News — The Professional Collegiate League

LATEST NEWS

Pick your future: The NCAA, G League Ignite, Overtime Elite (and more) are in competition for the same top recruits

The athletic
may 28, 2021

Jarrett Jack played 13 seasons in the NBA for 10 teams, but he is remembered best for the three years he spent at Georgia Tech. Jack started all but one game during his college career, including the 2004 NCAA Tournament championship game, and although he made nearly $50 million during his NBA career, he wouldn’t trade his college experience for anything. “That was probably the best time of my life,” he says. “In college you have teammates. In the NBA you have coworkers. When you’re playing college basketball, you do everything with your teammates, so you develop those bonds because you really have to depend on one another.” [continue reading]

These two new leagues aim to challenge college basketball for top high school players

USA Today
may 19, 2021

But now, college basketball isn’t facing just one legitimate threat to siphon off its talent pool, but two other startup leagues that plan on offering six-figure salaries to players in addition to full marketing rights for their name, image and likeness. [continue reading]

David West & André Gudger of the Professional Collegiate League

the right time with bomani jones
may 5, 2021

Bomani Jones welcomes former NBA forward and COO of the Professional Collegiate League David West and entrepreneur André Gudger of Next Level Sports and Entertainment to break down the scope of the PCL following their TV distribution deal, including balancing investment with activism, the extent that the league will center athletes and how it will add value to their future careers post-athletics (15:03). Plus, what their dealings with the NCAA have been like thus far and more! (21:29) [listen here]

The Paid College League

front office sports
april 28, 2021

Even if players don’t go to college, they still can’t enter the NBA Draft until a year after graduating high school. In that gap year, some play overseas. Others, like five-star recruit Michael Foster (pictured), will go to the NBA G League’s Ignite team. But there will be a college basketball option aimed at providing the economic and educational opportunities the NCAA doesn’t: the Professional Collegiate League. [continue reading]

Saturday Sports: Start-Up League Eyes NCAA's Turf, Unlikely Pro Teams' Hot Streak

NPR
april 24, 2021

The NCAA may soon find itself in competition with another collegiate league, and some professional teams — the New York Knicks and the Oakland A's — are on a winning streak. [listen here]

Opinion | With so much changing with the NCAA, college sports won't be the same | Richard Ransom

local memphis
april 23, 2021

In tonight’s Ransom Note: Mid-Southerners love their college sports, but the next six months will bring the biggest change in fifty years. Axios.com lays out the eye-popping perfect storm that’s unfolding with start-up leagues and their target is the very unpopular NCAA. [watch here]

New laws, new rules bring big changes to college sports

axios
april 23, 2021

The college sports landscape could change more in the next six months than it has in the last 50 years, as the NCAA grapples with new competition, new laws and new rules.

How it works... 1. Startup leagues: Investors are flocking to new leagues that aim to compete with the NCAA, evidence of just how much opposition there is to the amateurism model — and how much belief there is in new ones. [continue reading]

NCAA BASKETBALL CHALLENGER SIGNS MEDIA DISTRIBUTION DEAL FOR FIRST SEASON

sportico
april 22, 2021

The Professional Collegiate League, a group challenging the NCAA with a college basketball structure that pays its players, has secured a media deal for its inaugural season, which will be played outside of Washington, D.C.

The eight-team league will show its games on cable through Next Level Sports and Entertainment, a linear network with distribution through DirecTV, U-Verse, Verizon and others, and online through its digital affiliate, For the Fans. [continue reading]

A start-up basketball league, hoping to compete with the NCAA, announces TV deal

The washington post
april 22, 2021

A start-up men’s basketball league, with plans to pay college students and compete with the NCAA, has inked a media rights deal, setting the stage for its debut this year. [continue reading]

College basketball’s future in NC threatened by pro leagues

the news & observer
april 17, 2021

Among the power brokers within college athletics, the reactions that Ricky Volante has received about the basketball league he’s charged with launching have ranged from concern to dismissiveness, along with the usual curiosity.

