NCAA NIL/Subdivision Proposal

I’m surprised no one has posted about this yet:

[apnews.com]

If something like this comes to pass, I can’t envision Cornell being nationally competitive in sports like hockey/lacrosse/wrestling any longer. Cornell would end up in a lower division with more stringent rules around transfers, spending, etc., plus we’d be recruiting and competing against programs paying salaries to their athletes.

The caveat being that this is only an early proposal which may undergo many changes.

Clearly the proposal seems to be aimed at big time college football and, to a lesser extent, basketball. But none of the reports I’ve read about this proposal mention the effects that the proposal would have on other sports. There would be no more Ivies, or Minnesota-Duluth-type schools, competing for national championships in the less lucrative college sports like hockey.

I’d much rather see football break away from the rest of college sports and do its own thing, rather than the NCAA sacrificing the other sports to solve issues that really only exist in football (and basketball, to a lesser extent).

Curious if others here have different takes on this proposal.

The idea is interesting but it also begs the question is what do they do with title ix..

Can they pay fball guys 5 million and not pay the girls Xcross country anything?

It will eliminate sports of all kinds though.. Where are all these schools going to come up with 5-10-20 million do pay these guys and thats only for the major sports?

They will have to reorganize and unionize to make the playing field fare or else it will be 20 teams by the end and all these schools that spent big bucks will have wasted money on 60k arenas where no one goes to watch a game.

read it less like a proposal and more like a threat. it's a way of strangling NIL by making it far more disruptive than the market would make it.

If NIL money flows directly from companies/sponsors to athletes, how is Title IX involved?

If the schools try to get their grubby mits on the NIL money, then maybe there'd be university involvement. Why would athletes want to do that? Are individual athletes driven by the common good or more money for me?

billhoward
If NIL money flows directly from companies/sponsors to athletes, how is Title IX involved?

If the schools try to get their grubby mits on the NIL money, then maybe there'd be university involvement. Why would athletes want to do that? Are individual athletes driven by the common good or more money for me?

The proposal is about schools paying NIL directly to the athletes. The proposal is also about schools putting money into a fund to pay the athletes. The proposal is not about NIL from companies/sponsors.

Sounds like a discussion where many of us could be in violent agreement as well as disagreement.

Why would Olivia Rodrigo, sorry, Olivia Dunne, want to share her big NIL payout to the LSU gymnasts who are less skilled that her? As well as the LSU gymnasts who are more skilled as gymnasts, less skilled with social media presence?

Football and basketball may have their super-big-time world. Okay, thanks, see ya, Alabama. But will big time schools also be the only ones to win NCAA top-division titles in soccer, hockey, lacrosse?

Weirdly, there is other reporting that the subdivision is just for football (unlike what the above article stated), but to qualify, a school needs to to contribute $30K per every other athlete at the school, which would be subject to Title IX, i.e. it wouldn’t go entirely to football players?

NEWS: NCAA president Charlie Baker is proposing the creation of a new FBS subdivision that would allow the highest-resource schools to compensate athletes directly through a trust as well as NIL: pic.twitter.com/j7q4cjZ0oW

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) December 5, 2023

Oliva Dunne does not share her NIL money with her teammates, however she has done this: [www.foxbusiness.com]

A look at NIL and the Ivies from the Washington Post, using Harvard basketball player Malik Mack as the example of a player whose future in the league is uncertain.
Gift link: [wapo.st]

Weder
A look at NIL and the Ivies from the Washington Post, using Harvard basketball player Malik Mack as the example of a player whose future in the league is uncertain.
Gift link: [wapo.st]

I don’t know about Malik, but if someone offered me $25k at the end of my freshman year (present value $259k) to transfer to, say Stoney Brook, I’d have said goodbye to Ithaca. Of course, I would have had no way of knowing that Ned would begin to transform Cornell hockey to what it is today.

Would he get 250K is the question?

What number is worth the move in non guaranteed money?

50K 100K 200k 500k

upprdeck
Would he get 250K is the question?

What number is worth the move in non guaranteed money?

50K 100K 200k 500k

Depends on what he intends to do with his Harvard degree. If he intends to play pro basketball or take over his uncle's chain of car dealerships, he should probably switch. If he intends to go to law school, maybe stay. If he intends to be a poet or a high-school teacher, definitely switch.

Would anybody like to take a stab at predicting how this rumored settlement, which could include up to $20m of revenues per school being shared with athletes, would affects the Ivies’ ability to compete nationally? It can’t be good!

[www.espn.com]

so many unknowns here.

across all sports? across all divisions

upprdeck
so many unknowns here.

across all sports? across all divisions

Let’s hope its mostly just football!

The 60 universities that already have professional athletes instead of students in football and basketball go fully transparent in those sports. Maybe they won't even fake matriculation anymore. The rest of college sports will totter along, somewhat corrupt, but for embarrassingly low stakes.

