Every year, TV manufacturers try to impress the superiority of their new models upon us (this TV is so many percentile points better than the previous one!). In this same way, both the LG G6 and the Samsung S95H promised a lot for 2026, and despite more modest gains in picture quality than they claimed, these are still great OLED TVs. Though they are closely matched, there’s one particular Samsung feature that has attracted a lot of interest.
One of the most intriguing features of the S95H is its ability to act like a Frame TV (but not quite) by displaying static artwork — something that hasn’t been possible with OLED technology before. However, I found it’s not capable of the same Ambient mode, and so it’s a much more manual process.
Of the two, the LG has more accurate color, and I prefer its antireflective coating, as it maintains black levels in a lit room. Yet, the LG has some issues with shadow detail, making greys appear lighter than they should. The Samsung, meanwhile, is a blast if you’re a gamer (more on that further down). That said, you will get a better deal by buying last year’s TV, and the rival LG G5 is similar to the S95H, but is also $1,000 cheaper. While the Samsung OLED’s ability to display art may be an interesting quirk, the Frame Pro is a more attractive option if a gallery mode is what you want most.
Also read: Best TVs of 2026
Samsung S95H OLED TV sizes, series comparison
I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 65-inch Samsung S95H, but this review also applies to the other screen sizes in the series. All sizes have similar specs and should provide similar picture quality.
55-inch Samsung S95H QN55S95HAFXZA
65-inch Samsung S95H QN65S95HAFXZA
77-inch Samsung S95H QN77S95HAFXZA
83-inch Samsung S95H QN83S95HAEXZA
Design and remote
If you’ve been familiar with Samsung’s flagship TVs of the past few years, you’ll remember the external connection boxes — either wireless or connected by a thin cable. Well, that’s all gone, and it’s been replaced by the most controversial part of the new design. The TV is surrounded by a 1-inch-thick metal surround that looks like it should be replaceable, a la The Frame, but sadly it isn’t. I didn’t pull it apart to test this, but Samsung representatives told me that this frame is what now houses the old connect box circuitry.
While the separate box kept the previous model supremely thin, at 0.4 inches deep, the S95H is over twice as thick at 1 inch. Though it’s not visible head-on, if you duck to the side, you’ll see that there is actually a space between the screen and the bezel, occupied by Sony PlayStation-like vents. OLEDs get hot — especially when they get as bright as the S95H — and this is a neat way to prevent your new screen from poaching in its own juices.
One welcome upgrade from last year is the provision of an easy-to-assemble stand. These two tool-less, click-in legs took less time to assemble than washing your hands did during the pandemic (“Happy birthday to you…”).
Samsung has pared down its chunky, colorful remote of the past to the bare minimum: a wafer-shaped clicker powered by a solar panel on the back. It’s fairly easy to use, though its lack of functionality won’t please power users. For instance, if you use your TV as an input switch, then you need to navigate to the Connected Devices menu option at the top to change inputs. I still prefer remotes that have a dedicated input button.
The screen is the star
For the past few years, LG has released iterations of its brightness-enhancing technology called “four stack,” which overlaps several OLED screens. Meanwhile, while Samsung’s 2026 S95H has seen a big jump in its brightness, a 30% increase in brightness year-over-year, its screen makeup hasn’t appeared to have changed from QDOLED or Quantum Dot OLED.
The reasons to buy this screen vary, but alongside the artwork feature, the antireflective coating is impressive and lets almost nothing through. If you have a pesky, distracting light source behind you that you can’t tame any other way, this TV is an attractive solution. But the S95H is not the only Samsung TV that does this; the S90H now has a modified version, and the Frame TVs have sported their own coatings for many years.
Speaking of the Frame, this Samsung is the first OLED TV to be able to display static art for extended amounts of time. According to the company, “Samsung OLED TVs incorporate multiple image retention mitigation technologies — including pixel shift and pixel refresh — designed to help reduce the risk of burn-in during normal viewing conditions. These technologies dynamically manage pixel usage to distribute wear more evenly across the panel over time.”
