SLU will opt in for NCAA settlement, opening door for direct payment of athletes in 202

[TheA_Bomb]

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

1 hour ago, TheA_Bomb said:

I've got covid right now so I've been at home since Saturday, but I've been bingeing Band of Brothers for the first time and I was really surprised to see Jimmy Fallon in a non-comedy role, even if it was brief. 

[brianstl]

I really doubt revenue sharing gets off the ground next season.  Right now there is a ruling in effect from the Third Circuit of of United States Court of Appeals that would mean direct payments to student athletes makes them employees of the universities.  This ruling makes it the law currently in PA, NJ and Delaware.  That means that the scholarships athletes receive at those schools will become taxable compensation that athletes are responsible to pay taxes on as soon as they start getting direct payments from the schools.  There will have to be a ruling when it comes to state schools if the amount taxable is the true cost of that scholarship are the state subsidized cost of tuition, room, board, etc. Many of these athletes will see a large chunk of or all of their direct payments going to cover the taxes for any cash they get and to cover the taxes on the scholarship cost.  

Schools will have the added cost of paying things like payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, worker's comp insurance and possibly ACA/health insurance cost.

I don't think it is going to happen and I think most schools don't think it will happen.  Many schools have determined that there is actually no cost for them to say they will pay make direct payments to athletes because when it becomes time for them to do so, they will as a group say that court rulings and legal uncertainty make it presently impossible for them to do it in way that would benefit the athletes and with any certain total financial liability for the universities.

[PharmBoy]

Curious to know how this impacts other sports?  I know there are new roster limitations for all sports, but each person on the roster can be on scholarship.  Does anyone know if SLU will be offering scholarships to all rostered athletes?  The concern is that if a sport can offer 15 scholarships  (example) but if SLU's Athletic Department only allows 12, will that sport be at a disadvantage compared to other A10 schools.

[cgeldmacher]

My understanding is offering a kid a scholarship and agreeing to pay that kid some NIL money would be two different things.  Technically, SLU could pay NIL money to someone who is a walk-on or on half scholarship and then not pay NIL money to someone who is on scholarship.  I don't think that's how they would do it, but they could.

[HoosierPal]

6 hours ago, PharmBoy said:

Curious to know how this impacts other sports?  I know there are new roster limitations for all sports, but each person on the roster can be on scholarship.  Does anyone know if SLU will be offering scholarships to all rostered athletes?  The concern is that if a sport can offer 15 scholarships  (example) but if SLU's Athletic Department only allows 12, will that sport be at a disadvantage compared to other A10 schools.

There are several layers to your question, but you have already figured out one in that with the new roster limits, no, scholarships do not have to be provided.  For non-revenue sports, this could be important.  For men's and women's basketball, very likely not an issue.  The women already have 15 on scholarship, and the men will next season be at 15.  I'll put my marker down that SLU will fund those two extra scholarships.  With roster caps, walk-on's are likely gone.  So does Jaden Schertz get a scholarship?

Men's soccer roster cap raises from 9.9 roster size to 28.  That's a major increase.  Women soccer goes from 1 to 28.  Again, a major increase in roster size.  Will schools give full rides to the additional 32 roster slots?  Now they divide up their scholarships.  So pushing to full rides would be a major financial endeavor.  

Field hockey's cap goes from 12 to 27.  Men's track from 12.6 to 45 and women's track from 18 to 45.  Baseball goes from 11.7 to 34 and softball from 12 to 25.  For SLU you are looking at over 100 additional roster spaces.  How scholarship dollars are parceled out in these sports and how they are divided up in these sports remains to be seen. 

Revenue sharing, Title IX issues, NIL, decrease in revenue due to the A10's share of the House settlement, discussion on increasing eligibility to 5 years; add this all up and stir.  It's going to be an interesting next year.  

  

[PharmBoy]

18 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

There are several layers to your question, but you have already figured out one in that with the new roster limits, no, scholarships do not have to be provided.  For non-revenue sports, this could be important.  For men's and women's basketball, very likely not an issue.  The women already have 15 on scholarship, and the men will next season be at 15.  I'll put my marker down that SLU will fund those two extra scholarships.  With roster caps, walk-on's are likely gone.  So does Jaden Schertz get a scholarship?

Men's soccer roster cap raises from 9.9 roster size to 28.  That's a major increase.  Women soccer goes from 1 to 28.  Again, a major increase in roster size.  Will schools give full rides to the additional 32 roster slots?  Now they divide up their scholarships.  So pushing to full rides would be a major financial endeavor.  

Field hockey's cap goes from 12 to 27.  Men's track from 12.6 to 45 and women's track from 18 to 45.  Baseball goes from 11.7 to 34 and softball from 12 to 25.  For SLU you are looking at over 100 additional roster spaces.  How scholarship dollars are parceled out in these sports and how they are divided up in these sports remains to be seen. 

Revenue sharing, Title IX issues, NIL, decrease in revenue due to the A10's share of the House settlement, discussion on increasing eligibility to 5 years; add this all up and stir.  It's going to be an interesting next year.  

  

Exactly.  And I believe all has to be determined and implemented for Fall of 25'?  Short amount of time to decide many things that will impact sports across the University.

