With NCAA basketball tournament first-round games taking place March 19 and 20, the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Committees have announced penalties and requirements for the March Madness player availability reporting program.
The press release highlighted how these availability reports are intended to “reduce betting-related pressure, solicitations, and harassment student-athletes and other team personnel receive from bettors connected to playing status.”
Availability reports will apply to all Division I men’s and women’s basketball championship contests. Reports will be publicly available on the NCAA.com website.
The NCAA is known for running the world’s largest integrity monitoring service. Additionally, college athletes are provided with online threat detection services as part of the NCAA’s comprehensive strategy to respond to the rise of sports betting.
Penalties will range between up to $10,000 for the first offense and up to $30,000 for the third and any successive offenses.
Implementation of player availability reports for this year’s Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships is serving as a pilot program. This reporting system is not being implemented for other NCAA championship events as the program is being evaluated.
HD Intelligence, which several conferences are already using, will be the player availability reporting service provider.
College basketball teams will be required to submit initial player availability reports to the NCAA by 9 p.m. (based on local competition venue time) the night before a game. On game day, teams must provide any initial report updates by two hours before the scheduled tip time. This is meant to ensure accuracy.
With the reporting structure, there are three possible designations a student-athlete will receive:
Should any of the parties fail to adhere to the policy, the potential fallout could result in penalties for the institution and the head coach. This will be determined by the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Committees.
The second offense, for example, could end up being up to a $25,000 institution penalty. A third and any successive offenses will be up to a $30,000 institution penalty and a head coach penalty up to $10,000.
Over the past year, several NCAA Division I men’s college basketball games have been put in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. One of January’s top stories was a major college basketball betting scandal involving 39 college basketball players from 17 different NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams. The 70-page indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia revealed that it led to 29 fixed games.
According to the U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, bribes could range between $10,000 and $30,000 per game.
This new player availability reporting procedure could help prevent situations like this from happening again.