The settlement is happening: [www.espn.com]-

How will it affect the sports like hockey and lacrosse where Cornell can actually compete with the Michigans and Notre Dames of the world? This settlement obviously does not benefit Cornell (or any school not in a Power 4 football conference).

The question is whether the $20m per school that can now be paid directly to athletes goes almost entirely to football and basketball or is instead spread more evenly among other sports. Minnesota hockey, or Michigan lacrosse, now could, if it wanted, pay a salary to its players.

In college hockey, only nine teams are in Power 4 conferences: the seven members of the Big 10, BC, and ASU. Which is to say, the other 55 D-1 hockey teams are part of athletics departments which operate at break-even or a deficit, i.e. they don’t have money for to pay player salaries. Denver, NoDak, Duluth, Quinnipiac—it’s hard to see these perennial powers competing with the football schools who can afford to pay players a salary. Or Cornell, for that matter—but this is all contingent on the football schools actually allocating this money towards hockey/lacrosse.

Another wrinkle is that Canadian players, at least under current law, cannot earn NIL money.

In the end, I don’t know what will happen to Cornell’s chances of finally winning a championship in hockey or lacrosse. They aren’t improving as a result of this settlement. But they probably aren’t going down a ton either, given that it’s unclear how much of the $20m at these football schools will go towards hockey/lacrosse, or whether the collateral damage to other national hopefuls like Quinnipiac is greater. And, at least in the near term, schools will have to pay off the settlement and won’t have quite as much money to throw around.

BearLover
The settlement is happening: [www.espn.com]-

How will it affect the sports like hockey and lacrosse where Cornell can actually compete with the Michigans and Notre Dames of the world? This settlement obviously does not benefit Cornell (or any school not in a Power 4 football conference).

The question is whether the $20m per school that can now be paid directly to athletes goes almost entirely to football and basketball or is instead spread more evenly among other sports. Minnesota hockey, or Michigan lacrosse, now could, if it wanted, pay a salary to its players.

In college hockey, only nine teams are in Power 4 conferences: the seven members of the Big 10, BC, and ASU. Which is to say, the other 55 D-1 hockey teams are part of athletics departments which operate at break-even or a deficit, i.e. they don’t have money for to pay player salaries. Denver, NoDak, Duluth, Quinnipiac—it’s hard to see these perennial powers competing with the football schools who can afford to pay players a salary. Or Cornell, for that matter—but this is all contingent on the football schools actually allocating this money towards hockey/lacrosse.

Another wrinkle is that Canadian players, at least under current law, cannot earn NIL money.

In the end, I don’t know what will happen to Cornell’s chances of finally winning a championship in hockey or lacrosse. They aren’t improving as a result of this settlement. But they probably aren’t going down a ton either, given that it’s unclear how much of the $20m at these football schools will go towards hockey/lacrosse, or whether the collateral damage to other national hopefuls like Quinnipiac is greater. And, at least in the near term, schools will have to pay off the settlement and won’t have quite as much money to throw around.

i do not see a lot of money going to hockey and none going to lacrosse. those games may sell tickets but they do not get tv money and that's all that matters. B1G hockey and lacrosse are already mostly being shown on the in-house network. I don't even think ASU is going to put money towards hockey. BC might? But only because their basketball and football kind of stink now.

ugarte

BearLover
The settlement is happening: [www.espn.com]-

How will it affect the sports like hockey and lacrosse where Cornell can actually compete with the Michigans and Notre Dames of the world? This settlement obviously does not benefit Cornell (or any school not in a Power 4 football conference).

The question is whether the $20m per school that can now be paid directly to athletes goes almost entirely to football and basketball or is instead spread more evenly among other sports. Minnesota hockey, or Michigan lacrosse, now could, if it wanted, pay a salary to its players.

In college hockey, only nine teams are in Power 4 conferences: the seven members of the Big 10, BC, and ASU. Which is to say, the other 55 D-1 hockey teams are part of athletics departments which operate at break-even or a deficit, i.e. they don’t have money for to pay player salaries. Denver, NoDak, Duluth, Quinnipiac—it’s hard to see these perennial powers competing with the football schools who can afford to pay players a salary. Or Cornell, for that matter—but this is all contingent on the football schools actually allocating this money towards hockey/lacrosse.

Another wrinkle is that Canadian players, at least under current law, cannot earn NIL money.