To test the new art mode, I left the most high-contrast image running for the better part of a day: a black-and-white Moomin image from the gallery. In ordinary circumstances, the TV would show retention of this kind of image almost immediately, but switching to a white or all-grey image showed no retention at all. Impressive. It’s just a pity there’s no ambient mode to display an image when you turn off the TV.
Smart TV gets an AI makeover
Being this is 2026, this television has a horde of AI-flavored technologies — some more useful than others. Though Samsung doesn’t have World Cup affiliations, the TV does have an AI Soccer Mode. This mode makes the ball less fuzzy during movement and the field more green. Is this something football fans need, though? The S95H also sports the NQ4 AI Gen3 processor for image processing and upscaling, as well as Amazon Alexa built in.
Unlike most high-end TVs, the S95H doesn’t have Dolby Vision HDR, and while I don’t think this is a big deal, completists may look to LG, Sony or even Panasonic instead. Connectivity is now all housed on the TV and includes:
Four HDMI 2.1 inputs 4K 165Hz
Three USB-A ports, one USB-C port
Optical digital audio output
Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth 5.3
Ethernet
I’ve been no fan of the smart TV systems of either Samsung or rival LG in recent years, but Samsung has taken steps in 2026 to streamline the experience. While the screen naturally leans into everything AI, it is cleaner and better organized than ever.
From left to right, the redesigned menu now starts with an information cluster that includes your profile, connected devices (especially useful for changing inputs) and settings. The other menu options to the right are probably less useful, depending on which way the wind is blowing, with For you, Live, Games, Art (AI and artwork store), Daily and Apps.
Like the Samsung S95F before it, the latest TV brings gesture control for owners of a Samsung Galaxy Watch. I didn’t test it this time around, but if the experience is the same as before, I can’t imagine many people using it more than once — a remote is much better.
High-end OLED comparison: LG G6 vs. LG G5 vs. Samsung S95H vs. Samsung S90H vs. Hisense U7
I started my tests of these five TVs with the 4K UHD Blu-ray movie It, and as Georgie hesitated at the top of the stairs to the basement, I felt the S95’s rival, the LG G6, displayed too much shadow detail. The open space beside him, with all its wooden beams, was very green on the G6, and this was compared with the G5, which had too little detail, while the S95H had about the right amount.
The same thing happened when I played the ruined city scene from the movie 1917, which starts in almost complete darkness. The G6 was too bright, and while I could appreciate the shadow detail, the S95H had a more balanced mix of shadow and pure black. The G5 behaved similarly to the Samsung here and showed that the older TV still knows how to mix with the ‘young kids.’
I then switched to a streaming copy of the latest Superman movie, and during the opening scenes of snow and ice, I found that the Samsung S95H, G5 and G6 looked very similar in terms of near-white detail. Yet some of the finer areas in the Fortress of Solitude looked a little greener on the Samsung — the first inkling that its HDR colors may differ from those on the other screens. Yet, it was also on this title that I noticed some green discoloration on the G6 when viewed from the side.
I also ran the S95H through some test footage from the Spears and Munsil test disc, and I found the most profound differences in color reproduction between the two high-end 2026 TVs. The oranges in the Munsil test disc, in particular, tended toward yellow on the Samsung, whereas they were nearly identical on the two LGs and Samsung S90H. Interestingly, the S95H was the only one that couldn’t display the orange sun, which appears toward the end of the test. In general, though, the Samsung S95H behaved similarly to the G5 except on red, which looked a little desaturated. The G6 was a bit more vibrant than the other two, especially with blues and oranges.
Lastly, on the 24p judder test, the S95H was smoother than the LG G6, which had very slight judder effects by comparison, but both were acceptable.
