Dep't of Education says Revenue-sharing should be subject to Title IX

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well, this could gum things up. the US Department of Education has issued guideance to schools on the revenue-sharing payments scheduled to begin this year under the 'House' settlement - stating that the payments must follow Title IX guidelines. from ESPN:

The plans that many major college athletic departments are making for how they will distribute new direct payments to their athletes would violate Title IX law, according to a memo published by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday.

the Office for Civil Rights -- the division of the Department of Education that enforces Title IX law -- said in its memo Thursday that those future payments should be considered "athletic financial assistance" and therefore must be shared proportionally between men and women athletes.

"When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete's NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes," the memo said.

The memo provides some long-awaited guidance about how gender equity laws will apply to a new era of college sports that is on track to begin this summer. It's not clear if the Department of Education will interpret Title IX law the same way when incoming President Donald Trump's administration installs new officials in the near future.

The NCAA and its power conferences have agreed to allow each school to share up to $20.5 million in direct payments to its athletes via name, image and likeness deals as one of the terms of a pending antitrust settlement. Many schools from those power conferences have developed plans to distribute the majority of that money to athletes in sports that generate the most revenue -- mostly football and men's basketball players.

In some cases, athletic directors have publicly shared that they intend to provide upward of 75% of that money to their football players.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs. If 50% of a school's athletes are women, then 50% of the school's financial aid for athletes must be allotted to women.

The memo is not as clear in providing guidance on how payments from booster collectives closely associated with their schools are impacted by Title IX law. It states that the department does not consider money provided by a third party in an NIL deal as athletic financial assistance like the future revenue sharing payments or scholarship dollars.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
well, this could gum things up. the US Department of Education has issued guideance to schools on the revenue-sharing payments scheduled to begin this year under the 'House' settlement - stating that the payments must follow Title IX guidelines. from ESPN:

The plans that many major college athletic departments are making for how they will distribute new direct payments to their athletes would violate Title IX law, according to a memo published by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday.

the Office for Civil Rights -- the division of the Department of Education that enforces Title IX law -- said in its memo Thursday that those future payments should be considered "athletic financial assistance" and therefore must be shared proportionally between men and women athletes.

"When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete's NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes," the memo said.

The memo provides some long-awaited guidance about how gender equity laws will apply to a new era of college sports that is on track to begin this summer. It's not clear if the Department of Education will interpret Title IX law the same way when incoming President Donald Trump's administration installs new officials in the near future.

The NCAA and its power conferences have agreed to allow each school to share up to $20.5 million in direct payments to its athletes via name, image and likeness deals as one of the terms of a pending antitrust settlement. Many schools from those power conferences have developed plans to distribute the majority of that money to athletes in sports that generate the most revenue -- mostly football and men's basketball players.

In some cases, athletic directors have publicly shared that they intend to provide upward of 75% of that money to their football players.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs. If 50% of a school's athletes are women, then 50% of the school's financial aid for athletes must be allotted to women.

The memo is not as clear in providing guidance on how payments from booster collectives closely associated with their schools are impacted by Title IX law. It states that the department does not consider money provided by a third party in an NIL deal as athletic financial assistance like the future revenue sharing payments or scholarship dollars.
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This is a problem that will destroy any guardrails. If anyone asks why the NCAA can't be structured like any other business with logical guardrails, it's because of this insanity.
 

I think this could kill womens sports at universities. I can't see most schools paying women in non revenue sports the same as football players. I would assume most non revenue womens sports will be eliminated.
 

Gopher Mac said:
I think this could kill womens sports at universities. I can't see most schools paying women in non revenue sports the same as football players. I would assume most non revenue womens sports will be eliminated.
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If it kills women's sports at universities, it will kill men's sports, too.

You cannot have men's sports if you don't have an equal opportunity for women. That's what Title IX is all about. So, if you kill a women's sport, some men's sport that has equivalent number of scholarships will also have to be cut.

I suppose there is a chance in 10 years that some schools will only have football (revenue) and men's basketball (revenue) and then women's basketball (non-rev) and women's rowing (non-rev) to equal out the scholarship opportunities. A place like Minnesota would maintain men's hockey (revenue)/women's hockey.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
This is a problem that will destroy any guardrails. If anyone asks why the NCAA can't be structured like any other business with logical guardrails, it's because of this insanity.
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I'll bet there are a whole bunch of college football coaches today wondering how they are going to fulfill their $12 million+ commitment to pay players this fall with what will turn out to be maybe less than half that. They have to be scrambling for answers.

Revenue share was one of the ways a football program like Minnesota (with modest NIL funds) could at least make an honest effort to keep up to power programs with huge NIL warchests. This dents that in a big way.
 

tjgopher said:
If it kills women's sports at universities, it will kill men's sports, too.

You cannot have men's sports if you don't have an equal opportunity for women. That's what Title IX is all about. So, if you kill a women's sport, some men's sport that has equivalent number of scholarships will also have to be cut.

