NCAA President Proposes New Division To Allow Schools To Pay Players Directly

It always seemed likely that the future of college football was headed for some sort of “pay for play” model.

Now, it appears, that future has arrived.

NCAA president Charlie Baker made a momentous announcement on Tuesday morning when he proposed the creation of a new FBS subdivision that would allow the highest-resource schools to compensate athletes directly through a trust in addition to NIL.

Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic first reported the news, which came via a letter to Division I football members.

NCAA President Proposes New Pay For Play Model

The proposal read as follows:

Third, a subdivision of institutions with the highest resources to invest in their student athletes should be required to do two things:

-Within the framework of Title IX, invest at least $30,000 per year into an enhanced educational trust fund for at least half of the institution’s student athletes.

-Commit to work with their peer institutions in the subdivision to create rules that may differ from the rules in place for the rest of Division I. Those rules could include a wide range of policies, such as scholarship commitment and roster size, recruitment, transfers or NIL.

Additionally, Auerbach reports that Baker also states that “rules should change for any Division I school, at their choice, to enter into name, image and likeness licensing opportunities with their student-athletes.”

Currently, schools cannot enter into NIL deals directly with athletes. Athletes must work with NIL collectives that are, at least in a legal sense, a separate entity from the universities they play for.

Lastly, Baker suggests that “we should make it possible for all Division I colleges and universities to offer student-athletes any level of enhanced educational benefits they deem appropriate.”

Pay for play is coming for college athletics. Whether you like it or not.

Now it’s just a matter of who jumps on board and who gets left behind.