Episode 2098: Guy Lawson gets us inside the biggest scandal in the history of college sports

Keen On

In episode 2065, we discussed the Malaysian contractor, Leonard Glenn Francis (aka: Fat Leonard) about the biggest recent scandal in the US navy. But, as Guy Lawson, author of Hot Dog Money explains in this episode, Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer gives Fat Leonard a good run for his money (so to speak) in Blazer’s participation and later expose of the profoundly corrupt nature of American college sports. The US college sports “economy”, Lawson explains, is a huge deception - from the lie of amateurism to the way in which television sports revenue has transformed many academic colleges into media companies. As Lawson notes, you couldn’t make up the story of Marty Blazer. And the biggest scandal of all is that the lie of amateur college sports continues to generate massive wealth to American universities and media companies.

Guy Lawson is an investigative reporter who has looked closely at crime over the course of his career — and notes that the predatory ecosystem around NCAA sports is essentially an organized crime ring. His bestselling book War Dogs was made into the 2016 feature film starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller, and his writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s. In light of Blazer’s untimely passing, Lawson is now the keeper of his story.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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