I suppose there is a chance in 10 years that some schools will only have football (revenue) and men's basketball (revenue) and then women's basketball (non-rev) and women's rowing (non-rev) to equal out the scholarship opportunities. A place like Minnesota would maintain men's hockey (revenue)/women's hockey.
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You are correct. I think most non-revene sports will need to be cut. You would
need to cut programs like baseball, soccer, swimming men's and women as you correctly pointed out. You can't be paying athletes that don't generate income and survive.
 

Gopher Mac said:
I think this could kill womens sports at universities. I can't see most schools paying women in non revenue sports the same as football players. I would assume most non revenue womens sports will be eliminated.
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If you are following Title IX, killing women's sports would kill men's sports.

Scholarships have to match.
 

I think this was predictable. Ridiculous, unreasoned and generally pathetic... but predictable. I am not sure what it will "kill" as others have stated. The one thing it will definitely kill is my desire to personally give $ to an NIL collective (if that money is indeed impacted by this ruling). I won't give one dime if my money has to be split evenly among athletes in sports which I care passionately about and those which I couldn't give two hoots about. You can take a guess at what some of those sports might be.

It is absolute insanity that what started out as an opportunity for individual athletes might now mean that some athlete on the women's crew team has to get paid the same as a starter on the football team. Just absolute insanity.
 



HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
Bob tell me how you would handle it. I respect your posts.
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Honestly, I have no idea how you can circumvent Title IX. With the Title IX landscape, it feels like we are stuck with forced equity. It's one thing when that equity is things like scholarships but now that it could be actual dollars - I don't think it's viable.

In a perfect world, they would completely scrap Title IX. I would actually be in favor of just having revenue sports having one set of rules and then non-revenue sports being handled differently. If that doesn't happen, we will have a situation where the women's volleyball is getting the same cut as the football team.

Long story, longer, with Title IX, I don't know if it's avoidable. We will likely continue to live in a legal fiction where we have NIL programs that are *wink *wink *nod *nod NOT associated with the schools. Under that arrangement, the players and the programs will need to build in the guardrails contractually.
 

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I'm fine with everything becoming a "club" sport except for the ones that can sustain themselves financially and my guess is it goes more that way. I agree with the post from Crosby that people are not going to be as likely to give if their money is spread out to things they are not interested in. I can see some wealthy TV networks lobbying government heavily to leave their golden goose alone.

Less government baloney involved with collegiate sports is fine with me. Men's wrestling at the U (I was a wrestler), figure out a way to self-fund if you want to keep giving out scholarships (i.e. paying) wrestlers or make it regional. I'm sure men's hockey at the U was less costly when they were regional and I'm not convinced it was a worse product. Let's bring some common sense back to collegiate sports.

Carve out a little more federal money to train the best athletes in Olympic sports and we'll have a lot less wasted money in collegiate sports. Maybe tuition for the average student would actually come down a bit. Ha! Just kidding. I know college administrators would never allow that to happen.
 

Whether you agree or disagree with this, it's great news for the Gophers

There's billionaires out there who made more money in the time I'm typing this than the entire Gopher NIL budget for 2024. The college football future belongs to the programs who have the hearts and wallets of these people.

Carson Beck reportedly had a $10M offer to play QB at Miami next year. Stealing our DC was peanuts for them. This is going to be commonplace at a few schools in the very near future. A few extremely deep booster pockets take it all, regardless of how many fans show up, recruiting, coaching, player effort, etc.

Anything that slows down the impeding college football oligarchy is good for the Gophers. I would like there to be one thing in America that isn't just winner take all for the richest person, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
 




MaxyJR1 said:
I read somewhere that potential formula that schools are looking at for spending the $20.5M was:

Roughly
75% Football ($15.4)
10% Men's basketball ($2M)
5% Women's Volleyball ($1M)
5% Women's Basketball ($1M)
5% Non revenue. ($1M)

Hockey schools would be at a disadvantage if Title IX plays into the formula.
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Couldn't they (hockey players and really any athlete in any program) realistically still make money the old way, under the table? I don't see how this changes anything, it just moves the goalposts and puts us back where we were at before, only this time people can tell the athletes they can't complain any re because they're making money in lieu of the old "a university degree via a scholarship is payment enough" excuse. The big schools will still find a way to funnel gobs of money to individual athletes while staying in line with Title IX.
 

fmlizard said:
Whether you agree or disagree with this, it's great news for the Gophers

There's billionaires out there who made more money in the time I'm typing this than the entire Gopher NIL budget for 2024. The college football future belongs to the programs who have the hearts and wallets of these people.

Carson Beck reportedly had a $10M offer to play QB at Miami next year. This is going to be commonplace at a few schools in the very near future. A few extremely deep booster pockets take it all, regardless of how many fans show up, recruiting, coaching, player effort, etc.