Bright room
Samsung has led the industry for several years in antireflective coatings. Every iteration of the S95 has shown some improvements, and the ‘H’ version is the best yet at rejecting all but the brightest lights. Even if you shine your phone’s flash directly on the screen, you’ll only get a ghostly glow, and no other TV I’ve seen in 2026 does this as well. The S90H has a modified version of this tech, but when I ran the same test, I saw a red tint in the S90’s reflection that the S95 didn’t have. But not everyone has a light shining directly on their screen, and so they don’t need this level of antiglare.
The downside to Samsung’s technology is that black is very slightly gray in a lit room. If you want a TV that you can watch in a lit room and enjoy a more dynamic image, then the LG G6’s coating preserves black levels. While the G5 was pretty good at antiglare, the G6 is truly the best at this kind of coating I have seen. It will still show direct light sources; you’ll still make out the shape of a reflected light bulb, for instance, but ambient light performance is better.
One last word about watching TV on the S95H: Even in Filmmaker Mode, the TV will adjust your brightness (and color) based on your room’s ambient light. If you care about picture quality, turn this off by going to Settings > Power and Energy Saving > Brightness Optimization. The picture then won’t change on the vagaries of an onboard light sensor, and you’ll get the performance you paid for.
Gaming
I played a variety of different games on all of the assembled 2026 TVs — the S95H, LG G6, Samsung S90H and Hisense U7 — and found that the Samsung S95H was the most fun of the bunch. It was bright, responsive (with a low 9.33ms lag in 4K) and able to illuminate all of the shadowy parts of a map where an enemy may be waiting in ambush.
You may find the default settings a little too lurid, though, and you can reduce the color control in Settings > Advanced Features > Game Mode Settings > Game Mode.
Uniformity and viewing angle
While the new G6 has an unusual off-angle problem where everything turns a slight shade of green, there is no such problem with the S95H. Even when standing to the side to inspect its aforementioned vents, I saw no issues with screen discoloration when viewing the Samsung S95H.
Picture settings and testing notes
While the TV is indeed brighter than last year’s, testing at 2,800 nits, the color results are a lot worse when it comes to HDR. When tested with luminance error included, both the Colormatch and Color Checker errors were higher than any other TVs I’ve seen in a while, at 17 and 12, respectively (ideally, they should be less than 3). The error without luminance included was at expected levels, but luminance readings take into account how accurate each color is at the expected brightness, and are arguably a better indicator of performance. These variations may have led to the visible color differences in program material, where oranges were yellow, or when the sun in the test material disappeared completely.
Portrait Displays Calman calibration software was used in this review.

The Iranian football team were forced to leave the U.S. immediately after their 2-2 World Cup group stage draw with New Zealand.
Iranian coach Amir Ghalenoei said U.S. officials ordered the team to leave the country after the match yesterday, and was quoted calling his team the “most oppressed team in the whole World Cup.” The Iranians have now returned to their training camp in Tijuana.
Ghalenoei claimed the plan was originally to remain in the U.S. before leaving for Mexico today.
Despite having all three of their group games played in the U.S., Donald Trump‘s administration has refused to let Iran stay in the country between matches. Around 13 members of Iran’s coaching staff were refused entry into the U.S., amid a politically charged atmosphere.
The U.S. and Iran have agreed a deal to end the war between them, per President Trump, the Iranian government and negotiator Pakistan, but the bad blood between the countries remains.
Prior to the New Zealand game, many Iranian fans flew pre-revolutionary flags, which symbolize their opposition to the regime in Tehran.
A few hundred fans, many of whom are Iranian-Americans, were reported to have protested against the national team, claiming it represents the Iranian regime’s Islamic beliefs rather than the sports team. Some sung the country’s pre-revolutionary anthem.
World Cup organizer FIFA has banned the pre-revolutionary flag inside stadiums as part of its shaky commitment to keeping the tournament non-political. However, it was seen in stadium during the match and on fans’ t-shirts.