In the end, I don’t know what will happen to Cornell’s chances of finally winning a championship in hockey or lacrosse. They aren’t improving as a result of this settlement. But they probably aren’t going down a ton either, given that it’s unclear how much of the $20m at these football schools will go towards hockey/lacrosse, or whether the collateral damage to other national hopefuls like Quinnipiac is greater. And, at least in the near term, schools will have to pay off the settlement and won’t have quite as much money to throw around.

i do not see a lot of money going to hockey and none going to lacrosse. those games may sell tickets but they do not get tv money and that's all that matters. B1G hockey and lacrosse are already mostly being shown on the in-house network. I don't even think ASU is going to put money towards hockey. BC might? But only because their basketball and football kind of stink now.

You’d think it would be reciprocal in the sense of “program A brings in X% of athletics profits, so therefore X% of the 20m goes to program A.” In that case, almost nothing will go to hockey, since pretty much every hockey program in the country operates at a loss. (The exceptions being maybe Minnesota and NoDak?) But then again, on the other hand, are schools really going to spend almost the entire 20m on football and basketball? I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t send a great message to the other sports’ athletes.

Anybody have a sense re: Title IX implications?

hahahahaaha sorry i tried to conjure up an image of a school administrator spending a single second thinking about the message it sends to the other sports' athletes hoooo good one lol

ugarte
hahahahaaha sorry i tried to conjure up an image of a school administrator spending a single second thinking about the message it sends to the other sports' athletes hoooo good one lol

School administrators have to deal with coaches, boosters, parents, and athletes form all their athletics programs. Literally happens all the time, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to picture.

Will this mean that the Ivy League’s rule of no athletic scholarships will be worked around? Could Cornell “pay” players but giving them full rides or would money have to actually be exchanged to get around the Ivy League rule?

If you read Dr Nicki Moore's the Ivy Faculty Reps and ADs discussed the changing world of college athletics at their May meeting. What really galls me is that in order to pay the 2.8 billion dollar settlement the Power schools insisted that 60% must come from schools outside that grouping. So typical when it comes to revenue the Power schools want every penny they can get their dirty paws on but when it comes to expenses they look to others to bail them out. Ivy Exec Director Harris is right to call foul this time.

One reading may be:
* The Ivy Eight will continue to not offer athletic scholarships
* The Ivy Eight perhaps cannot get in the way of students earning / receiving money on their own

We genuflect when Ian Shane makes another incredible save, but how much would Bauer, CCM, Sherwood want to give him? And would Cornell then want to claw back any need-based aid? Yeah, they probably would.

The Ivies are never going to pay their athletes. All we can hope for is that other schools won’t either in the sports we care about.

The problem is with the triumvirate of HYP and their almost religious adherence to a failed model of amateurism going back to the 1917, 1945, and 1954 agreements. Am hopeful that the lawsuit of the Brown athletes and the Dartmouth unionization movement will flip the Mosel on its head.

If I read some of the stories correctly, part of the payment money due from the colleges to the player fund is allocated based on how far basketball teams advance in the NCAA tournament. So the Ivies are further on the hook for Yale winning its first game this year and Princeton winning 2 to make make the Sweet Sixteen last year.

rss77
The problem is with the triumvirate of HYP and their almost religious adherence to a failed model of amateurism going back to the 1917, 1945, and 1954 agreements. Am hopeful that the lawsuit of the Brown athletes and the Dartmouth unionization movement will flip the Mosel on its head.

I think these lawsuits are not good news for the Ivies’ competitive aspirations. Yes, the Ivies do adhere to a failed model of amateurism. But even if they didn’t believe in amateurism, the Ivies (and all other schools without a Power 4 football tv contract) lose money on athletics and cannot afford to “share revenue” with their players. These lawsuits widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. The end result is not that Brown and Dartmouth pay their players more or award more scholarships, but rather that the schools with richer athletic departments do, leaving Brown and Dartmouth in the dust.

rss77
The problem is with the triumvirate of HYP and their almost religious adherence to a failed model of amateurism going back to the 1917, 1945, and 1954 agreements.

It has had nothing to do with amateurism for 50 years, and it has never had anything to do with academics. It is a designer label. It reinforces the idea that we're better than everybody else, and there are parents who lap that up.

The ban on athletic scholarships and the shortened season are Class Signaling. It says "I am rich and powerful enough to do something this counterproductive." It is tall hats.

And so it begins....

Swampy
And so it begins....

So they built a software platform.


Doesn't mean that there are any athletes at Brown worth more than the price of a big Mac a month.

abmarks

Swampy
And so it begins....

So they built a software platform.


Doesn't mean that there are any athletes at Brown worth more than the price of a big Mac a month.

You may be right. But I see Brown as a harbinger of the remaining 7 Ivies getting into the NIL game. All you would need is a player like Adam Fox choosing Brown over Harvard because of the potential NIL $, and Harvard would then get into the game.

And BTW, the urban Ivies (B, Col, H, Pu, Pr, Y) are much better-located to have lucrative NIL options than the two rural schools (Cor & D).

Swampy

abmarks

Swampy
And so it begins....