Some, he said, fear how the Professional Collegiate League might affect college basketball, a billion-dollar enterprise that remains the NCAA’s most profitable entity. Others question whether an upstart league can gain enough traction to become a legitimate threat to the establishment. [continue reading]

The difference between a plantation and college sports: A plantation didn’t pretend

the washington post
march 11, 2021

It’s time for March Madness. So which plantation you got in your office pool?

No, really, which one? Because Creighton isn’t the only program whose coach is capable of giving new meaning to the term “master motivator.” Greg McDermott may never live down telling his team after a recent loss: “I need everybody to stay on the plantation. I can’t have anybody leave the plantation.” But it’s just as important that the entire amateurism-exploiting enterprise of major college athletics not be allowed to live down those words, either. [continue reading]

Is Overtime Elite the amateur sports game changer we’ve been waiting for?

deadspin
march 8, 2021

“We’re excited to see the continued development of Overtime Elite,” PCL co-founder and CEO Ricky Volante told Deadspin. “The PCL fully supports elite high school basketball players having the opportunity to be compensated, while maintaining their educational opportunities.”

Both the PCL and OTE plan to offer an education for their players. OTE will educate high schoolers in small group sessions where they’ll have the opportunity to take courses in financial literacy, media training, and social justice advocacy, among other more “traditional” classes. [continue reading]

David West on Playing With Chris Paul, His Will to Win, His Championships With the Warriors, and More

the ringer
february 25, 2021

Logan and Raja are joined this week by two-time NBA champion David West and they get into the nitty-gritty of his long career, starting with his time playing for the New Orleans Hornets alongside Chris Paul (0:30), those wild Eastern Conference finals series with the Pacers against the Big Three Heat (23:00), and declining his player option in Indiana to go play with Tim Duncan on the Spurs during Duncan’s final year in the league (34:15). Then, of course, they get into his fantastic two-championship run with the Warriors (39:15) and his efforts, as Principal COO of the Professional Collegiate League, to bring financial compensation to college basketball players (52:00). [listen here]

Richmond scheduled as one of eight cities for pro/college hybrid hoops league forming

richmond times dispatch
january 22, 2021

Richmond is scheduled to be one of eight cities affiliated with the Professional Collegiate League, which will offer a new model for top-tier basketball prospects who want to simultaneously be paid to play and attend college, while preparing for NBA opportunities. Essentially, the league will compete with NCAA schools for the best amateurs in the world. [continue reading]

College Basketball Needs To Shut Down During The COVID-19 Pandemic

time magazine
december 21, 2020

This month, two men’s college basketball coaches finally had gumption to publicly address a question on many of our minds: why are unpaid athletes risking their health and safety to play games during a pandemic, especially as COVID-cases, and deaths, rise across the country? At the outset of the pandemic in March, college basketball shut down its postseason to protect athletes. On the afternoon of December 7, University of Pittsburgh coach Jeff Capel said, “These kids are away [from their families] and they’re out and they’re laying it on the line to entertain people. Something just doesn’t feel right about it right now. The numbers were what they were back in March. I look at it every day, man. It seems like every day it’s getting worse. I don’t know why you cancel it in March, but you say it’s OK to do it right now. But what do I know?” [continue reading]

Wendell Haskins strives to bring attention to great Black golfers of the past

ESPN’s The Undefeated
november 27, 2020

Wendell Haskins has put himself at the forefront of advocating for diversity inside golf, whether it was through his work with the PGA of America as the senior director of diversity & multicultural initiatives or through his own company, The Original Tee, a golf lifestyle brand. Haskins wants to honor the heroes of yesterday who helped break down the challenges Black players faced in golf. Haskins left the PGA of America in 2017, but following the death of George Floyd in May, he was moved to write a letter about his experience in the organization and called for the group to allow more Black voices on the executive and decision-making level. [continue reading]

COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS ARE UNPAID STARS ON THE FIELD—AND HAVE NO POWER OFF IT

Vanity fair
august 27, 2020

In 2010, when University of North Carolina fullback Devon Ramsay was under investigation for alleged academic impropriety, Orr advised him and his family as they dealt with the NCAA’s appeals process. Ramsay was a little-known player when his team became infamous that year. Several star players were investigated and suspended for receiving improper benefits from agents, a scandal followed by more allegations, this time of academic malfeasance. The school’s probe resulted in Ramsay being accused of plagiarism and withheld from competition. [continue reading]

PRIVATE EQUITY HAS INFILTRATED PRO SPORTS. NOW IT’S GOING TO COLLEGE

sportico
august 6, 2020

College sports is in turmoil. The pandemic is gutting budgets; schisms are forming between the haves and have-nots, and many conferences with normally steady income streams are struggling for cash.

In most industries, that’d be a perfect recipe for outside capital. But in college sports, with athletic departments tucked within public universities and non-profit conferences managing media assets, the path forward for private equity is less obvious. [continue reading]

Basketball’s Professional Collegiate League experiment just might work

The Toronto Star
june 21, 2020

The Professional Collegiate League will serve as a kind of experiment when it begins play in summer 2021. [continue reading]

New league to pay college players, provide alternative to NCAA’s ‘cartel’

the Atlanta journal-constitution
june 19, 2020

Florida Republican Marco Rubio recently introduced a bill to the U.S. Senate that, if it becomes law, would compensate college athletes for use of their names, images and likeness. It contains so many exceptions, including an antitrust exemption, that athletes would not have the full economic and property rights that purportedly are central to Rubio’s ideology. That’s why the bill drew immediate support from groups that have spent more than $1 million on lobbying Congress since the beginning of 2019: the NCAA, ACC, and SEC. [continue reading]

New basketball league aims to be an NCAA alternative for student athletes

daily hive
may 2, 2020

Two five-star recruits — Isaiah Todd and Jalen Green — chose the G League over high-major NCAA programs last month. Professionalizing early has long been considered a risky move — the chance of being “exposed” by more developed players, overseas destinations being far from home and having to face reality head-on. [continue reading]

The Full 48 With howard beck

bleacher report
april 13, 2020

David West and Ricky Volante join Howard Beck to discuss the Professional Collegiate League. [listen here]

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COLLEGE ATHLETES GET PAID

wall street journal
march 11, 2020

What it means to be a college athlete could change radically in a matter of years, if not months. It all depends on the resolution of the multibillion-dollar debate over whether athletes in college deserve to make money—and exactly how that is allowed to happen. [continue reading]

NCAA spent $750,000 lobbying Congress to curb potential earnings for college athletes

associated press
february 11, 2020

As Congress considers whether to allow college athletes to receive endorsement money, the NCAA and its allies spent at least $750,000 last year lobbying lawmakers to shape any reforms to the organization’s liking. [continue reading]

When Start-Ups Come to the Sports World

sports illustrated
november 21, 2019

Compared to the familiar rhythms of his 15-season NBA career, life in the startup world has thrown many new challenges at David West. There are speaking engagements to attend and strategy meetings to schedule, investment decks to pitch and potential business partners to vet. [continue reading]

Forget the NCAA: Startup basketball league to offer prep players pay, plus education

Los Angeles times
October 27, 2019

Image courtesy of Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times.

The Professional Collegiate League would be the first of its kind — the ultimate test of whether fans watch college basketball because of the emotional connection to the names on the front of the jerseys, because of the gifted players with the names on the back, or a mixture of both. [continue reading]

The Historical Basketball League: will it make history and change college basketball?

