The five autonomy conferences and the NCAA agreeing to settlement terms is an important step in the continuing reform of college sports that will provide benefits to student-athletes and provide clarity in college athletics across all divisions for years to come," NCAA president Charlie Baker and the five power conference commissioners said in a joint statement Thursday evening.
“This settlement is also a road map for college sports leaders and Congress to ensure this uniquely American institution can continue to provide unmatched opportunity for millions of students. All of Division I made today’s progress possible, and we all have work to do to implement the terms of the agreement as the legal process continues. We look forward to working with our various student-athlete leadership groups to write the next chapter of college sports.”
So college sports is basically a professional league now?
I love this development and hope it eventually kills the NFL/NBA or at minimum forces them to put a better product on the field for consumers.
This is pretty crazy and I never thought it would happen so fast!
It’s not immediate, of course. This will take years to iron out. But there’s no going back if this gets approved over the coming months.
Since everyone will be ranting about the downsides, I thought I’d mention some possible good results of this.
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Schools might be able to rein in the transfer portal volatility with actual contractual employment terms.
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I can see kids getting paid extra for staying their senior year.
Both these points could mean star players identifying and playing for their teams longer, which would be a great thing for college football. Athletes getting paid for their hard work isn’t a bad thing either.
Here’s my question 305- what stops a university from allowing athletes to play 6/7/8 years or longer?
I don’t know how the question of “eligibility” factors into the agreement but it is an important question. To date the NCAA has decided on the general rules as well as individual cases. But it seems that an employee like contract between school and player would take precedence. What claim will the NCAA have to retain eligibility power?
Lot’s of questions:
Are the athletic departments required to pay all athletes or can they decide to pay just the some of their teams? This might have a huge impact on the Olympic sports teams and non-revenue generating teams. Also, can they create a scale of payments based on performance or seniority or does the freshman swimmer gets the same pay as the start QB?
Not all teams will be able to pay the full salary cap. Many athletic departments, especially in the smaller schools loses money or run on smaller budgets. This will increase the divide between the have’s and the have not. I hope (and believe) Miami will be able to compete among the big boys (especially if the NIL remains untouched and strong) but I can easily see schools terminate several teams in order to save money and be able to pay the rest competitive salaries.
Ceasing to offer certain sports likely to happen. Title IX will play a big deciding role. Likely too conferences will have a say. For example, do you want half the Big 12 to offer wrestling and not the other half? Non revenue sports might become more regionalized. Might in some way benefit schools like the Ivies that don’t offer athletic scholarships. The Dartmouth legal case is interesting. Maybe conversely the Ivies go in the whole other direction and make all sports club sports. No real case then for being an employee.
Maybe what happens is that the Marshalls or McNeese States become de facto minor leagues for the Power Five. Not like they aren’t already. AA ball.
That’s a good question. I would think the ideal case initially would be to have a minor league system that compliments the NFL. I doubt the NCAA could pay as much as the NFL for the big players that you’d want to keep around for 8 years, but things could slowly grow that direction.