[TheA_Bomb]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6068325/2025/01/16/department-of-education-title-ix-nil-memo/

Summary: Current Department of Education memo says NIL payments need to be equal to comply with Title IX.

There's no way this could be enforced on a collective or other private NIL methods but official university payments could be subject to TIX.  While the article admits it may not matter under the current presidential administration, that's four short years from possibly mattering. 

Also SLU has shown stringent compliance with previous TIX guidelines in situations 1 & 2.  There is criticism of TIX overreaching into student disciplinary situations.

My preference would be to keep NIL collective payments outside the whims of the federal government or NCAA. But I understand the tax benefits of going through the school. Perhaps a hybrid that is easily compliant with TIX and the kicker comes from NIL collective is a way to move forward.

[JMM28]

18 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

Men's soccer roster cap raises from 9.9 roster size to 28.  That's a major increase.  Women soccer goes from 1 to 28.  Again, a major increase in roster size. 

Mens and womens roster sizes average about 32 across the D1 ranks. A roster cap of 28 means that the majority of programs will decrease roster spots. 

It remains to be seen if those roster spots are required to all be full scholarships. If they are unable to still offer partial scholarships, roster sizes will decrease significantly. 

[Old guy]

1 hour ago, TheA_Bomb said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6068325/2025/01/16/department-of-education-title-ix-nil-memo/

Summary: Current Department of Education memo says NIL payments need to be equal to comply with Title IX.

There's no way this could be enforced on a collective or other private NIL methods but official university payments could be subject to TIX.  While the article admits it may not matter under the current presidential administration, that's four short years from possibly mattering. 

Also SLU has shown stringent compliance with previous TIX guidelines in situations 1 & 2.  There is criticism of TIX overreaching into student disciplinary situations.

My preference would be to keep NIL collective payments outside the whims of the federal government or NCAA. But I understand the tax benefits of going through the school. Perhaps a hybrid that is easily compliant with TIX and the kicker comes from NIL collective is a way to move forward.

Right you are that it would be better to keep SLU NILs in private hands. However, May is still the head of the SLU athletic department.  As long as he remains in that position the financial affairs of the SLU Athletic Department will be in trouble. He already showed his poor financial ability with the large contract he gave Ford expecting to make lots of money when Ford got recruited to go coach at a power conference. This was a true genius level financial move.

Just remember that a University makes money out of tuition payments, contracts to do specific work for clients, and investment gains in its endowment. These are the primary streams of income the University can count upon. Donors are a nice and significant extra that is added on top of all the other streams of income. However, it depends upon the donors to decide to donate their money or not. Given our present economy, it is better to leave NILs money in the donors hands and not make them an additional University obligation. 

[OkieBilliken]

2 hours ago, TheA_Bomb said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6068325/2025/01/16/department-of-education-title-ix-nil-memo/

Summary: Current Department of Education memo says NIL payments need to be equal to comply with Title IX.

There's no way this could be enforced on a collective or other private NIL methods but official university payments could be subject to TIX.  While the article admits it may not matter under the current presidential administration, that's four short years from possibly mattering. 

Also SLU has shown stringent compliance with previous TIX guidelines in situations 1 & 2.  There is criticism of TIX overreaching into student disciplinary situations.

My preference would be to keep NIL collective payments outside the whims of the federal government or NCAA. But I understand the tax benefits of going through the school. Perhaps a hybrid that is easily compliant with TIX and the kicker comes from NIL collective is a way to move forward.

The Department of Education will likely be overhauled in about three days and counting.   Like it or not, I'm not sure that memo is going to hold up under new leadership.

[brianstl]

16 minutes ago, OkieBilliken said:

The Department of Education will likely be overhauled in about three days and counting.   Like it or not, I'm sure that memo is going to hold up under new leadership.

I don't see the new administration changing the stance when it comes to equal funding to the students themselves from the schools.  They got what they think are much bigger fish fry with Title IX specifically and what happens at universities in general. Some of their big allies in those goals have a main objective of protecting the funding for biological female athletes. 

[OkieBilliken]

7 minutes ago, brianstl said:

I don't see the new administration changing the stance when it comes to equal funding to the students themselves from the schools.  They got what they think are much bigger fish fry with Title IX specifically and what happens at universities in general. Some of their big allies in those goals have a main objective of protecting the funding for biological female athletes. 

That's true but if schools are switching to pay direct vs NIL, then people are reading that memo as "Ohio State's reserve goalie on their women's lacrosse team must be compensated as much as their starting quarterback."    That can't possibly stand up.   

[TheA_Bomb]

1 hour ago, OkieBilliken said:

That's true but if schools are switching to pay direct vs NIL, then people are reading that memo as "Ohio State's reserve goalie on their women's lacrosse team must be compensated as much as their starting quarterback."    That can't possibly stand up.   

