Texas Tech QB, Brendan Sorsby, granted injunction vs. NCAA, eligible to play in 2026...

[posty]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/49000177/brendan-sorsby-granted-injunction-vs-ncaa-eligible-play-2026

Texas Tech star quarterback Brendan Sorsby has been granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA and will be eligible to play for the Red Raiders in 2026.

Sorsby had been ruled ineligible by the NCAA earlier this year after he acknowledged gambling on sports, including on his own team while at Indiana.

But Monday's ruling by district judge Ken Curry in Lubbock County, Texas, restores Sorsby's eligibility, saying that the NCAA cannot prevent him from "practicing, playing or otherwise participating on Texas Tech's football team for the 2026 season."

The ruling also said that Sorsby "demonstrated that he will suffer a probable, imminent, and irreparable injury if this Court does not issue this temporary injunction because he will be unable to participate as a member of Texas Tech University's 2026 Football season."

The NCAA responded in a statement Monday, saying that Curry's ruling "undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports."

"The NCAA strongly disagrees with the court's ruling in Sorsby's case and is deeply concerned about the damaging, far-reaching and broadly destabilizing ramifications of this outcome -- which undermines and corrupts the integrity of sports," the statement said. "The NCAA is committed to supporting student-athlete mental health but must continue to aggressively defend against actions that defraud college athletics and threaten competitive integrity, such as betting on one's own sport."

Sorsby was diagnosed with gambling and anxiety disorders during a 35-day inpatient stay at a gambling rehabilitation center in Arizona, according to his attorneys. He is alleged to have placed thousands of bets during his college career at Indiana, Cincinnati and Texas Tech, according to legal documents.

The NCAA stated last week that Sorsby should be commended for seeking treatment and is free to continue his playing career elsewhere. Sorsby was a top target in the offseason transfer portal and considered an NFL prospect who could opt to enter the supplemental draft.

At Indiana, as a scout team and backup quarterback, Sorsby placed at least 2,900 bets totaling more than $30,000 from June 2022 through December 2023, according to the documents. His bets included 40 on games involving the Hoosiers, but none on games in which he was involved or had a legitimate chance of playing, according to the documents. The NCAA alleged that Sorsby also placed parlay bets involving Indiana basketball games that included wagers "in favor of players on the opposing team."

Student-athletes are prohibited from betting on any NCAA-sanctioned sport, college or professional, and face permanent loss of eligibility if found to have wagered on games involving their own team or another team in a different sport at their school.

The NCAA has not found evidence of attempts to manipulate his performance or that inside information was used to place any of the bets, according to the documents.

Sorsby's attorneys have asked the NCAA to treat his violations of the gambling policy as a mental health condition.

[Hawkeye21]

This is BS.  The Iowa and Iowa State players should be irate about this.

[frank]

I guess they decided to give him a 2,901st chance.

[cyclone24]

11 minutes ago, Hawkeye21 said:

This is BS.  The Iowa and Iowa State players should be irate about this.

Yeah, this is ridiculous but what a shock. Texas schools playing by different rules.

I was talking with a buddy the other day. I asked him the last time you heard of somebody getting kicked off a team for academic probation? I can’t remember the last one. We couldn’t come up with it. I’m pretty sure I can guess there won’t be anymore though.

[Mark Davis]

And the erosion of demand for the product marches on.  

[cyclone24]

4 minutes ago, Mark Davis said:

And the erosion of demand for the product marches on.  

Unlikely. 

you’d have to be either pretty in tune with college football or a big 12 fan even know who Soresby was. Texas Tech fans won’t care heck that probably gets them in the playoffs. How many casual fans are looking for a Texas Tech football game?

[Mark Davis]

2 minutes ago, cyclone24 said:

Unlikely. 

you’d have to be either pretty in tune with college football or a big 12 fan even know who Scoresby was. Texas Tech fans won’t care heck that probably gets them in the playoffs. How many casual fans are looking for a Texas Tech football game?

My business almost entirely relies on college athletics for revenue.  We've seen a softening of demand which had previously been highly elastic.  Unfortunately, as NIL keeps moving, the pricing has had to move up and with all the portal moves fans aren't getting as connected to the individual athletes anymore.  In this one case, yes Texas Tech fans like it.  All the others do not though.  Long term you can't continue without any real rules and local judges that are often elected just making rulings that makes the home folks happy.  This one is a pretty egregious case IMO.

[Caine Mutiny]

5 minutes ago, Mark Davis said:

My business almost entirely relies on college athletics for revenue.  We've seen a softening of demand which had previously been highly elastic.  Unfortunately, as NIL keeps moving, the pricing has had to move up and with all the portal moves fans aren't getting as connected to the individual athletes anymore.

Last year’s tv ratings were among the highest ever. 

[Mark Davis]

6 minutes ago, Caine Mutiny said:

Last year’s tv ratings were among the highest ever. 

Big difference in watching a game on TV you're already paying for and paying the increasing prices at these venues.  There are places like LSU and Texas that demand has increased, but the have nots are really scuffling.  

