Post by Trojangles on Apr 28, 2022 13:37:29 GMT -8
College Transformation Committee considering wholesale changes to the NCAA - ROSS DELLENGER, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, APR 27, 2022
“Imagine a college sports world where schools are able to offer each baseball player a full scholarship. Or if a football team’s on-field coaching staff could exceed 25 people . . . What if the transfer portal was open to players for just three months out of the year? And what if the recruiting calendar featured no evaluation or quiet periods? There is a distinct possibility these ideas could become more than just concepts . . .
Several athletic administrators and college sports insiders discussed the Transfer Committee’s concepts under the condition of anonymity. They include:
(1) Eliminating scholarship caps on sports that offer only partial scholarships;
(2) Abolishing the limitation on the number of coaches per team;
(3) Expanding direct payments from schools to athletes;
(4) Reconfiguring the recruiting calendar; and
(5) Implementing closed periods in the NCAA transfer portal . . .
The expansion of scholarships would be a historic move, but it would not impact sports such as football and basketball, known as “head count” sports. They offer full scholarships to a roster of players: 85 in football and 15 in basketball. The concept pertains to sports offering partial scholarships, known as “equivalency” sports, such as baseball, hockey, track and field, and swimming. For example, the NCAA maximum scholarships allowed in baseball is 11.7 for a roster of 35—a figure often criticized by high-level baseball-playing schools from rich conferences that want to spend more. Under the transformation’s plan, a school could conceivably offer 35 full scholarships in the sport.
Lifting the “countable coach” rules would also be unprecedented, as NCAA rules currently restrict the number of coaches by sport. For instance, a football team can have no more than 11 coaches (one head coach and 10 assistants) and a basketball team no more than four (one head coach and three assistants). Other staff members, such as analysts and consultants, are considered non-countable personnel who are not supposed to coach players—a rule that is often bent, if not completely broken at many programs.
Restrictions on athlete “compensation, benefits and awards” is another area in which change is coming, according to a Transformation Committee slide shown to athletic directors and obtained by SI. It might include expanding on the $5,980 checks many athletes receive as a result of the NCAA’s loss in the Alston case. Schools are allowed to provide education-related benefits of such an amount. Some programs, like Ole Miss, are distributing checks to athletes who meet a not-so-tough criteria: remaining eligible.
The Transformation Committee is also exploring ways to bring regulation to the transfer portal, which is open year-round. The portal is flush with athletes using the one-time transfer exception to leave their school and play immediately somewhere else. The lack of a regulated structure is causing roster management problems that have college leaders considering an abolishment of the annual 25-man signing limit. Some have suggested concepts that keep the portal closed except for two five-week periods, one after fall semester ends and another after spring semester.
Concepts are also being discussed around simplifying the recruiting calendar, by potentially eliminating some regulations and replacing dead, quiet, evaluation and recruiting periods with two windows: a recruiting period and a dead period. More coaches and staff members—beyond the on-field 11 for football, for instance—would be able to recruit off campus, too.
The concepts, if implemented, could come at a significant cost, especially scholarship expansion. If one conference allows it, will others feel pressure to follow suit? Some may not be able to afford the expense. Scholarships and coaching salaries are two of the top four expenses at schools each year. According to Knight Commission data, about 37% of the average FBS school’s budget is spent on coaching compensation and athletic student aid.
Title IX requirements could also complicate matters. The law requires schools to spend similarly on women’s sports as it does in men’s. If scholarships are expanded in baseball, a school would need to do the same in a women’s sport.
And if the decisions are left up to leagues with varying financial capabilities and different missions, it’s an unsettling prospect for some.
Conferences must avoid the appearance of collusion by determining policies on their own without communicating with one another, making an already fractured college sports landscape even more splintered. Leagues could be, quite literally, playing by different rules. The decentralization and deregulation, as well as the surge of million-dollar NIL collectives, are likely to accelerate what Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick recently described to SI as a complete split of the NCAA within the next decade . . .”
