The Ivy League will “opt out of a pending NCAA settlement set to provide direct compensation to former and current college athletes,” according to Guevarra & McKeown of the DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN. Ivy League Exec Dir Robin Harris in an email stated that the conference “will not participate” in the $2.8B settlement and that its athletic programs “will continue to not provide student-athletes with revenue sharing allocations, athletics scholarships, or direct [name, image, and likeness] payments.” Guevarra & McKeown note the decision will "not impact student-athletes’ ability to secure 'legitimate NIL-related payments.'" The Ivy League is instead “set to maintain its longstanding rules -- including prohibiting any form of compensation for participation in athletics." Despite not opting into the settlement deal, the Ivy League will “still be subject to the 'clearinghouse' terms of the settlement” coordinated by the five defendant conferences -- the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12. These terms will require all D-I athletes receiving NIL payments over $600 to “disclose deals with a third-party 'clearinghouse' with the ability to block NIL payments that they believe to be 'pay-for-play' alternatives." The decision comes days after the U.S. Dept. of Education declared that future NIL payments paid directly from universities "should count as 'athletic financial assistance' under Title IX-- and thus should be distributed equally between men’s and women’s programs” (DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN, 1/22).
UNIFIED FRONT? In Richmond, John O’Connor writes how the Atlantic 10 schools decide to "handle revenue sharing as a unified group will be intriguing, and very challenging, because of the variety among membership.” Some A-10 schools sponsor football, which “will be in line for a portion of an athletic department's revenue-sharing budget,” and many others do not. There is also a “dramatic variance” in terms of investments in men’s basketball. Dayton leads the conference with a men’s basketball budget of $9.4M. O’Connor: "Would La Salle, with an annual men’s basketball budget of $3.6 million, and Davidson, with a budget of $3.5 million, or other schools be interested in staying in the A-10 if the league establishes a minimum investment for revenue sharing with the goal of securing its place in the competitive college basketball hierarchy?" Univ. of Richmond men’s basketball coach Chris Mooney said the conference is “trying to guide schools into what they think will be an appropriate figure” for men's basketball, but there is "not a final answer right now or an estimate" (RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, 1/22).