The article pointed out that this memo, which is just an opinion from a group within the Department of Education is unlikely to be enforced in the Trump Administration. I agree with that point. However, the Trump Administration will last four years, that's not very long and this sentiment could prevail in the future. We've seen Republican and Democrat administrations have similar expanded definitions and applications of TIX in the past. Those expanded definitions had direct impact on SLU MBB. So it's worth considering this as part of the strategy going forward.  If SLU is banking on focus on revenue sharing, which according to Stu's interview of our esteemed AD, it seems they are...... that could be problematic if distributions must be equal. So it is my opinion that if that's the sole strategy it's built on a shakey foundation.

[HoosierPal]

This stuff is getting real.  Indiana University, riding high on record revenues from their football program, announced a round of layoffs in their Athletic Department aimed at reducing costs as it prepares to share revenues with athletes at the start of the 2025-26 year.  25 positions (12 unfilled) were eliminated, as the Athletic Department looks to trim 10% of the budget from each of its auxiliaries (compliance, academic services, communications, etc.) and programs.  Deputy Director of Athletics position was eliminated among others.  No cuts were made to any teams coaching staffs.  Indiana has already been signing athletes to revenue sharing agreements in anticipation of a July 1 start date.

In another release, Kansas University announced it's new PSD (Per Seat Donation) template for next season's basketball schedule which intends to funnel additional funds into the revenue sharing agenda.  An example given in their release was a Tier 2 ticket would cost $2500 per seat, with $500 being the seat cost and $2,000 as the PSD.  Football will have something similar.

Last fall Univ Tennessee announced a 10% fee on football tickets that will be funneled into revenue sharing, in addition to a 4.5% increase in the ticket price.

 

 

[cheeseman]

The Dept of Education just said that Title 9 applies to these payments.  It will be interesting to see how it all works out

[Speyburn]

Facing Huge Deficit, Sonoma State University Makes Massive Cuts, Ends Athletics

[billikenfan05]

18 hours ago, Speyburn said:

Facing Huge Deficit, Sonoma State University Makes Massive Cuts, Ends Athletics

for the second time

[Lord Elrond]

56 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

for the second time

The biggest takeaway I got from this was that it really had nothing to do with NIL (they are a D2 school), but the fact that in the article it mentioned that enrollment had dropped 38%. That, plus the fact that they don’t have a large endowment meant they had to make extreme budget cuts to survive.  It’s a warning that the demographics of the US mean that over the next 20 years there are far more colleges than we need.

[Old guy]

14 hours ago, Lord Elrond said:

  It’s a warning that the demographics of the US mean that over the next 20 years there are far more colleges than we need.

And it really means that 20 years from now the number of colleges in the US will be a lot smaller than it is currently. 

[cgeldmacher]

On 1/17/2025 at 1:35 PM, OkieBilliken said:

That's true but if schools are switching to pay direct vs NIL, then people are reading that memo as "Ohio State's reserve goalie on their women's lacrosse team must be compensated as much as their starting quarterback."    That can't possibly stand up.   

Why not? I posted about this months ago and said the same thing I'll say now.  The best way to disrupt the current system is through a lawsuit filed by female NCAA athletes saying that the present system of funneling millions to the male athletes is a violation of Title IX.  Every court case filed by student athletes against the NCAA has won and, I'm not sure how hard the NCAA would fight this one.

Also, for those that have mentioned it, the present administration has nothing to do with it.  The lawsuits that have been won by college athletes in the last ten years had nothing to do with the administration at the time.  Title IX, as it relates to college sports, has been interpreted as guaranteeing equity between male and female athletes.  The current system is absolutely, positively not that.

[thatskablamo]

Speaking of Title IX: SLU should hire U of Florida’s Title IX team - they did the work that should have been done for our student-athletes. Not just some guilty until proven innocent kangaroo court. Back the Brinks truck up. 

[OkieBilliken]

On 1/17/2025 at 1:59 PM, OkieBilliken said:

The Department of Education will likely be overhauled in about three days and counting.   Like it or not, I'm not sure that memo is going to hold up under new leadership.

As I predicted that ridiculous new Title 9 memo was revoked by the new administration 

[HoosierPal]

I've read that SLU, St. Bonnie, VCU, and George Mason all are 'opting in' for paying players next season.  I'll assume that all A10 teams are in but just haven't publicized the decision.  [If they don't opt in, their future is bleak.]

VCU reported is in at $5M, George Mason at $3M.  Today I read that Richmond is 'in' but will only pay the Men's and Women's basketball players.  They are the only A10 school which I have read about that specifies paying only basketball players.  It will be interesting to see how non-revenue sports are compensated (or not) moving forward.

[HoosierPal]

The Ivy League is 'opting out' of revenue sharing structured in the House settlement. 

“This decision to ‘not opt in’ means the Ivy League and its schools … will continue to provide an educational intercollegiate athletics model that is focused on academic primacy and the overall student-athlete experience,” Robin Harris, the Ivy’s executive director wrote in a statement.

She added that opting out of the settlement does not impact student athletes’ opportunity to market their individual NIL rights and secure legitimate NIL-related payments from a third-party sponsor. 

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ivy-league-opts-out-of-house-settlement-3828891/

And as of March 5, Sienna does not intend to opt into the House Agreement.  And apparently the deadline has been extended to June 15 so Sienna has time to reconsider. 

https://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/siena-athletics-does-not-intend-opt-house-v-20201468.php