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE: www.si.com/college/2022/04/27/ncaa-new-transformation-committee-changes?msclkid=9f414014c73b11ecb334683c193c870b
“Imagine a college sports world where schools are able to offer each baseball player a full scholarship. Or if a football team’s on-field coaching staff could exceed 25 people . . . What if the transfer portal was open to players for just three months out of the year? And what if the recruiting calendar featured no evaluation or quiet periods? There is a distinct possibility these ideas could become more than just concepts . . .
Several athletic administrators and college sports insiders discussed the Transfer Committee’s concepts under the condition of anonymity. They include:
(1) Eliminating scholarship caps on sports that offer only partial scholarships;
(2) Abolishing the limitation on the number of coaches per team;
(3) Expanding direct payments from schools to athletes;
(4) Reconfiguring the recruiting calendar; and
(5) Implementing closed periods in the NCAA transfer portal . . .
The expansion of scholarships would be a historic move, but it would not impact sports such as football and basketball, known as “head count” sports. They offer full scholarships to a roster of players: 85 in football and 15 in basketball. The concept pertains to sports offering partial scholarships, known as “equivalency” sports, such as baseball, hockey, track and field, and swimming. For example, the NCAA maximum scholarships allowed in baseball is 11.7 for a roster of 35—a figure often criticized by high-level baseball-playing schools from rich conferences that want to spend more. Under the transformation’s plan, a school could conceivably offer 35 full scholarships in the sport.
Lifting the “countable coach” rules would also be unprecedented, as NCAA rules currently restrict the number of coaches by sport. For instance, a football team can have no more than 11 coaches (one head coach and 10 assistants) and a basketball team no more than four (one head coach and three assistants). Other staff members, such as analysts and consultants, are considered non-countable personnel who are not supposed to coach players—a rule that is often bent, if not completely broken at many programs.
Restrictions on athlete “compensation, benefits and awards” is another area in which change is coming, according to a Transformation Committee slide shown to athletic directors and obtained by SI. It might include expanding on the $5,980 checks many athletes receive as a result of the NCAA’s loss in the Alston case. Schools are allowed to provide education-related benefits of such an amount. Some programs, like Ole Miss, are distributing checks to athletes who meet a not-so-tough criteria: remaining eligible.
The Transformation Committee is also exploring ways to bring regulation to the transfer portal, which is open year-round. The portal is flush with athletes using the one-time transfer exception to leave their school and play immediately somewhere else. The lack of a regulated structure is causing roster management problems that have college leaders considering an abolishment of the annual 25-man signing limit. Some have suggested concepts that keep the portal closed except for two five-week periods, one after fall semester ends and another after spring semester.
Concepts are also being discussed around simplifying the recruiting calendar, by potentially eliminating some regulations and replacing dead, quiet, evaluation and recruiting periods with two windows: a recruiting period and a dead period. More coaches and staff members—beyond the on-field 11 for football, for instance—would be able to recruit off campus, too.
The concepts, if implemented, could come at a significant cost, especially scholarship expansion. If one conference allows it, will others feel pressure to follow suit? Some may not be able to afford the expense. Scholarships and coaching salaries are two of the top four expenses at schools each year. According to Knight Commission data, about 37% of the average FBS school’s budget is spent on coaching compensation and athletic student aid.
Title IX requirements could also complicate matters. The law requires schools to spend similarly on women’s sports as it does in men’s. If scholarships are expanded in baseball, a school would need to do the same in a women’s sport.
And if the decisions are left up to leagues with varying financial capabilities and different missions, it’s an unsettling prospect for some.
Conferences must avoid the appearance of collusion by determining policies on their own without communicating with one another, making an already fractured college sports landscape even more splintered. Leagues could be, quite literally, playing by different rules. The decentralization and deregulation, as well as the surge of million-dollar NIL collectives, are likely to accelerate what Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick recently described to SI as a complete split of the NCAA within the next decade . . .”
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE: www.si.com/college/2022/04/27/ncaa-new-transformation-committee-changes?msclkid=9f414014c73b11ecb334683c193c870b