As an example, I met about 2 months ago with someone inside the Georgia athletic department, he was talking about the financial challenges they are facing and how they can't leave any revenue source untapped.  Georgia has been in recent years one of the top two or three successful programs by any metric.  But the economic strain the current environment is causing is very real.

[Caine Mutiny]

7 minutes ago, Mark Davis said:

Big difference in watching a game on TV you're already paying for and paying the increasing prices at these venues.  There are places like LSU and Texas that demand has increased, but the have nots are really scuffling.  

As an example, I met about 2 months ago with someone inside the Georgia athletic department, he was talking about the financial challenges they are facing and how they can't leave any revenue source untapped.  Georgia has been in recent years one of the top two or three successful programs by any metric.  But the economic strain the current environment is causing is very real.

I get what you’re saying. But even so it’s hard to argue that there’s erosion in demand for college football if the TV ratings keep going up. In the end that’s the final barometer. 

[Mark Davis]

3 minutes ago, Caine Mutiny said:

I get what you’re saying. But even so it’s hard to argue that there’s erosion in demand for college football if the TV ratings keep going up. In the end that’s the final barometer. 

I think we are talking different demands here.  Yes, it's great to get tv ratings.  But these universities need more than the television revenue these days.  It's not nearly enough for them.  

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/48582346/arkansas-drop-men-women-tennis-financial-reasons

There's a reason all of these universities are suddenly having concerts, soccer, anything else they can think of in their on campus football stadiums.  In some ways, they are fighting the tv ratings to get people off the couch and onto campus.  They can't survive without it.

[cyclone24]

1 hour ago, Mark Davis said:

My business almost entirely relies on college athletics for revenue.  We've seen a softening of demand which had previously been highly elastic.  Unfortunately, as NIL keeps moving, the pricing has had to move up and with all the portal moves fans aren't getting as connected to the individual athletes anymore.  In this one case, yes Texas Tech fans like it.  All the others do not though.  Long term you can't continue without any real rules and local judges that are often elected just making rulings that makes the home folks happy.  This one is a pretty egregious case IMO.

Oh absolutely, I agree, but is that demand or revenue going down for in person games? that I can see. But unless I’m missing something I don’t think attendance is down is it? 

[Mark Davis]

1 hour ago, cyclone24 said:

Oh absolutely, I agree, but is that demand or revenue going down for in person games? that I can see. But unless I’m missing something I don’t think attendance is down is it? 

We are seeing some declines. It’s hard to quantify though how much is related to price increases because every school is pressing to the limit on that. Also, a lot of inventory is hidden because the schools are running it through secondary exchanges themselves or via partners. What my numbers show more than anything else is price declines in matchups. For instance a decline in Alabama vs Auburn in the same stadium as two years ago. Now some of these factors are performance specific, but on average across all teams there is definitely a decline in value when they need that number to be increasing. 

[cyclone24]

42 minutes ago, Mark Davis said:

We are seeing some declines. It’s hard to quantify though how much is related to price increases because every school is pressing to the limit on that. Also, a lot of inventory is hidden because the schools are running it through secondary exchanges themselves or via partners. What my numbers show more than anything else is price declines in matchups. For instance a decline in Alabama vs Auburn in the same stadium as two years ago. Now some of these factors are performance specific, but on average across all teams there is definitely a decline in value when they need that number to be increasing. 

Yeah, I think we’re eventually going to see the Big Ten and SEC peel off then I kind of wonder what that will look like because I’m gonna be honest with you even though I’m a big 12 guy those match ups are fascinating every week in those conferences. 
 

But like our athletic Director said. He said hey if they wanna go off and do their own thing, I say let them but you gotta take all your sports. So you got a fund women’s softball and women’s swimming and all that other crap that just cost money.

[Mark Davis]

19 minutes ago, cyclone24 said:

Yeah, I think we’re eventually going to see the Big Ten and SEC peel off then I kind of wonder what that will look like because I’m gonna be honest with you even though I’m a big 12 guy those match ups are fascinating every week in those conferences. 
 

But like our athletic Director said. He said hey if they wanna go off and do their own thing, I say let them but you gotta take all your sports. So you got a fund women’s softball and women’s swimming and all that other crap that just cost money.

I have grown up going to SEC games since I could walk.  There's a lot of ego in athletic departments at times, but I'm not sure how it works for the SEC and Big Ten outside of football when it comes to finding opponents.  I saw Pollard's comments at the time.  He's actually pretty on point with that stuff.  It's hard to work pulling out on your own other than football.  

Not that it's everything, but these guys really don't go to class.  Supposedly they do stuff online.  But the reality is this is way worse than it was 30 years ago when I would see half the team in the easy A Organic Gardening class on campus.  Part of that special feeling was even if you were somewhat naive, there was a feeling of a tie to the school with the players.  I get cynical because it's a business to me these days but I've seen a lot of our recruiting boards have a fair number of fans voicing they feel that is being lost.  

BTW, I miss the old days of Jack Trice Stadium before they enclosed that endzone.  They used to call me with the old bleachers down there, I think sections AA-EE at the time.  