So they built a software platform.


Doesn't mean that there are any athletes at Brown worth more than the price of a big Mac a month.

You may be right. But I see Brown as a harbinger of the remaining 7 Ivies getting into the NIL game. All you would need is a player like Adam Fox choosing Brown over Harvard because of the potential NIL $, and Harvard would then get into the game.

And BTW, the urban Ivies (B, Col, H, Pu, Pr, Y) are much better-located to have lucrative NIL options than the two rural schools (Cor & D).

NIL in practice isn’t about Castagna doing an ad for Collegetown Pizza, though. It’s about a wealthy donor funneling money to a player disconnected from any actual use of name, image, or likeness.

How much NIL affects the Ivy League is going to be a function of how much rich donors want to put in. It isn’t going to matter much where the Ivy is located or what the local business scene is. None of the Ivy administrations seem interested in promoting NIL whatsoever, and I don’t think many rich alums seem engaged in the NIL scene, so I would predict there will be little to no effect of NIL on the Ivies for the foreseeable future.

BearLover

Swampy

abmarks

Swampy
And so it begins....

So they built a software platform.


Doesn't mean that there are any athletes at Brown worth more than the price of a big Mac a month.

You may be right. But I see Brown as a harbinger of the remaining 7 Ivies getting into the NIL game. All you would need is a player like Adam Fox choosing Brown over Harvard because of the potential NIL $, and Harvard would then get into the game.

And BTW, the urban Ivies (B, Col, H, Pu, Pr, Y) are much better-located to have lucrative NIL options than the two rural schools (Cor & D).

NIL in practice isn’t about Castagna doing an ad for Collegetown Pizza, though. It’s about a wealthy donor funneling money to a player disconnected from any actual use of name, image, or likeness.

How much NIL affects the Ivy League is going to be a function of how much rich donors want to put in. It isn’t going to matter much where the Ivy is located or what the local business scene is. None of the Ivy administrations seem interested in promoting NIL whatsoever, and I don’t think many rich alums seem engaged in the NIL scene, so I would predict there will be little to no effect of NIL on the Ivies for the foreseeable future.

I hope you're right, but look at the Brown NIL website I linked to in my earlier post.

Swampy

BearLover

Swampy

abmarks

Swampy
And so it begins....

So they built a software platform.


Doesn't mean that there are any athletes at Brown worth more than the price of a big Mac a month.

You may be right. But I see Brown as a harbinger of the remaining 7 Ivies getting into the NIL game. All you would need is a player like Adam Fox choosing Brown over Harvard because of the potential NIL $, and Harvard would then get into the game.

And BTW, the urban Ivies (B, Col, H, Pu, Pr, Y) are much better-located to have lucrative NIL options than the two rural schools (Cor & D).

NIL in practice isn’t about Castagna doing an ad for Collegetown Pizza, though. It’s about a wealthy donor funneling money to a player disconnected from any actual use of name, image, or likeness.

How much NIL affects the Ivy League is going to be a function of how much rich donors want to put in. It isn’t going to matter much where the Ivy is located or what the local business scene is. None of the Ivy administrations seem interested in promoting NIL whatsoever, and I don’t think many rich alums seem engaged in the NIL scene, so I would predict there will be little to no effect of NIL on the Ivies for the foreseeable future.

I hope you're right, but look at the Brown NIL website I linked to in my earlier post.

It’s just a platform to link athletes with people willing to pay them. It doesn’t mean there are actually people willing to pay them. Maybe a couple basketball players will get free subs at the local deli.

I assume the discriminator will be from rich moron alumni, and that's most likely not much of a ripple for hockey. The schools themselves can't afford to officially stray too far from the snobbery of not rubbing shoulders with < Monty Python accent > ugh... tradesmen. HYP alums would pop their monocles, and we have seen from current events the Ivies will engage in literally any degree of cringeworthy brown-nosing humiliation not to alienate peevish wealthy alumni.

Trotsky
I assume the discriminator will be from rich moron alumni, and that's most likely not much of a ripple for hockey. The schools themselves can't afford to officially stray too far from the snobbery of not rubbing shoulders with < Monty Python accent > ugh... tradesmen. HYP alums would pop their monocles, and we have seen from current events the Ivies will engage in literally any degree of cringeworthy brown-nosing humiliation not to alienate peevish wealthy alumni.

It only takes one though.

TRotsky, you're almost dead from old age anyway, so if you won the powerball when it's like $1B in prizes, you could easily afford to cough up, IDK 300 Mil to Cornell Hockey, right Methuselah?

abmarks
TRotsky, you're almost dead from old age anyway, so if you won the powerball when it's like $1B in prizes, you could easily afford to cough up, IDK 300 Mil to Cornell Hockey, right Methuselah?

It's all going to the Abecedarians.