Now, the wise apples over in the Grading The Week (GTW) offices will readily confess our sins because 1.) There are so darn many, we’ve lost count; and 2.) It’s good for the soul.

And Team GTW has got to admit: Before last Tuesday, we’d never really heard of the Colorado Summit. And, because of what is believed to be an act of sporting/community altruism … we won’t be hearing that name for very much longer.

OK, OK, OK, here’s the juice. You know that sweet Denver Summit FC logo that dropped earlier in the week? The nifty green, gold and red number? The one that’ll represent the city’s new National Women’s Soccer League expansion team? The same NWSL team that features Peyton Manning and Mikaela Shiffrin as part of its ownership group?

At any rate, the “Summit” part reportedly needed a little … um … navigating.

Denver’s Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) franchise, which calls Mines’ Marv Kay Stadium home, has been using “Summit” since it was founded in 2022.

A Classy Summit — A

Now this is usually the part that gets the lawyers excited. Because while registering trademarks can cost hundreds of dollars, acquiring them from their original rightsholder often costs a whole heck of a lot more.

The Summit could’ve played hardball. Instead, the new soccer brand/nickname was met with a public bow and a hearty congratulation on the part of the “old” Summit, the little guys on the block.

The ultimate frisbee team said via a release that it was “passing the torch” to the new NWSL team, announcing that it would “relinquish its name to Denver’s new … expansion club.”

That’s it? No shakedowns? No litigious finger-wagging? Just a “passing of the torch?” Nobody’s that nice, surely. This is America. We want receipts!

“There was no payment for the team name,” Denver Summit FC spokesperson Brendan Hannan told Denverite.com last week. “The two clubs collaborated on a mutually beneficial relationship.”

And as part of that, moving forward, the old Summit will soon cease to be the Summit at all. The frisbee crew has already begun the process of a rebrand, starting with an online survey for fans that features 10 options — “Alpine,” “Echo,” “Sky” and “Mint” are our personal faves — as well as a box for a write-in option.

Might we suggest “Class?”

Summit FC’s logos — A

And speaking of classy, a GTW salute to Matthew Wolff, who designed the new Summit FC branding. A golden sky? Check. Tip o’ the cap to Red Rocks? Check. A clean green and white base? Check and check. There’s even a secondary logo with mountains tucked inside a giant, burnt red “D” — a very cool, yet totally unique, nod to Broncos helmets past.

Betts powers Team USA to gold — A

Sticking with folks who can’t seem to stop winning, Sienna Betts just took home another trophy.

The former Grandview High School girls basketball star and UCLA signee this past Sunday helped Team USA’s national women’s basketball team notch its fourth straight gold medal in the FIBA U19 Women’s World Cup in Czechia.

Betts recorded a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) in a victory over Australia that clinched the gold for the Stars & Stripes. She also averaged a double-double for the tourney (14.6 points, 10.0 boards per game) and led all players in field-goal percentage (58.7%). Her older sister, Lauren, whom she’ll join in Westwood, was part of the Team USA squad that won the U19 World Cup in 2021.

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The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.

U.S. Olympic officials told the national governing bodies they will need to follow suit, adding that “the USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump signed the order.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes wrote in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”

The National Women’s Law Center put out a statement condemning the move.

“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” said that organization’s president and CEO, Fatima Goss Graves.

The USOPC oversees around 50 national governing bodies, most of which play a role in everything from the grassroots to elite levels of their sports. That raises the possibility that rules might need to be changed at local sports clubs to retain their memberships in the NGBs.

Some of those organizations — for instance, USA Track and Field — have long followed guidelines set by their own world federation. World Athletics is considering changes to its policies that would mostly fall in line with Trump’s order.

A USA Swimming spokesman said the federation had been made aware of the USOPC’s change and was consulting with the committee to figure out what changes it needs to make. USA Fencing changed its policy effective Aug. 1 to allow only “athletes who are of the female sex” in women’s competition and opening men’s events to “all athletes not eligible for the women’s category, including transgender women, transgender men, non-binary and intersex athletes and cisgender male athletes.”

