LAS VEGAS – The NCAA president sent a letter to over 350 Division I schools stating that he wanted the association to create a new tier of NCAA Division I sports where schools would be required to offer at least half their athletes a payment of at least $30,000 per year through a trust fund.
Charlie Baker also proposed allowing all Division I schools to offer unlimited educational benefits and enter into name, image and likeness licensing deals with athletes.
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NCAA President Charlie Baker is asking members to make one of the most dramatic shifts in the history of college sports by allowing highly resourced schools to pay some of their athletes.
Division I is currently divided for football into the FBS, which has 133 schools, and FCS (Football Championship Subdivision).
He said the disparity in resources between the wealthiest schools in the top tier of Division I called the Football Bowl Subdivision and other D-I members — along with the hundreds of Division II and III schools — is creating “a new series of challenges.”
Baker's proposal is aimed at creating a new subdivision, covering all sports, where the richest athletic departments in the so-called Power Five conferences — the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and Pac-12 — can operate differently than the rest, while still competing with the rest of Division I.
Conference realignment starting in 2024 will move the Pac-12 out of that group.
The proposed shift would not require all members of a conference to be part of the new subdivision. Schools would be allowed to make that determination individually.
Baker noted athletic budgets in Division I range from $5 million and $250 million annually, with 59 schools spending over $100 million annually and another 32 spending over $50 million. He said 259 Division I schools, however, spend less than $50 million on their athletic programs.
Baker and college sports leaders have been pleading with Congress to help the NCAA with a federal law to regulate the way athletes can be paid for NIL deals.
There is no timetable to bring the proposal to fruition.
Currently, schools are allowed — though not required — to provide athletes $5,980 per year in educational benefits under NCAA rules.
Baker said the changes would help level the playing field between men's and women's athletics by forcing schools to abide by gender equity regulations as they invest.
Read the entire story about the proposal here.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football