The match itself saw Iran twice come from behind to draw 2-2 with New Zealand in their Group G match.

Transfer quarterback Brendan Sorsby will not play for Texas Tech this fall and instead plans to enter the NFL supplemental draft, ending an unprecedented legal fight over the college eligibility of a player who had acknowledged betting on college and pro sports, including some wagers on his own team while at Indiana four years ago.
Cody Campbell, the billionaire booster who is chairman of the Texas Tech regents, wrote in an open letter Monday night that Sorsby will not be part of the team.
“This decision was made with Brendan and his family and is purely an output of practical analysis of the situation,” Campbell wrote. “Brendan and Texas Tech stand on very solid and legitimate legal ground, but he faces a June 22nd deadline to be eligible to enter the NFL’s supplemental draft, and there is no practical way to resolve all the various pending legal disputes and ensure his eligibility prior to this date. This is the only viable and fair path for Brendan and his future, as well as for his teammates, and our university.”
That came exactly one week before the deadline for Sorsby to apply for the NFL supplemental draft.
And it was also one week after Sorsby was granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA, an order that sent shockwaves through college sports because one of the NCAA’s foundational rules, and one found in many professional sports as well, is the ability to ban players for gambling — especially those wagering on games involving their own team.
All the legal wrangling had raised the stakes in the fight over whether Sorsby could play and who would decide that.
Sorsby’s decision came on the same day the NCAA and Big 12 had filings in separate courts challenging a temporary injunction that had cleared the way for the 22-year-old quarterback to play despite being declared ineligible after he admitted making thousands of bets worth at least $90,000 while in college. Those included at least 40 bets on Indiana while he was a freshman there in 2022, though none on the game in which he played for the Hoosiers that season.
Sorsby didn’t play a down for the defending Big 12 champion Red Raiders. He transferred to Texas Tech in January for a reported multimillion-dollar deal after playing the past two seasons at Cincinnati, another Big 12 school. The Texas native was at Indiana in 2022 and 2023.
Campbell, while not revealing any figures, said Texas Tech will not seek the return of any payments already made to Sorsby through his NIL agreements with the university.
While it was Sorsby and not Texas Tech who filed the suit against the NCAA that resulted in the injunction, school officials had repeatedly said he would be better off on the team for his mental health and well being.
“I am grateful for the support from my family, my Tech coaching staff, teammates, the community, and so many others who have encouraged me to address and learn more about this important issue,” Sorsby wrote in a social media post Monday night. “As my journey continues, I remain fully committed to and focused on being the best I can be, both on and off the field.”
Court testimony revealed Sorsby has a diagnosed addiction and anxiety-driven compulsion. He recently completed a monthlong stay in a residential treatment program in Arizona that he entered after Texas Tech was notified in April about an NCAA investigation into his gambling activity.
“I pray that he can stay on his path to recovery,” Campbell wrote. “Texas Tech will continue to provide the support and recovery resources Brendan requires on this journey.”
In a joint statement, Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec and Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt also said the school would still extend all available resources to Sorsby that he had while on the Lubbock campus.
“When Brendan’s lawsuit resulted in the granting of a temporary injunction, we found ourselves in a difficult situation. With his health and wellness as our top priority, we supported him in spite of very different perspectives and opinions. Our position was challenged by many but our support for him never changed,” they wrote.
The ruling last week by Judge Ken Curry prevented the NCAA from being able to block the quarterback’s eligibility for what would have been his final college season with a team among the favorites to win the Big 12 Conference and return to the College Football Playoff for a second consecutive season.
The NCAA’s appeal
In documents filed Monday with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo, the NCAA asked for an emergency motion to stay the June 8 injunction. The NCAA had also asked for a resolution of the case by Aug. 28, which it said would spare the potential disruption of a ruling after Texas Tech begins its season on Sept. 5. The trial was scheduled for February, well after the season ends.