The Athletic
july 22, 2019

Professional college athlete. It may sound like an oxymoron, especially given the NCAA’s longstanding efforts to distinguish “college” basketball from its professional counterparts. The Historical Basketball League, however, intends to make the term a reality and conventional wisdom. [continue reading]

Players Technology Summit - A New League Approach

Bloomberg
June 27, 2019

Speakers: Mike Rabil, Co-Founder & CEO, Premier Lacrosse League; David West, Chief Operating Officer, Historical Basketball League; Interviewer: Richard Smith, Senior Business Manager, LinkedIn [watch here]

Hang Up and Listen: The Buffalo Mexico City Bills Edition

slate’s hang up and listen
june 24, 2019

Slate’s Joel Anderson then joins for a conversation with former NBA star David West about Zion Williamson, the NBA draft, and the Historical Basketball League—the startup that’s offering amateur players a new route to professionalism. [listen here]

NCAA Play-For-Pay Alternative The HBL's Success Contingent Upon Elite Talent

Forbes sportsmoney
june 13, 2019

The Historical Basketball League (HBL) has been gaining steam as of late, most noticeably attracting headlines when announcing former NBA star David West would be the upstart NCAA alternative’s COO. [continue reading]

THE WAITING (FOR GAME 6) IS THE HARDEST PART

sportsnet 590 the fan
june 12, 2019

Two-time NBA All-Star & ex-Warrior David West on Kevin Durant's injury, how hard it is to close out a series and his involvement with The Historical Basketball League (2:01:03). [listen here]

Source: College basketball pay-for-play alternative HBL’s inaugural host cities

CBB Today
june 10, 2019

With the HBL set to launch in 2020, people who are advocating for student-athletes to receive monetary compensation have been keeping a watchful eye on the league. A full league update is expected later on Monday, but a source has provided CBBToday with a full list of the college basketball alternative’s inaugural cities. [continue reading]

RJ Hampton Going Pro Basketball May Change College Basketball

The Unafraid show
june 2, 2019

Furthermore, the NCAA may soon be threatened by a start-up basketball league that seeks to pay its players and give them scholarships. That league is the Historical Basketball League (HBL). [continue reading]

West: Warriors Must Find A Way To Get It Done

taz and the moose, Cbs sports radio
june 7, 2019

West, 38, also discussed his new business venture, the Historical Basketball League (HBL), which will serve as a secondary option for college basketball players. The league, which plans to launch in the summer of 2020, will pay players between $50,000 and $100,000 and give them full college scholarships. [continue reading]

Andre Iguodala On 'The Sixth Man,' Retirement And The Pressures Faced By The Modern Athlete

FORBES Sportsmoney
may 28, 2019

Iguodala: Well, I think what David is trying to do is looking out for the athlete first. He’s kind of putting them in a professional atmosphere as to this is what you’re preparing for. It’s almost like a paid internship, similar to what college is supposed to be but you know won’t ever be because economically there’s too much money involved and the people that are benefiting from it don’t want to give it up. [continue reading]

The NCAA Is Losing Its Fight To Keep Exploiting College Athletes

HUFFINGTON POST
APRIL 6, 2019

That means the most imminent and dangerous threat facing the NCAA today could come not from regulators or lawmakers but from the free market itself ― in the form of another league or organization that tries to beat the NCAA at its own game. [continue reading]

David West Questions Everything—and His Sport and America Are Better for It

The Daily beast
March 27, 2019

It was either David West’s first or second season in professional basketball, but he can’t quite pin it down. No matter. The off-court moment will remain with him for the rest of his life. [continue reading]

Summer hoops league to offer a paid alternative to NCAA in 2020, two-time NBA champion David West says

CNBC
March 15, 2019

Top young basketball players will soon have a choice of whether to take their talents to college hoops or to an alternate paid summer league while continuing to pursue their education, retired NBA champion David West told CNBC on Friday. [continue reading]

why this former nba champion wants to pay college basketball players

wall street journal
february 25, 2019

As a star basketball player at Xavier University in the early 2000s, David West never questioned the NCAA’s amateurism model. Then he got to the NBA… [continue reading]

