https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-propo...in-direct-athlete-compensation-145051537.html
In a letter sent to Division I members, and obtained by Yahoo Sports, Baker outlines a groundbreaking and radical change to the NCAA Division I athletics model, describing it as a “new forward-looking framework.”
According to Baker’s proposal, schools that choose to be part of the new subdivision — they can opt in or out — are required to meet a strict minimum standard rooted in athlete investment.
Members of the new subdivision will be permitted to strike name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with their own athletes — a significant move away from the current NIL structure.
However, the most impactful benefit of this new model is a framework in which schools can directly compensate athletes through a trust fund. Schools within the new subdivision will be required to distribute to athletes thousands of dollars in additional educationally related funds without limitation.
There is no cap on the amount of funds that a program can provide an athlete.
It is perhaps the single-most revolutionary concept introduced by a sitting NCAA leader in college athletics history.
Entry into the subdivision requires a school to invest, at minimum, $30,000 per year per athlete into what is termed an “enhanced educational trust fund” for at least half of a school’s countable athletes. Schools would determine when athletes receive the amount, which, for four-year athletes, will total at least $120,000. Schools must continue to abide by the framework of Title IX, assuring that 50 percent of the investment be directed toward women athletes.
The new subdivision will remain under the umbrella of the NCAA and its members will continue to compete for NCAA championships with others in Division I. Under the proposal, the NCAA maintains oversight of the existing national championship model across all Division I sports, except FBS football, which continues to operate under the rubric of the College Football Playoff, Baker writes in the letter.
Schools in the new subdivision would also gain control of decision-making around scholarship limits and countable coaches, the NCAA's way of handing major conference programs the freedom to increase the limits or do away with them altogether.
The model “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,” he writes.
Baker’s model is an anticipated step toward the long-ballyhooed separation of the NCAA’s high-revenue producing athletic departments from their lower-resourced brethren. While all schools are eligible to join the subdivision, the proposal would likely force a formal split within the Football Bowl Subdivision of the Power Five, soon-to-be Power Four, conferences: the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.
In a letter sent to Division I members, and obtained by Yahoo Sports, Baker outlines a groundbreaking and radical change to the NCAA Division I athletics model, describing it as a “new forward-looking framework.”
According to Baker’s proposal, schools that choose to be part of the new subdivision — they can opt in or out — are required to meet a strict minimum standard rooted in athlete investment.
Members of the new subdivision will be permitted to strike name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with their own athletes — a significant move away from the current NIL structure.
However, the most impactful benefit of this new model is a framework in which schools can directly compensate athletes through a trust fund. Schools within the new subdivision will be required to distribute to athletes thousands of dollars in additional educationally related funds without limitation.
There is no cap on the amount of funds that a program can provide an athlete.
It is perhaps the single-most revolutionary concept introduced by a sitting NCAA leader in college athletics history.
Entry into the subdivision requires a school to invest, at minimum, $30,000 per year per athlete into what is termed an “enhanced educational trust fund” for at least half of a school’s countable athletes. Schools would determine when athletes receive the amount, which, for four-year athletes, will total at least $120,000. Schools must continue to abide by the framework of Title IX, assuring that 50 percent of the investment be directed toward women athletes.
The new subdivision will remain under the umbrella of the NCAA and its members will continue to compete for NCAA championships with others in Division I. Under the proposal, the NCAA maintains oversight of the existing national championship model across all Division I sports, except FBS football, which continues to operate under the rubric of the College Football Playoff, Baker writes in the letter.
Schools in the new subdivision would also gain control of decision-making around scholarship limits and countable coaches, the NCAA's way of handing major conference programs the freedom to increase the limits or do away with them altogether.
The model “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,” he writes.
Baker’s model is an anticipated step toward the long-ballyhooed separation of the NCAA’s high-revenue producing athletic departments from their lower-resourced brethren. While all schools are eligible to join the subdivision, the proposal would likely force a formal split within the Football Bowl Subdivision of the Power Five, soon-to-be Power Four, conferences: the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.
