CHAPEL HILL (April 22, 2021) – The UNC Board of Governors voted to name an online sports-gambling executive to UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees today over the objections of prominent board members.
Malcolm Turner was a Morehead Scholar and a Rhodes Scholar finalist at UNC-Chapel Hill, later earning a JD and MBA from Harvard University. He later served as athletics director at Vanderbilt University and president of the National Basketball Association’s G League.
He now heads strategy and corporate development at DraftKings Inc.,1 one of the two largest online sports-betting companies in the country.
Complicating the appointment is the fact that David Powers, Chair of the Governance Committee recommending the candidates, is a lobbyist for DraftKings. Powers recused himself from discussion both in committee and before the full board, saying he has never met and doesn’t know Turner. (Former Board of Governors member Tom Fetzer also was a lobbyist for DraftKings in 2017-18.)2
Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey said he was highly impressed by Turner in a 30-minute meeting and that he has an “incredible” resume.
Board member Art Pope agreed that Turner has excellent qualifications, but “It’s his primary business to develop sports betting … including the University of North Carolina.”
Several states have moved to legalize sports betting after a U.S. Supreme Court decision legalized it. Pope noted that the first sports bet placed in North Carolina, at the casino in Cherokee, was on a UNC basketball game on March 18.
“I think it’s in the best interest, not only of UNC-Chapel Hill but of all our institutions, to keep an arm’s-length distance between our public universities and online gambling on college sports,” he said.
Pope pointed out that a review by the State Ethics Commission found Turner has no actual conflict of interest, but he does have potential conflicts – a common finding for members of an appointed board. Ramsey noted that he had the same finding himself on 12 Statements of Economic Interests that he has filed.
Board member Jim Holmes contended that Turner will know when to recuse himself from votes, and as a former athletics director at Vanderbilt, he will bring a perspective and understanding of NCAA policies to the board that others don’t.
Board member Marty Kotis said that with a lottery, a casino in Cherokee and more on the way, gambling is already legal in North Carolina. “One member alone is not going to change the decision-making at a school,” he said.
Former Board Chair Lou Bissette called Turner “an exceptional individual,” but said he agrees with Pope.
“I think perceptions mean a lot,” Bissette said. “Given UNC-Chapel Hill’s position as an icon of college sports, the perception here is not going to be good.”
Others – including members Doyle Parrish and Dwight Stone – suggested the Governance Committee ignored nominees submitted by Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Board of Trustees Chair Richard Stevens.
The UNC-Chapel Hill leaders suggested five nominees, said Stone, a former Chair of the Chapel Hill board, but none were advanced by the Governance Committee.
“I find that unbelievable, almost,” he said. “That’s disappointing.”
He added that Turner’s appointment will be controversial, and that in many instances, Turner will have to abstain from trustee votes on matters that involve athletics.
IN THE COMMITTEE’S MEETING WEDNESDAY, Pope (who is not a member of the committee) noted that college sports is undergoing great change at the moment with court rulings on players’ rights to their own images
Pope said the Board of Trustees could well get involved. He also noted that Carolina’s Board of Trustees was greatly involved in the University’s response to an academic scandal involving athletes 10 years ago.
Board member Steve Long pointed out that trustees at Chapel Hill were involved more recently in approving a contract for new men’s basketball coach Hubert Davis. “The fact of the matter is these trustees do get involved in college athletics,” he said.
Board member Pearl Burris-Floyd said that most members of the Board of Governors have potential conflicts – but that can be handled if the member simply recuses him- or herself from a vote.
“A man of this intellectual caliber would understand that,” she said, adding that just one slip can ruin a reputation forever. She said she would support Turner’s nomination because he has done nothing “to indicate he would suddenly change and go down a different path.”
1 https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=66015&code=bog, p. 20.
2 https://www.sosnc.gov/online_services/search/lobbying_results.
Richard Marvin says
Another example of the BOG diminishing the University System and creating a potential conflict of interest in fact or at least in perception. The comments from various Board members are naive and amplifies their total lack of understanding of the University System and its value to the State.
Joe Holder says
Mr. Turner may be a person of high character and excellent qualifications; however, I do not think his appointment to the Board of Trustees is appropriate given his business association with sports betting. I believe the college basketball gambling scandal of the late 1950s forever burned that lesson into our memory.