Overtime: Paying players, challenging the NCAA

woio cleveland 19 action news
march 1, 2019

A new basketball league in Cleveland, is promising to pay its players, award scholarships and hopefully challenge the NCAA. [watch here]

This could be Historic: HoopsHD interviews Historical Basketball League CEO/Co-Founder Ricky Volante

hoops hd
by: jon teitel

I do not know if anyone can save this sport but one man who wants to offer other options is Ricky Volante, CEO/Co-Founder of the Historical Basketball League. [continue reading]

With time ticking on 2020 goal, Cleveland-based HBL faces its biggest challenge: Recruiting top prospects

Crain’s cleveland business
by: kevin kleps

Cleveland attorney Ricky Volante and Bay Area antitrust economist Andy Schwarz knew there would be a ton of skepticism regarding their decision to start a basketball league that would compete with the NCAA for top high school recruits. [continue reading]

david west looks to start a new college basketball league paying players

sports illustrated
by: khadrice rollins

Former NBA player David West is looking to start a basketball league to rival the NCAA. [continue reading]

Ex-Warrior David West’s next goal: Start a college league that pays players

San Francisco chronicle
by: connor letourneau

In August 2018, when David West announced his retirement from the NBA, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr voiced confidence that West would be successful in whatever post-playing career he chose. [continue reading]

David West is trying to start a paid college basketball league

sb nation: golden state of mind
by: brady klopfer

Former Golden State Warriors big man David West retired at the conclusion of last season, but he’s staying near basketball. And the two-time All-Star’s latest project might be even more impressive than anything he did on the court - and he did some impressive things on the court. [continue reading]

David West discusses role of Historical Basketball League chief operating officer

cincinnati enquirer
by: dave clark

Former Xavier University basketball standout David West - who will serve as the chief operating officer of the Historical Basketball League - says in a feature by Wallstreetjournal.com's Brian Costa about West's role with the new league that the goal is to recruit top high school players for a summer season that would begin in 2020 and bring "what's going on under the table above the table." [continue reading]

HBL CEO Ricky volante & COO David West join mark moyer

Make your mark podcast
February 21, 2019

HBL CEO Ricky volante joins More sports & Les levine

More sports & les levine
january 16, 2019

The Official McCoy Podcast - Jelani McCoy w/ Ricky Volante + David West

The Official McCoy podcast
By: jelani mccoy

Jelani welcomes HBL CEO Ricky Volante to discuss everything that the HBL is trying to accomplish. Also, HBL COO David West talks about his first venture after retirement and how this league stacks up to the NCAA. [listen here]

SI Now Friday December 21, 2018

sports illustrated
By: si now

Guests: Lennox Lewis, David West and Jonathan Jones. David West on the HBL at 16:26. [listen here]

At Large with Alex Wong

The SCore
By: alex wong

Ricky Volante, CEO of the HBL, and David West, COO, join the podcast to talk about why they’re part of a project to give incoming college players an alternative to playing in the NCAA. [listen here]

4 SZNS NBA Podcast #88 Champion edition

4SZNS NBA PODCAST
By: zak noble

Joined by 2x NBA and HBL COO Champion David West and CEO Ricky Volante to discuss disrupting college basketball and David’s career. [listen here…]

the right time with bomani jones: David west

espn radio

Bomani is joined by 2x NBA champion with the Warriors and COO of the brand new "Historic Basketball League" David West. [listen here]

Startup basketball league based in Cleveland says it can compete with the NCAA

Crain’s cleveland business journal
By: kevin kleps

In 18 months, the Historical Basketball League plans to launch with games in 12 cities. [continue reading]

Interview w/Ricky Volante: Historical Basketball League Plans to Disrupt NCAA

the unafraid show
By: kassandra ramsey

Should college athletes be paid? The Historical Basketball League says yes. The HBL is a start-up basketball league that plans to disrupt the NCAA’s current economic model. [continue reading]

Cleveland-based Historical Basketball League hires David West, will pay college players up to $150K