Scroll through the messaging app Signal, and it reads like a Page Six of the sports world. The boldfaced names span from the underworld to the executive suites, encompassing those on the biggest stages to the players behind the scenes.

There's the father of the country's top basketball recruit, and he's listed alongside top executives in the NFL and NBA. There are plenty of college football and basketball coaches, mixed in with the agents, runners and street hustlers who dominate basketball's black market.

There are star athletes seeking privacy, university officials attempting to sidestep public-records requests and folks at every level of sport seeking the superior security the app boasts.

In an environment where tampering issues loom over professional sports and a widespread federal investigation still lingers over the NCAA landscape, the desire for privacy, encryption and even disappearing messages has increased. And that's why Signal, long the private messaging domain to evade or pry information from the alphabet soup of Washington power brokers – FBI, NSA and CIA – has surged into the NFL, NBA, NCAA and beyond.

Signal was considered transformative upon its inception in 2010 for its ability to increase transparency in political reporting and protect whistleblowers. Wired Magazine called it "the security community's gold standard for surveillance-resistant communications." NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden once said he used the app every day. Added Jonathan Kaufman, the director of Northeastern University's School of Journalism: "For political reporters right now, it's as common a tool as a notebook or a pencil."

An app that went mainstream in the political world to increase transparency has actually taken on the opposite role in the sports world. For public schools in college sports, the app has emerged as an outlet to avoid detection from Freedom Of Information Act requests. In the professional sports world, it's used to combat the uptick in tampering enforcement. In college sports, it's an aide to the pervasive and creative methods to avoid NCAA amateurism rules.

Signal is viewed as the safest encryption app available. Kaufman said the messages remain secure and can't be compromised or intercepted "without a hell of a lot of effort." And while it doesn't allow for the full allotment of GIFs and emoticons of traditional text banter, it's a place where information, documents and even phone calls can be conducted with increased discretion.

"Our general counsel encouraged us to get on Signal," said a high-ranking collegiate athletic official. "There's auto-delete based on the rules you set, and that helps us avoid FOIA requests. ...It's become the main method of communication between the administration and our [athletic] staff."

The use of the app for privacy can be beneficial in numerous ways. Think of Signal as a more secure version of WhatsApp, a popular texting app that is separate from a cell phone's traditional texting app. With Signal, all the messages, photos and documents passed back and forth are encrypted, and the app makers brag about the security on its website.

Perhaps most important is that Signal does not have access to the message, which in theory means that no outside entity can use legal means to access the conversations.

That extra level of security has nudged Signal from the purview of security officials, whistleblowers and reporters in Washington to all levels of sports. Multiple prominent people in basketball caught up in the federal investigation are using the app, as the amount of runners, middlemen and agents on the app make it a handy underworld directory. (NCAA investigators appear wise to this; many of them have joined in the past few weeks.) "It's striking to me how mainstream Signal has become," Kaufman said. "To some of us, it used to feel like something out of a James Bond movie."

One grassroots source said the app has been filled with so many basketball underworld characters that it doubles as a source of amusement. "My favorite thing to do is open it up once in a while and see who is on there," he said. "It's exactly who you would think would be on there."

In the NBA and NFL, Signal spans every level from players to executives. In the wake of a round of NBA free agency where news of deals were broken prior to the formal start of free agency, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced stricter enforcement of rules for tampering and salary-cap circumvention. The NBA even distributed a memo this week that appeared to target the use of Signal, saying teams can't use communication methods that auto-delete.

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