The government got involved in college sports again.
The United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights sent out a memo on Thursday informing universities that future payments to student-athletes through NIL will need to follow Title IX guidelines because these payments count as "financial assistance." Universities who do not distribute their revenue share evenly could violate Title IX guidelines.
Universities do not currently pay student-athletes directly. Right now, athletic departments use third-party collectives, like the Oklahoma Sooners' 1Oklahoma, to pay athletes through NIL.
However, if the House v. NCAA settlement is passed in April, then starting July 1, universities will pay student-athletes directly through revenue share. The cap will be $20.5 million for every athletic department.
As athletic departments are already scrambling and trying to figure out how to deal with revenue share and new roster limits, the U.S. Department of Education's memo caused another obstacle in some plans that had already been made.
Currently with Title IX, which is a federal law to protect student-athletes from being discriminated against based on gender, every athlete at a university would be required to get paid the same from the university, no matter how much money that sport actually brings in for the school.
According to On3's Pete Nakos, most universities were planning to allocate about 75% of its revenue share to football, which is the biggest money maker for nearly every school. He reported that most athletic departments had the following allocation breakdown.
- 75% football
- 15% men's basketball
- 5% women's basketball
- 5% remaining sports
Obviously those numbers are not set in stone for every athletic department. Most universities would want to feed the sports that make them the most money and bring them the most success.
For instance, OU has not released its revenue distribution plan, but the Sooners would most likely throw more money at softball than most universities would considering that program's success.
The number of different sports an athletic department has will also be more costly. Small-revenue sports like gymnastics and volleyball will now cut into funds more than originally planned since all those athletes would need to be paid the same.
This also shakes up things even on same rosters. A football program, for instance, would likely pay more toward an important position or better player. Now, theoretically, a quarterback would be making the same as his backup or the punter, at least from the university.
With all that being said, though, those star players on higher revenue sports will still be getting more money in their pockets. Title IX does not include payments from third parties, including collectives.
What that does, though, is continue the bidding war for players between universities' boosters. With just revenue sharing, every athletic department (at least those that can afford it) would have the same spending limit. With collectives still involved, it will still be similar to how it is now with recruitment being a bidding war in most instances.
However, Nakos also reported that all this could still change under a new administration starting Monday.