Welcome to the Sports and Compliance podcast. For the longest time, I have wanted to have a podcast on the intersection of Sports and the World of Compliance and Ethics, both for those stories as the play out on the Sports Page and for the lessons they provide to business executives and compliance professionals. In this podcast series, I am joined by one of the top compliance commentators around, Stephen Martin, CCO at Skillsoft. Together will use our love of sports and competition to discuss current ethical issues in sports, look at compliance through a sports lens and determine how the world of sports and its stories can be a guide for the compliance professional.

In today’s episode, Tom and Stephen look at the sale of the team formerly known as the “team who will not be named,” the investigation surrounding Alabama Crimson Tide basketball player Brandon Miller, and MLB’s changes to the game such as the size of the bases, clocks on pitchers and hitters and outlawing shifts; all in the hopes of speeding up the game. Tom and Stephen explore the stories from different perspectives and always keeping their compliance audience in mind. Learn more with Sports and Compliance and keep up with current sports news, with a dash of compliance laid in.

Key Highlights

·       The Mary Jo White Report and Confidence in the NFL [00:03:56]

·       The Alabama Basketball Imbroglio [00:06:53]

·       The Consequences of Poor Decision Making [00:10:33]

·       The Impact of Baseball’s Rule Changes on the Game [00:13:49]

·       The Impact of the Shift on Baseball [00:17:13]

·       Baseball Speed Up: Positive Effects on Keeping Fans Interested [00:19:56]

Notable Quotes

1.    “You don’t often see it when somebody causes their own problems and then ask to be identified for them, but we’ve seen that with CEOs before.”

2.    “It’s a classic example of a couple of things we see in compliance. Star performers. Sometimes there’s just different rules for them. Right? And that’s just how it goes.”

3.    “It’s just it’s shocking to me that Alabama has done it this way.””

4.    “You can’t just say, I’m being mistreated. We’ve had that conversation in our household the last few days about what’s fair and when rules are in place, what happens? And these are all good things to understand because they’re there are consequences whether positive or negative to rule changes and you can figure them out.”