In a move that is both radical and inevitable, the NCAA is planning to propose a new Division I subdivision that would allow schools to directly compensate their athletes.
The proposal appears to avoid categorizing athletes as employees of their school, instead allowing each school to opt in to a new subdivision in which athletes could license their Name, Image and Likeness rights directly to their schools.
“It kick-starts a long-overdue conversation among the membership that focuses on the differences that exist between schools, conferences and divisions and how to create more permissive and flexible rules across the NCAA that put student-athletes first,” NCAA president Charlie Baker wrote in a letter to schools. “Colleges and universities need to be more flexible, and the NCAA needs to be more flexible, too.”
The proposal comes as FBS prepares to launch a 12-team playoff next year in which teams could play up to 17 games a year, stretching from early September to mid-to-late January. The new 12-team bracket could be worth up to $2 billion per year in TV rights alone.
Schools would be required to "invest" at least $30,000 per year to an "enhanced educational trust fund" to at least half of its countable athletes. Title IX rules would still apply, which means at least half of the athletes receiving the $30,000 a year would need to be women.
Those opting in to the new subdivision would not be limited to $30,000 per year; that figure would simply be the starting point.
From the Baker letter:
“The growing financial gap between the highest-resourced colleges and universities and other schools in Division I has created a new series of challenges,” Baker wrote. “The challenges are competitive as well as financial and are complicated further by the intersection of name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes and the arrival of the Transfer Portal.”
The new model, Baker writes, “gives the educational institutions with the most visibility, the most financial resources and the biggest brands an opportunity to choose to operate with a different set of rules that more accurately reflect their scale and their operating model." That includes potentially eliminating the limits on the number of scholarships schools can provide and the number of countable coaches that schools can employ.
The NCAA's current Portal-and-NIL reality was born out of external challenges through the courts and numerous state legislatures, and this proposal is an attempt to avoid further challenges from the courts and Congress. It would also alleviate -- if not outright eliminate -- the current infrastructure in which fans are expected to donate to their athletics department to keep up in the facilities arms race and pay coaches... and to also fund their team's payroll through the apparatus of collectives that have popped up across the country.
"Because if you're not going to help us get the players to beat them, then you are not entitled to b---h when we don't beat them," UConn head coach Jim Mora told fans last month.
If this new structure comes to pass, schools would likely bring their collectives in-house, donors could write a single check to their athletics department, and the school would then decide whether to allocate their funds to facilities and coaches, or to talent acquisition and retention.
But that's just one potential change. If Baker's proposal comes to pass, the ultimate number of changes that are coming down the road are truly too numerous to count.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.