“The trial court’s temporary injunction sweeps beyond anything Texas law permits,” attorneys for the NCAA wrote. “It undermines the integrity of college sports, rewrites member-adopted rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, immunizes Brendan Sorsby from discipline for admitted and serial violations of NCAA anti-gambling rules, incentivizes a run on courthouses across the country to challenge even the most obvious and straightforward student-athlete eligibility decisions and demolishes the status quo.”
Big 12 goes to federal court
The Big 12, meanwhile, filed its complaint in U.S. District Court in Dallas seeking a court order backing its ability to use its bylaws for possible sanctions against Texas Tech if Sorsby had played this season. Last week, the Texas attorney general’s office warned the league of potential legal action from Texas Tech for any such sanctions.
The Big 12 filing names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race this fall, as well as Texas Tech leadership, including its president, chancellor and athletic director. It accused them of trying to prevent the Big 12 from exercising its own rules the school itself agreed to long ago. Sorsby wasn’t named as a defendant.
“An athlete with an extensive, documented history of wagering on intercollegiate athletic contests — especially his own team’s games — presents a reputational and integrity risk to the conference and its championship competition that the conference has both the right and the responsibility to address,” attorneys for the Big 12 wrote. “The conference is not required to accept that risk on behalf of its 15 other member Institutions, their student-athletes, their fans and its commercial partners. And no government official has the power to compel it to do so.”
That came before a meeting Monday of the Big 12 board of directors, which is made up of presidents and chancellors from the league’s 16 schools.
In a statement by the board after that meeting, the Big 12 said it “has long spoken out about the dangers of sports wagering by student-athletes and remains committed to protecting the competitive integrity of conference competition. Universities should not field players who have bet on their own team’s games in college athletics.”
Big 12 athletic directors in a conference call with Commissioner Brett Yormark last week expressed opposition to Sorsby playing for the Red Raiders this season, and some even suggested maybe not playing Texas Tech if he had.
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INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The coach of Iran’s World Cup team said it was ordered to leave the U.S. and return to its training base in Mexico only a few hours after opening its politically charged tournament by playing to a 2-2 draw with New Zealand on Monday night.
Coach Amir Ghalenoei didn’t say who ordered the Iranians to leave earlier than planned. The team had expected to spend the night in California to maximize the normal recovery process after its opening game, only to be told after the match that everyone must immediately get on a plane for the 140-mile trip back to Tijuana.
“They didn’t even give us time to recover,” Ghalenoei said through an interpreter. “After the game today, they said to us, ‘You have to leave immediately.’ It’s very important for us to have time for recovery, (but) we are asked to get on a plane and return to our camp in Tijuana, and we are really troubled by that.”
The Iranians’ World Cup cycle has been in upheaval since the U.S. and Israel began a war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran ultimately decided to compete even after FIFA rejected its request to move its three group-stage matches out of the U.S.
Iran captain Mehdi Taremi said the team endured five hours of travel and security checks during what’s normally a very short trip from Tijuana to the Los Angeles area on Sunday.
“We don’t know why they are returning us, to be honest,” Ghalenoei said. “I think it’s very strange. It seems like others are doing the planning for us. The decision-making for us is being made elsewhere. We were supposed to come two nights before the game, and we were supposed to stay tonight to recover and return tomorrow at lunchtime. We have no idea why.
“I think our team is perhaps the most oppressed in the World Cup.”
Taremi and Ghalenoei both decried the team’s lack of many important staff members — including the president of Iran’s football federation, coaching support personnel and media officials — who were denied visas by the U.S., amplifying the team’s difficult preparations.
“We have to leave Los Angeles right now, and it’s not good for us,” Taremi said about an hour after the match. “I think FIFA have to help us more than this. … Everything is like a disaster, actually, for us.”
Ghalenoei said several players developed cramps during the game, which was played in mild conditions. He attributed the injury problems to the lack of proper preparation time caused by Iran’s bureaucratic and diplomatic obstacles.
