Interesting development with new rules, roster limits, and more…
[Title IX applies to revenue sharing ]
Title IX may mean schools split revenue sharing (mainly from football) evenly across men and women. These ADs have it rough with major changes to their approach happening monthly it feels like.
With the Dept. of Education taking the position that each college’s revenue sharing piece shall be subject to Title IX, the proposed settlement case has even more problems, as most athletic departments that are expected to sign on were expected to allocate those funds heavily to income producing programs (football, basketball).
What a mess!
This is a HUGE curveball that frankly isn’t such a big surprise. If I was an AD of a mid-major like UCI, UC Davis, UCSD, UCSB, etc. I would 100% be opting out of the settlement. Keep my roster size how I like it and sit back with a box of popcorn and watch all the lawsuits get filed for the next 5 years. Once all the dust settles and the lawyers have billed millions of dollars in fees. Then decide whether it makes sense to opt in.
I’ve felt the same thing - doesn’t seem to make sense for a mid major.
Given that this is a government agency ruling, couldn’t this just be reversed in 5 days?
Are your kids receiving the following email for the settlement and if so what is the amount that is projected for distribution?
Current/Former Division I athletes may be eligible for money from $2.78bn settlements
In re College Athlete NIL Litigation, Case No. 4:20-cv-03919-CW (N.D. Cal.)
Hubbard v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, Case No. 4:23-cv-01593-CW (N.D. Cal.)
Time is running out for Division I Athletes to participate in class action settlements.
Division I Athletes have until January 31, 2025 to claim their share and receive a payment from one or both class action settlements. Forms may be submitted online
Not surprising but Ivys drop out of settlement
This is absolutely ridiculous.
Title IX - which I did not like as a teenage D1 athlete (it eliminated our football team) - has created opportunities for my daughters that never existed. Their experiences with elite water polo programs are preparing them to be successful adults with all the values that they’ve had an opportunity to build in the pool.
This edict once again rates women as second class citizens. It is a body blow to the amazing advances that women’s sports have made just as the investment in our girls is materializing.
Shameful.
Why?
Assume you’re at San Jose State or Hawai’i and the football team wants to be competitive and commits to paying their football players $10m of school sponsored NIL money.
If the school has to split the money between genders, then having women’s sports and big women’s teams becomes less attractive.
I think there’s plenty of schools that would only host WBB, MBB, Football, WVB and baseball if they could. Every other sport is just to get to the NCAA minimum. If we get in the way of those ‘chosen’ programs, then we’re in the crosshairs - so steer clear.
I see this as less ammunition for cutting women’s sports
Leaving this up to the administration du jour means it will always be an unknown. Impossible to plan if the next administration can again change this decision. Can’t say with straight face so: [eyeroll]we need congress to do something[\eyeroll].
Football and basketball have long paid for everything else. We all know that. Splitting the NIL budget could arguably fall into that same discussion. However, my understanding is that the NIL packages will need to pass some audit/analysis to show they are market value. This will be hard to do but the market value of a football / Basketball player’s NIL is usually above all other sports. How can you mandate equity and of the split between the sexes and also demand market value for each deal. The math may not work.
It’s a non-issue. Previous administration January 16th guidance was to whom and how NIL payments were to be distributed. The current administration rescind of this just goes back to January 15th on this specific issue.
I’m just saying that a future admin could change it again and the whole system can’t work with that level of uncertainty. It may not be able to work anyways, but….
Title IX requires equal treatment. If a school has a football team with 110 kids then that university is required to have an offsetting 110 female athletes. Are big-time football schools going to get rid of their teams because they don’t want to support women’s sports? Not likely.
Face it, women’s sports are here to stay and they are protected, because they have to be. Otherwise women’s water polo would be a dormant club sport without a national championship along with the opportunities that these girls have to compete and grow as women. Men’s football and basketball will be just fine even if they have to give up $10m that is “rightfully theirs”.
Isn’t the point of college to grow and learn to become strong contributors to your communities? That is where successful water polo players are created - Steffens, Musselman, Johnson don’t exist without Title IX. The Olympic medals don’t exist.
The irony is that the lawsuit that was brought by a swimmer will effectively extinguish multiple Olympic sports so that male football and basketball players can be paid.
I was never fully comfortable with the notion that schools had to evenly split NIL under Title IX. But if some of that money went towards funding scholarships for women’s sports (for the schools that opt in), that sounds like a win.
Speaking of getting paid.
And #9 Ju Ju Watkins just finished destroying former undefeated #1 UCLA with a monstrous game. She deserves a raise
It gets even better: if you notice within this article, another posted article shows how Alabama is following Georgia to exempt NIL earnings from State income tax. Wow, there’s no end to the madness.
State legislators giving tax breaks to attract college football players. What a world.
I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing:
–Scholarships are protected under Title IX
--------So if a school wants to go from 85 to 105 football scholarships, then they’d still need to add 20 women’s scholarships.
–The House ruling says that schools can share revenue with the athletes - essentially school funded NIL’s, up to ~$21m/year - the recent announcement stipulates this $$ is NOT subject to Title IX.
In the water polo world, UCLA, USC, Michigan are the 3 schools that could be affected by this - maybe also Indiana and ASU.
This House revenue sharing is just another way for the football power 4 schools to flex their might and further separate themselves, but I haven’t seen anything about scholarship funding levels related to House (number of scholarships - yes, but not funding – please post if you have).
What I worry about is a school with big football and deep pockets like USC or Michigan - and how they’ll be untouchable with 24 full-ride water polo scholarships.
It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll see one of these schools with 24 men’s scholarships. It’s more likely that they go to zero scholarships than 24.
On the women’s side it’s different; these power 4 schools will definitely use 105 full scholarships for football, so that’s 20 more scholarships that have to be awarded to women’s sports. That’s also why you could see some stagnation in men’s sports at those schools- those 40 additional scholarships will put a lot of pressure on non-revenue sports.
Away from power 4, you could see schools cut men’s sports if they opt-in to the settlement. Already seeing this in wrestling and volleyball unfortunately.