Added Time: Our Monthly College Search Newsletter

August Update: The Future of the NCAA And Your College Search!

With more details on the “House” settlement coming into the media, along with college athletics first “Post Pac 12” season it’s natural to be looking for some clues about the future of intercollegiate athletics and the NCAA. If you’ve been keeping up with Added Time over the past few months, you were already aware of the proposals for revenue sharing and replacing scholarship limits with roster caps. Those roster cap proposals came out recently and created a fair amount of confusion both in the media and among athletic recruiting “experts.” So, what do you need to know as you approach your own recruiting process?

Realignment, the “House” Settlement, Labor Law and Power 4 Conference Instability

• “House v NCAA” establishes roster limits & revenue sharing for many FBS student-athletes

As proposed, this settlement applies only to “Power 4” conference schools (the big football schools) and other FBS member schools that opt-in (in return for paying a disproportionate part of the costs). From a recruiting standpoint, the biggest take away is the addition of 20 potential scholarships in every P4 & opt in football program. Otherwise, the roster limits reflect roughly the current state of play and there is nothing in the settlement that addresses funding additional scholarships or Title IX compliance (despite reporting that either gets this wrong or muddies the water).

You can click on the chart here to expand it and see the relatively minor changes in roster size overall. Remember the current roster census includes student-athletes who might be excluded under whatever cap rules would be adopted (i.e. redshirts). Also, scholarship limits have become almost meaningless with the emergence of NIL payments (the agreement also creates an NIL database for colleges, but it will not change things on the ground for prospective student-athletes).

Relevant concerns

• You are going to hear about coaches telling prospects that under the new rules, they cannot recruit them. This should get the same response that a coach saying, “you are too late, our roster is full” was getting already. Namely it means THAT coach is not recruiting you. It does not mean anything broader than one coach’s opinion.
• We are entering the first “post-Pac-12” fall! The realignment merry go round is only going to speed up. If you are looking to play in a specific conference or affiliation, you may want to look at other factors and remember that ultimately schools tend to keep playing the same people they always played no matter how much realignment there is. For example, how long are West Virginia and Arizona going to be in the same conference? We will see…
• This settlement will not take effect until all parties agree, a judge signs off on it, and the NCAA adopts relevant legislation. When a non-signatory to the agreement “opts out” or refuses to affirmatively sign on to this settlement, the NCAA will be back in court facing new litigants. Expect that to happen shortly after any settlement is adopted.
• You will need to navigate a less certain environment at the very top end of NCAA athletics. Scholarship funding, roster spots, program expansion or reduction, transfer rules… it will ALL be in flux as you look for your best fit – and with trickle down impacts that are not yet predictable. Also, this may make FCS/D2/D3/NAIA programs more attractive as they will be comparatively more stable.
• There have been general statements about complying with Title IX in implementing this settlement. The truth is that in the current legal environment there is no expectation that the courts will enforce Title IX. The best protection Title IX compliance has right now is the institutional stakeholders already in place.
• This settlement is unrelated to the movement towards classifying student-athletes as employees eligible to collectively bargain. Ultimately, any deal is going to act as a bridge towards a collective bargaining agreement of some type. It seems that in the end, the employee classification may end up benefiting the colleges as much or more than the athletes, providing cost certainty and ending most litigation.

If you are an NCAA policy nerd or are merely rooting for colleges to make money in ways that reduce tuition costs, this deal opens the door to some problematic efforts. The P4/FBS schools continue to try to run football beyond the purview of the NCAA. So far, they have managed to cost the colleges BILLIONS of dollars in lost revenue in the name of not sharing millions with non-P4 peers and this deal entrenches that effort. I think it was Ben Franklin who coined the term, “penny wise and pound foolish” but whomever it was saw these guys coming a long way off. Hopefully they will not destroy the NCAA association wide TV deals that have generated windfall revenue for EVERY college in the association. The current NCAA leadership, so far, has not articulated an enduring vision in support of unity and common purpose among all association members. Watch this space. You can read the NCAA’s recent release on the House settlement here: https://www.ncaa.org/news/2024/7/26/media-center-settlement-documents-filed-in-college-athletics-class-action-lawsuits.aspx

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