and an Adjunct Professor at the Harvard Extension School and Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He also co-hosts the Forward, Thinking podcast with our other guest today, former NBA all-star forward, 4-year star forward at Xavier University, and PCL Chief Operating Officer David West.

You can follow David, Ricky, and The Professional Collegiate League on Twitter!

For a transcription of this episode, please click here. (Updated semi-regularly Credit @punkademic)

Show Producer: Tristan Loper

After listening to the episode, check out our most recent pieces:

“College Football Feels All Too Normal During the Pandemic” in TIME Magazine

“College Football in a Pandemic Reveals our Capacity for Trumpism” in The Baffler

“Red-Scare Rhetoric Isn’t Gone From Histories of American Sport” in Jacobin Magazine

"Canceling the College-Football Season Isn't Enough" published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“'We are being gaslit': College football and Covid-19 are imperiling athletes” in The Guardian

“Canceling the college football season is about union busting, not health” also in The Guardian

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@Derekcrim

@JohannaMellis

@Nkalamb

@EndofSportPod

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