The closest Bryan Seeley has been to working in college sports was spending 40 hours a week covering them for the Daily Princetonian during his days as an undergraduate at the Ivy League school.
Now, the longtime head of investigations for Major League Baseball is about to step into a brand-new role, leading a brand-new organization, which could make him one of the most powerful people in college sports.
On Friday night, Seeley, 46, was named the chief executive officer of the College Sports Commission, the enforcement agency launched by the wealthiest and most powerful conferences to oversee and implement the system that will allow direct payments from NCAA schools to athletes for the first time.
The formal announcement of the CSC and Seeley’s hiring came about two hours after a federal judge approved the $2.8 billion settlement of a trio of antitrust lawsuits facing the NCAA and major college conferences.
A self-described lifelong college sports fan, Seeley brings more than a decade of experience in compliance, enforcement, investigations and policy-making at MLB, along with eight years with the U.S. Department of Justice and a law degree from Harvard.
He said he was drawn to the job by the opportunity to shepherd college sports through a period of transition and into a new era.
“I view this as an area where I can really add value,” Seeley told The Athletic on Sunday in his first interview since a press release announced his hiring.
College sports has a long history of inconsistent enforcement and skirting rules to gain a competitive advantage. The NCAA will still oversee rules related to academics and eligibility, but systems installed to regulate the revenue-sharing cap schools must adhere to, evaluate fair-market value of name, image and likeness deals between athletes and third parties and monitor roster limits will be under the purview of Seeley and the CSC.
He will report to a board made up of the power conference commissioners.
“I think this is a good, new starting point. So whatever existed beforehand does not need to be what exists going forward,” Seeley said. “Culture doesn’t change overnight. I don’t expect that to happen overnight, but I do think that the schools that have signed on to the settlement want rules and want rules to be enforced. Otherwise they wouldn’t have signed on to the settlement. I think student-athletes want a different system. So I think there is a desire for rules enforcement. There’s a desire for transparency.”
Seeley doesn’t have an official start date, but there is no time to waste. Universities can begin directly sharing revenue with college athletes starting July 1. The clearinghouse for evaluating third-party NIL deals for athletes worth at least $600, run by accounting firm Deloitte, goes live Wednesday.
Schools in power conferences are expected to sign formal agreements to abide by rulings made by Seeley and outside arbitrators.
“I haven’t been given assurances of anything, but I do know from my read on this, there is buy-in from the institutions,” Seeley said.
Seeley built the investigations unit at MLB, staffed with lawyers and former law enforcement officers.
“During his time at MLB, Bryan demonstrated unparalleled integrity, a commitment to fairness, and the ability to navigate complex challenges with precision and care,” Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “I have no doubt he will bring the same level of excellence to the College Sports Commission. College sports will greatly benefit from Bryan’s expertise and vision.”
Seeley’s first task at CSC is to again build a staff.
“These are going to be more private-sector investigations, right?” Seeley said. “We don’t have subpoena power. We don’t have search-warrant power. I’ve operated in that system for over a decade, so I’m well-suited to continue to do that with college sports.”
He added, “I think I’m one of the few people in the country who’s probably led investigations into salary-cap circumvention, and so in terms of the subject matter, at least for part of this, I have a lot of experience.”
MLB teams do not operate under a hard salary cap, but there is one for the league’s international amateur talent acquisition system.
One of the most prominent cases Seeley investigated came in 2017, when the Atlanta Braves were found to have circumvented international amateur signing rules over a three-year period. Braves general manager John Coppolella received a five-year ban for his role in the violations. In a separate investigation, Seeley’s group found the Boston Red Sox had also cheated in the international amateur market. Punishment in that case was handed down in 2016.
While the highest levels of college sports are becoming more similar to professional sports, Seeley pushed back on the notion that the power conferences are trying to create another pro league.
“College sports is its own unique thing, and what makes college sports great needs to remain,” Seeley said. “Some of the system we’re going to bring for enforcement is a system that has been used in the pro sports world, but it’s been used in other worlds, too. … But I don’t view this as the professionalization of college sports. Working with schools and working with student-athletes is going to be quite different than working with professional sports teams and professional athletes.”
— The Athletic’s Evan Drellich contributed reporting.
(Photo: Phil Didion / Imagn Images)
