Green Bay files NCAA waiver to play in $1M TBT

• Kyle BonaguraMay 23, 2025, 01:33 PM ET

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  • Covers college football.Joined ESPN in 2014. Attended Washington State University.Green Bay
  • has actually declared a waiver from the NCAA to

allow its males’s basketball group to complete in The Basketball Competition, the$1 million, winner-take-all summer tournament that includes many prominent college alumni groups and active expert players.The waiver request, which was submitted recently, acknowledges TBT is not accredited by the NCAA or fall within legislated exceptions, however makes the case it is an appropriate replacement for a foreign trip, which permits college programs to travel abroad to bet expert groups when every 4 years.”When you play overseas, these teams that go to France, Spain, Belgium, whatever, those aren’t NCAA-sanctioned games,”Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb said.”So, the NCAA’s argument is, ‘Hey, in summer season competition, you can’t play these games in the United States. They’re not NCAA-sanctioned.’So, if I played this precise same game 3 hours north of here in Canada, it ‘d be okay. It doesn’t make sense.” There is also the expense aspect. For a school like Green Bay– particularly as college athletics braces for your home

settlement to be finalized– a foreign trip can be cost-prohibitive. By taking part in an occasion like TBT, Green Bay’s waiver request made the case that it would be offering their student-athletes a comparable experience within its methods.”Let’s not stress over the cash prize right now, but that could go to a charity, simply let us play,”Green Bay athletic director

Josh Moon stated.”It’s really about our group and attempting to provide opportunities. “The original premise of the rule that permits programs to take a foreign trip once every four years was that it provide every athlete a possibility to make one such journey while in school. However, with all the movement in college sports in the wake of relieved transfer restrictions, Moon said it’s dated. “You’re working in an environment that is still mostly developed on guidelines from 10, 15 years back,”he said.”There’s still massive amounts of legislation that doesn’t make any sense– that has

n’t been changed in twenty years or thirty years or who knows how long.”Green Bay’s waiver request has support from Horizon League commissioner Julie Roe Lach and the organizers of TBT. “The idea of undergraduate teams or trainee professional athletes getting involved and completing against retired players or existing specialists overseas or any variety of other types of groups that we get is truly attracting us,”TBT CEO Jon Mugar stated.

“We have a long performance history of dealing with and partnering with universities through alumni groups and now it makes a great deal of sense to do that through their actual groups.”Mugar stated TBT has actually communicated with approximately 10 college programs in the previous year with differing degrees of interest in participating.There is precedent for active NCAA players to compete. In 2022, Jarred Houston, then an active player with Division III Emerson, played for a team called We Are D3, which lost in the very first round.Green Bay submitted a similar request last year, however the denial came far too late at the same time to be able to correctly appeal the

ruling. The Phoenix went 4-28 last season, the very first under Gottlieb, a long time host for Fox Sports Radio.