Hooks & Runs
Hooks & Runs is a podcast about baseball, music and culture. Our podcast includes interviews with news makers in the sports and music world plus commentary from the co-hosts on interesting current and historical events. Hooks & Runs releases a new episodes every Thursday (more or less).
Hooks & Runs
292 - College Sports is Looking a Lot Like 19th Century Baseball w/ John A. Fortunato
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Between players jumping contracts and entangling themselves in gambling scandals; the lack of a clear, consistent enforcement authority and conference (league) realignments, one could easily confuse current state of the NCAA with the chaotic state of 19th Century baseball.
This week, John A. Fortunato joins us to make sense of college sports today. Fortunato is a professor of communications and media management at Fordham University's Gabelli School of Business. His research interests include sports, broadcasting & communication and public relations. He comments on a wide range of topics, including name, image & likeness; the Brendan Sorsby and Darian Mensah controversies, the increasingly toothless NCAA enforcement arm, and whether or not Congress has the power to bring order to the anarchy.
Professor Fortunato at Fordham
John Fortunato, An Ethical Application to Student-Athlete Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), Journal of Intercollegiate Sport.
Errata: The University of Houston played Idaho, not an Ivy League school, in March Madness's first round in 2026 - you'd think a "basketball junkie" would remember that. Wagner beat Maryland-Eastern Shore 78-64 on December 17, 2025, with 350 patrons in attendance. Rose Hill Gym was built in 1925 - it is the oldest Division I gymnasium still in regular use, now that Northeastern University's Matthews Arena is being demolished.
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Music: "Warrior of Light" by ikolics (via Premium Beat)
www.premiumbeat.com/artist/ikoliks
This podcast and this episode are copyright Craig Estlinbaum, 2026.