The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court after critics challenged the policies as discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.

The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after Trump signed the executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

Female eligibility is a key issue for the International Olympic Committee under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has signaled an effort to “protect the female category.” The IOC has allowed individual sports federations to set their own rules at the Olympics — and some have already taken steps on the topic.

Stricter rules on transgender athletes — barring from women’s events anyone who went through male puberty — have been passed by swimming, cycling and track and field. Soccer is reviewing its eligibility rules for women and could set limits on testosterone.

Trump has said he wants the IOC to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.” Los Angeles will host the Summer Games in 2028.

“I think it is a opportunity to market the game on a really global stage,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “Obviously the clubs are going to have to endorse this. I mean, it’s a big deal.”

MLB met with Los Angeles organizers Monday in Atlanta ahead of the All-Star Game and Manfred said the Olympic officials were meeting with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

“There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done,” Clark told the BBWAA in a separate session. “We do know players are interested in playing, whether it’s for the Team USA or any number of other teams around the world. … There’s just a lot of conversation that needs to be had sooner rather than later to see how viable this is, but we’re hopeful that we can figure our way through it for the benefit of the game.”

The World Baseball Softball Confederation said Monday the baseball tournament will be played from July 15-20 at Dodger Stadium. MLB is considering whether it can interrupt its 2028 season to allow major leaguers to participate, which could necessitate changes to the sport’s national television contracts.

“They put out a schedule. They tell you it’s not going to move. We’ll see whether there’s any movement on that,” Manfred said. “It is possible to take it, to play the All-Star Game in its normal spot, have a single break that would be longer, obviously, but still play 162 games without bleeding into the middle of November. That is possible, OK? It would require significant accommodations, but it’s possible.”

World Baseball Softball Confederation spokesman Richard Baker declined comment.

MLB did not allow players on 40-man rosters to participate in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, when Nippon Professional Baseball interrupted its season and Japan beat the U.S. 2-0 in the gold medal game.

“In the event that major league players are going to play, what does that mean and what does that look like?” Clark said. “And perhaps just as importantly, what does it mean for those players who aren’t participating? What type of scheduling adjustments need to be made? What type travel considerations and support need to considered? What does that means in regards to insurance?”

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“This isn’t about football and basketball,” said Breeding, a Boulder resident, engineer and former Vanderbilt runnerzon who’s one of eight plaintiffs who filed an appeal against the NCAA’s historic antitrust settlement. “I hope you get your bag.

“But we all were athletes at this school … there were not rules in place that we were on different pay rates. We should all be getting paid the same. You think about Caitlin Clark or Livvy Dunne, they’re superstars in their own right. Are you going to pay them minimum wage because they weren’t born male and went into football and basketball?”

Are you a university that receives federal financial aid? Fine. You’re subject to Title IX. Do you insist that your athletes are not entertainers, not contractors, and certainly not employees, because they go to class? Groovy. Then they’re students. Which means they’re subject to Title IX, too.

Look, the “House” settlement, which finally made it over the line last week, is a victory for student-athletes. Anything that pokes a hole in the NCAA’s cartel is a win for college sports.

Yet when you read the fine print, it’s also a fail when it comes to Title IX, the federal mandate preventing discrimination in education that was enacted in 1972. Which is where Breeding’s appeal, filed last Wednesday by the Boulder firm of Hutchinson Black and Cook, comes in.

“(People), if they don’t understand this case, they would say, ‘You’re in this for a money grab,'” Breeding told me Friday. “And I am someone of very strong moral convictions, not someone that would get into something just for the press.

“It’s not going to be a huge payout. This is more of a statement to say, ‘Look, if you’re going to pay reparations, why not pay them to the letter of the law?'”

She also wants to make a couple of things clear. The appeal of last Friday’s “House vs. NCAA” ruling, which will allow colleges to pay student-athletes directly starting July 1, won’t stop the money going to current athletes. What it will do is freeze the $2.8 billion in back damages sent to students who played from 2016-2024.