[cyclone24]

1 hour ago, Mark Davis said:

I have grown up going to SEC games since I could walk.  There's a lot of ego in athletic departments at times, but I'm not sure how it works for the SEC and Big Ten outside of football when it comes to finding opponents.  I saw Pollard's comments at the time.  He's actually pretty on point with that stuff.  It's hard to work pulling out on your own other than football.  

Not that it's everything, but these guys really don't go to class.  Supposedly they do stuff online.  But the reality is this is way worse than it was 30 years ago when I would see half the team in the easy A Organic Gardening class on campus.  Part of that special feeling was even if you were somewhat naive, there was a feeling of a tie to the school with the players.  I get cynical because it's a business to me these days but I've seen a lot of our recruiting boards have a fair number of fans voicing they feel that is being lost.  

BTW, I miss the old days of Jack Trice Stadium before they enclosed that endzone.  They used to call me with the old bleachers down there, I think sections AA-EE at the time.  

Yeah, it’s definitely interesting because I guess the old coach in me kind of goes. Hey everybody’s talking about how hard this is. I’m like if I’m a coach I don’t mind this if I have money because now I don’t have to blow smoke up some kids ass since he’s 12 years old or whatever it is. Like it’s just all business now. Here’s how much I have for you. Do you want it or not?

Do you really see the SEC in Big Ten having a decline though? Obviously ACC big 12 Pac 12 kind of the schools that are all in chaos right now I could see because I definitely feel like we’re secondary league at this point already. I can see that hurting people’s fandom for sure.

yeah, I definitely go back away with that stadium back when you could slide up and down those hills in any corner. I don’t mind it closed in where they screwed up as they put all the rich people in that one end zone and they’ve got like a club they can go into at halftime so if it’s cold at all, you come out to the second half and it’s a bunch of empty seats.

[Mark Davis]

30 minutes ago, cyclone24 said:

Yeah, it’s definitely interesting because I guess the old coach in me kind of goes. Hey everybody’s talking about how hard this is. I’m like if I’m a coach I don’t mind this if I have money because now I don’t have to blow smoke up some kids ass since he’s 12 years old or whatever it is. Like it’s just all business now. Here’s how much I have for you. Do you want it or not?

Do you really see the SEC in Big Ten having a decline though? Obviously ACC big 12 Pac 12 kind of the schools that are all in chaos right now I could see because I definitely feel like we’re secondary league at this point already. I can see that hurting people’s fandom for sure.

yeah, I definitely go back away with that stadium back when you could slide up and down those hills in any corner. I don’t mind it closed in where they screwed up as they put all the rich people in that one end zone and they’ve got like a club they can go into at halftime so if it’s cold at all, you come out to the second half and it’s a bunch of empty seats.

I am not as involved with some of the remaining Big 12 schools as I used to be.  I do some here and there but I don't see as much of it to definitively say.  The ACC ones though that were the football powers in that league, Clemson and FSU, definitely are hurting.  FSU obviously has fallen off, and Clemson has as well to a lesser extent.  But one example at Clemson is you used to have to donate and have tickets probably 5 or so years before you could relocate to the home side between the 35's.  They did a public sale the other day and you can just walk in day one and buy those.  I used to never get lowers there, now they moved most of my stuff down there.  Now I fully grant, some of that is performance based.  But you could say that's also based on NIL and Clemson's alumni base isn't as large or full of cash as some others.  Either way, they are seeing significant erosion in demand.  If you're Florida State it's especially bad.  You've just paid to renovate your stadium and now you can't get people to show up.  

The other memory I have of dealing with Jack Trice was there was a game in week 1 I think vs maybe South Dakota St?  I want to say it was a school we did well with because it was reasonably local.  One of the things there that was unique is you could do well even if a small school came if it was nearby.  Anyway, that game had thunderstorms, later just thunder in the area even though the rain stopped.  The NCAA lightning rules are so stupid.  Anyway, they ended up having to cancel the game because the lightning in the area went late into the night and  the schools had no mutual open dates to finish another day.  Well, of course the ISU Athletic Dept can't eat an entire home game because the game wasn't official they'd have had to refund everyone.  They found a school out of Texas called Incarnate Word to come play at the end of November or first week of December in the bitter cold.  Then that school had to back out and they had to pay Drake or someone else to play just strictly to keep the ticket revenue.  Nobody liked it but that was the way they at least kept that revenue.  Well, a lot of guys had bought that SD State game for investment and resale.  When they told them nope you get Incarnate Word instead, the school was charged back huge sums of money on credit cards.  All the banks backing the credit cards like Cap One and Chase sided with their cardholders because they paid for South Dakota State, not Drake.  The fact I just rolled with it is probably why I stayed as long as I did.  They lost tons of cash on that deal.  The following years I'd overnight a cashier check to their ticket ops manager who I believe is still there for all of my stuff.  He would individually ok what we got and that's the only way their department would want to sell the extra seats they had left over.  They got burned so bad by those guys he let me hang around but only if I would Fedex him cashier's checks going forward.

[cmh6476]

They're working to get Mahomes to come back after he retires from the NFL

[Tree of Knowledge]

This was pretty egregious.  He’s a gambling addict.