Bryan Seeley, a high-ranking executive at Major League Baseball and former assistant U.S. attorney, was officially hired by the power conferences to lead their newly formed college sports enforcement body, just hours after a landmark lawsuit settlement was approved by a federal judge.
The College Sports Commission will oversee rules related to the new revenue-sharing system coming to NCAA Division I athletics as part of the $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit settlement that was approved by a federal judge on Friday, June 6. The CSC is scheduled to be up and running on July 1.
Seeley will be the commission’s chief executive officer, in charge of enforcing the rev-share cap schools must adhere to, running the clearinghouse for name, image and likeness deals athletes sign, and doling out punishment to rule violators.
“I am honored to serve as the first CEO of the College Sports Commission at this pivotal moment in the history of collegiate athletics,” Seeley said in a statement. “I look forward to implementing a system that prioritizes fairness, integrity, and opportunity, while preserving the values that make college sports unique. I am energized by the work ahead and excited to begin building out our team.”
Seeley will report to a board comprised of the commissioners of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti previously worked with Seeley in MLB.
“Bryan brings unwavering integrity and a wealth of relevant experience to his new role leading the College Sports Commission and working to ensure a smooth implementation of this new system,” the commissioners said in a joint statement. “We’re grateful to have an individual with his credentials and expertise at the helm, and we look forward to his leadership as we transition into this new era of college sports.”
The NCAA will still handle the enforcement of eligibility and academic rules, but regulating how athletes are paid will be in the hands of Seeley. In more than a decade at the league, he rose to executive vice president for legal and operations, overseeing investigations, compliance, state government relations and sports betting.
Seeley headed MLB’s sign-stealing investigation that led to the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox being disciplined. He also oversaw inquiries into sexual assault allegations against former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer and Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who is currently on the restricted list and on trial in the Dominican Republic.
Seeley’s departure is a loss for MLB, but his successor is in place. In recent years, the day-to-day affairs of the league’s Department of Investigations were largely handled by Moira Weinberg, MLB’s senior vice president for investigations.
Seeley’s portfolio, however, had grown. He was key to MLB’s efforts in sports gambling, helping set policy and lobbying strategies. He also played a central role during the league’s COVID-19 pandemic operations. Some of his work was focused in the Dominican Republic, a country that produces many top baseball players. How MLB will distribute the full scope of Seeley’s duties beyond DOI wasn’t immediately clear.
Seeley was hired in September 2014, when current commissioner Rob Manfred was months away from beginning his tenure. Then-commissioner Bud Selig and Manfred established the DOI in 2008 on a recommendation made the prior year in the Mitchell Report, an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs in baseball that the league hired former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine to conduct. But half a decade into the new department’s operation, Manfred and then commissioner Bud Selig wanted to start anew.
DOI’s work on the Biogenesis scandal, which centered on star player Alex Rodriguez and the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs out of an anti-aging clinic in Florida, had produced a slew of gaffes and headlines.
The original iteration of the department was run by ex-cops. Manfred and his right-hand man, current MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem, believed installing lawyers in their place would bring several benefits. One was that league investigators would be more buttoned-up and by the book, with the benefit of attorney-client privilege as well. But they also felt lawyers would be better positioned to handle DOI’s overall workload.
DOI investigators often have to work with other attorneys and prosecutors. Manfred and Halem, both lawyers, thought DOI’s leaders should be able to speak the same language as those they were often talking to. White-collar investigations require evidence gathering, witness testimony, and sometimes defense of the findings. In baseball, if DOI is building a case against a player, that will sometimes mean presenting a case to an arbitrator. Testimony has to stand up.
Power conference leaders are hoping to replicate a similar structure with the College Sports Commission and had targeted candidates for the CEO position with backgrounds as judges and lawyers.
In recent years, NCAA enforcement has lost its teeth, with schools emboldened to push back — sometimes with the help of their state’s attorney general.
The NCAA is a voluntary membership organization that relies heavily on self-reporting and cooperation from schools to investigate and enforce rules. Conference leaders are hoping the College Sports Commission can bring more heft and investigative independence to the enforcement.
Conferences are asking member schools to agree in writing to comply and adhere to CSC enforcement decisions, which will include the use of outside mediators.
Seeley was the youngest candidate MLB interviewed for the revised top job at DOI. He had served as a federal prosecutor in Washington D.C. since 2006. Starting in 2010, he focused on white-collar cases and fraud investigations, including public corruption investigations involving bribery and kickbacks.
Every major baseball scandal of the last decade would have crossed Seeley’s desk at some point, and the department itself sometimes took criticism in the process. For example: Many fans believed MLB’s investigations into electronic sign-stealing were unsatisfying. But like every top job at the commissioner’s office, Seeley’s role existed ultimately to further the interests of MLB and the sport’s owners. Sports leagues don’t typically court growing and widening scandals, they seek to quell them.
(Photo: Phil Didion / Imagn Images)