Because what’s on the table, to Breeding, isn’t Title IX compliant. CBSSports.com reported that distributions are expected to “mirror” the same formula as the back payments: 75% of future revenue will be shared with football players, 15% with men’s basketball players, 5% with women’s basketball players and the remaining 5% to all other sports.

“This settlement as a whole is a response to the commercialization of college sports,” Ashlyn Hare, one of the attorneys representing Breeding and the other seven athletes listed in the appeal, told The Post. “All the (Power 4) schools have made a decision that they’re going to treat their athletes and their sports like big business. And that’s what they want to do; that’s perfectly fine. But they’re still subject to education-related laws like Title IX.”

The Department of Education under former President Joe Biden had suggested, in anticipation of the settlement, that revenue-sharing would be subject to Title IX compliance. That recommendation was rescinded in February when the Trump administration took over the department.

To be compliant with Title IX, a university has to provide opportunities, financial aid and/or scholarships proportionate, by gender, to the campus population as a whole.

In fall 2024, for example, CU reported an undergraduate female enrollment rate of 46.8%. Which is a heck of a lot more than the 10%-ish of revenue sharing on the table. As “House” currently stands, how is the ratio of payments consistent with the law? Or with the core academic mission of a university?

“I think it’s perfectly plausible that we get a court ruling that says Title IX is going to regulate these payments,” Hare said. “(But) I can never predict what the Trump administration is going to do.”

This isn’t the first Title IX rodeo for Hare — or for her peers at Hutchinson Black and Cook, which specializes in federal gender equity law. They’ve taken on some massive cases over the years, most notably the sexual assault case involving CU football roughly 20 years ago, as well as one filed against New York Giants quarterback Jameis Winston when he was at Florida State.

“I would be ashamed to admit how many hours of sleep I got this week,” Hare cracked. “We’ve been extremely busy.”

Their opening brief for the appeal is due on Sept. 3. When I asked how many more Title IX lawsuits were coming now that “House” is official, Hare let out an almost pensive chuckle.

“A lot,” she replied. “I can’t give out an exact number. But it’s going to be a lot.”

After decades of winking, nodding, Teflon and kid gloves, the NCAA’s definition of amateurism is toast. The question is what emerges from the ashes.

Some sort of unionization of student-athletes would open the door for collective bargaining. With players, that’s a chance to codify uniform standards for financial compensation, short-term and long-term health care, workplace standards, hours, et cetera.

For schools, such bargaining might be the only way to get some roster control back when it comes to the transfer portal — contracts to remain at an institution for “X” amount of seasons would be legally binding. Free agency (via the portal) could require a certain amount of tenure first, the way it does in the pros. Everything has to be on the table now.

“I think unionizing college sports would do a lot to alleviate the antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA,” Hare said. “If you have a union, you’re not subject to antitrust suits, at least (within) the realm of employee compensation.”

And athletic directors, administrators and coaches are still employees of a college — not a sports and entertainment academy.

Even with the Deion Sanders Effect, CU athletics still hasn’t been entirely self-sufficient. In the university’s most recent report to the state auditor’s office for the ’23-24 fiscal year that ended last June 30, of the $146.6 million reported in athletics revenues, $27 million of that was categorized as coming from “direct institutional support.” Another $1.6 million stemmed from student fees.

At the same time, football ticket sales provided the single-biggest revenue line item on CU’s ’24 fiscal year —  $31.2 million for the fall of 2023. No other Buffs sport reported more than $3 million in ticket revenue. Among women’s sports, only women’s basketball reported more than $125,000.

“Amateurism is dead and gone,” Hare said. “It would be great for athletes to have the ability to be paid by schools. But it’s important to figure out how Title IX is going to factor into that.”

Look, Breeding understands the counterarguments, too. That “House,” at its core, is a framework for economics, not societal gatekeeping. She gets that football is the tide that has to lift all boats. That most women’s sports don’t make money. Why should they receive it?

“That’s a good question,” Breeding said. “Why do we deserve to get paid equally? Because it’s the law. It may not be fair, but if you want to make it fair, you need to change the law.”

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