“Before the game, I said we haven’t had time to adjust because of the travel,” Ghalenoei said. “Many of our players, they had cramps, and that’s why we had to substitute them. So it wasn’t for technical reasons that we made substitutions. It was because of the injury and because of the cramp. They will be examined (Tuesday) by our technical staff, but the fact they delayed our arrivals and they are forcing us to go back early without time for recovery, they are making the situation more difficult.”
The Iranians’ remaining two games in group stage play are against Belgium in Inglewood on Sunday, followed by a trip to Seattle to face Egypt next week.
Iran opened its World Cup with a disappointing draw to a team ranked 65 places lower in FIFA’s rankings. Yet the Iranians also overcame two deficits in an exciting match, getting the tying goal from Mohammad Mohebi in the 64th minute before a strongly pro-Iranian crowd at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles, which has the world’s largest population of Iranians outside Iran.
The game was played in a crackling atmosphere created in part by a conflicted, diasporic fan base which remains furious with the current Iranian government, but is still largely supportive of Team Melli.
While several hundred Iranian Americans protested the government outside, many fans from the diaspora jeered and turned their backs on the field during the national anthem. Dozens of Lion and Sun emblems — the centerpiece of Iran’s official flag before 1979 — were displayed in the crowd despite FIFA’s attempts to keep them away, while dozens more fans wore the Lion and Sun emblems on T-shirts.
Yet the vast majority of the crowd vocally supported the Iranian players once the match kicked off.
“It was an incredible atmosphere in the game, all 90 minutes,” Taremi said. “It was like at home for us.”
Elijah Just scored early in each half for New Zealand, but Iran responded twice with a pair of beautiful goals, including Mohebi’s header off a perfect pass from Ramin Rezaeian, who had scored off the side of his boot in the first half.
Mohebi appeared to mime the shooting of a gun after his goal, setting off criticism online. He also made the now-ubiquitous “ice in my veins” gesture originated 10 miles away from SoFi Stadium by Los Angeles Lakers rookie D’Angelo Russell a decade ago, before he held up a heart to the cheering fans.
“The Iranians who live in Los Angeles, they make a great atmosphere,” Mohebi said. “That celebration, it comes in the mind, and I did like this” — motioning to his arm — “for all the fans. Just a celebration.”
Players from both teams embraced and shook hands after the final whistle, with at least one jersey swap occurring. While Ghalenoei sat by himself in the dugout, his players gathered together and walked around the field applauding their remaining thousands of flag-shaking, roaring fans.
Both of Iran’s next two matches are tougher on paper, endangering their chances of getting out of the World Cup group stage for the first time. Iran, Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand have one point apiece after the opening round.
“We’re facing more hurdles, but we’re not going to let that stop us from doing our best,” Ghalenoei said. “I think today was one of the best games in the World Cup so far, and I think the fans really enjoyed it inside the stadium and outside the stadium.”
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Associated Press writer Amy Taxin and AP Sports Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.
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DENVER — On Monday evening, within the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton here, a handful of NCAA Division I conference commissioners milled about ahead of their annual three-day meetings scheduled to start Tuesday.
One of those included Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who found himself squarely in the lobby as the Brendan Sorsby saga, abruptly, came to a close.
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“It’s been a challenging week for both our conference and the college athletics landscape,” Yormark said in a statement to Yahoo Sports on Monday night. “The Big 12 looks forward to moving ahead as 16 strong. We wish Brendan Sorsby success in his future endeavors.”
While declining to reveal much else during a brief interview, Yormark expressed gratitude for the league’s outside counsel, the global law firm Sidley Austin, which helped orchestrate the Big 12’s groundbreaking legal complaint filed Monday morning in federal court — a threat that, presumably, helped usher Sorsby toward the NFL Supplemental Draft. Natali Wyson, a partner at the firm, “provided the legal guidance and executed the Big 12’s strategy,” Yormark said, in filing a complaint against Texas Tech, its school officials and the Texas attorney general’s office.
In fact, it was Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s letter last week that, oddly enough, paved the way for the school’s filing Monday, according to legal experts who spoke to Yahoo Sports. Paxton’s letter threatened legal action against the Big 12 if it were to sanction Texas Tech.
It opened a lane for the Big 12’s suit. The league’s filing on Monday asked a federal judge to bar Paxton’s office from preventing the conference from exercising its right under the bylaws to sanction Tech. The conference sought no damages in the filing and did not challenge a state court ruling that deemed Sorsby eligible, but instead requested a judge to permit it to take action in light of Paxton’s legal threats — a lawsuit that many within the legal community expected the Big 12 to win.
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“In 40 years as a lawyer, I’ve never seen such a devastating legal filing come out of left field,” said Tom Mars, a noted attorney in recent college sports cases, most of them against the NCAA, conferences and schools. “It was as creative as anything I’ve ever seen.”
Quite literally in the dark of night, Sidley Austin attorneys made the filing on behalf of the Big 12 in the Northern District of Texas federal court in Dallas.
The lawsuit was filed around 1 a.m. ET, according to court documents.
On Monday at or around 7 a.m., Yormark informed Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec of the complaint in a courtesy phone call.
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The call started a whirlwind of a day that ended with Sorsby out of college football.
Later in the day, Schovanec joined the other Big 12 presidents and chancellors in a scheduled call about the situation. After speaking to the group about his side, Schovanec left the call before the remaining 15 presidents discussed options to sanction the school, including a monetary fine and conference championship game ban.
In addition to the Big 12’s filing on Monday, the NCAA and its team of lawyers filed with Texas state court an emergency appeal that encouraged the court to delay its ruling on Sorsby and to expedite an appeal decision before the college football season began. Or else, the NCAA filing said, the court will “teach all athletes that when you break the rules and receive discipline, the solution is not to take responsibility but to find a different umpire.”
In the meantime on Monday, more issues mounted against Sorsby’s plans to play. Both the Kansas and Utah attorneys general publicly released letters they sent to the Big 12 in support of the conference sanctioning Tech and criticizing Paxton’s letter as inaccurate and filled with unfounded claims. The University of Michigan canceled a volleyball match scheduled with the school, too, the latest program to prohibit contests against Tech in light of its intention to allow a player to compete after admitting to betting on his own school.
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Sorsby’s decision to apply for the NFL Supplemental Draft ends one of the most gripping and one-sided fiascos in the modern history of college athletics — a sordid, four-month affair that began with the NCAA investigation earlier this spring. The association received a tip on Sorsby’s gambling from a sportsbook through federal law enforcement.
A 47-page legal filing from Sidley Austin, as it turns out, may have been the impetus to close the book on the ordeal. In the complaint, the league made three main requests to a federal judge: grant an injunction to allow it to exercise its First Amendment rights to invoke its authority under its bylaws; dismiss Paxton’s claims that any sanction is an antitrust violation; and grant it the right to penalize a member school for violating the dormant Commerce Clause, which prevents state governments from enacting laws that impact competition or commence across a variety of states.
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The Big 12’s legal threat put Sorsby in an interesting dilemma: Continue down this path, possibly subjecting Texas Tech to a Big 12 sanction protected through a federal injunction, or apply for the NFL Supplemental Draft (the application deadline is next Monday).
Sorsby’s counsel is expected to withdraw his lawsuit from the Texas state court, meaning the quarterback will return to being ineligible, paving the way for his access to the draft. The supplemental draft is normally reserved for players who are not eligible to play in college.
Sorsby’s decision came 24 hours after Texas Tech board of regents members and school officials met with the quarterback in a lengthy conversation about the future — one that ended with the school supporting the player’s wishes if he wanted to continue to remain in college, according to those present at the meeting.
On Monday, those wishes changed.