Anything that slows down the impeding college football oligarchy is good for the Gophers. I would like there to be one thing in America that isn't just winner take all for the richest person, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
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I think I disagree. The "NIL sharing" idea was theoretically supposed to help put programs on a more level playing field with NIL. I would indeed be in favor of that. If Carson Beck really was offered $10M (I highly doubt it as I think numbers people throw out a highly inflated), then it didn't come from this this model anyway. It came from the wild west model which already is in place and is not going anywhere. In my opinion, this statement from the Dept of Education, if implemented, will only grow the problem you are seeking to eliminate.
 


Crosby said:
I think I disagree. The "NIL sharing" idea was theoretically supposed to help put programs on a more level playing field with NIL. I would indeed be in favor of that. If Carson Beck really was offered $10M (I highly doubt it as I think numbers people throw out a highly inflated), then it didn't come from this this model anyway. It came from the wild west model which already is in place and is not going anywhere. In my opinion, this statement from the Dept of Education, if implemented, will only grow the problem you are seeking to eliminate.
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I agree with you. The money that Miami reportedly has, that @fmlizard referenced, isn't subject to these guidelines. That money is IN ADDITION to the money Miami will have under these guidelines.
 

one thought - on January 20th, a fellow named Trump will be sworn in as President of the US.

Trump's nominee as the new Secretary of Education is Linda McMahon - as in the wife of Vince McMahon. She was the Administrator of the Small Business Administration for two years during Trump's 1st term.

at the risk of turning this into the off-topic board - I do not see the new Administration as being overly concerned about defending Title IX. Shoot, Trump has talked about eliminating the entire Department of Education.

I'll bet this directive gets rescinded.
 

If the shared revenue that will be going to athletes is coming from BIG football tv contract and BIG basketball contract why would those programs have to share with non revenue sports? Yes, I understand title 9. I think this revenue wouldn’t be applicable. An example would be revenue from hockey jerseys sales wouldn’t have to be funneled to the female rowers.
 

I’m guessing the guidance was written to make sure schools don’t circumvent title IX by cutting scholarships and paying players directly. Theoretically, before this guidance, a school could cut most of their football and basketball scholarships, pay players directly, and could then drastically reduce the scholarship opportunities for women.
 

Big Dawg said:
If the shared revenue that will be going to athletes is coming from BIG football tv contract and BIG basketball contract why would those programs have to share with non revenue sports? Yes, I understand title 9. I think this revenue wouldn’t be applicable. An example would be revenue from hockey jerseys sales wouldn’t have to be funneled to the female rowers.
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Because all women's sports are non-revenue.

So for it to be equally divided between genders, it will have to go to football, basketball, and hockey and then whatever female sports they want to make it equal.
 

fmlizard said:
Whether you agree or disagree with this, it's great news for the Gophers

There's billionaires out there who made more money in the time I'm typing this than the entire Gopher NIL budget for 2024. The college football future belongs to the programs who have the hearts and wallets of these people.

Carson Beck reportedly had a $10M offer to play QB at Miami next year. Stealing our DC was peanuts for them. This is going to be commonplace at a few schools in the very near future. A few extremely deep booster pockets take it all, regardless of how many fans show up, recruiting, coaching, player effort, etc.

Anything that slows down the impeding college football oligarchy is good for the Gophers. I would like there to be one thing in America that isn't just winner take all for the richest person, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
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This is not good news for the Gophers at all. It's terrible news for the Gophers.

This ruling does not have anything to do with the billionaires writing checks. They specifically said that it does not include payments made by third parties. So that Miami billionaire will still write those checks to get the players that they want.

The Gophers only chance to compete is through the money from the BTN. This ruling kneecaps our ability to properly pay our potential revenue-generating players. It essentially cut the amount of money from the BTN in half thus INCREASING the amount of power the non-affiliated (ie billionaires) have over the landscape.

It's typical Title IX idiocy and it's really bad for the Gopher football and MCB. It's great for our volleyball team.
 

Club Sports and the pay to play model is the future unfortunately. This goes for High School and Collegiate athletics that are unable to be self sufficient. We are at a place where we've tried to be everything to everybody and its not working.

Challenge is we live in a society where a majority feels something is owed to them and that life is fair (whatever fair means). We enable that thought process. Music, Movies, TV, Athletics are entertainment. Your compensation is relative to how interested people are in the outcome.

Not much different than how I'll pay a doctor more to conduct brain surgery on me than I'll pay the neighbor kid to cut my grass. Just my opinion.
 

Big Dawg said:
If the shared revenue that will be going to athletes is coming from BIG football tv contract and BIG basketball contract why would those programs have to share with non revenue sports? Yes, I understand title 9. I think this revenue wouldn’t be applicable. An example would be revenue from hockey jerseys sales wouldn’t have to be funneled to the female rowers.
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Yes, that is specifically what they're addressing. The interpretation is that it's money that belongs to the schools and any distribution of that money has to be divided equitably between genders. The source of the revenue does not matter.
 

fmlizard said:
Whether you agree or disagree with this, it's great news for the Gophers

There's billionaires out there who made more money in the time I'm typing this than the entire Gopher NIL budget for 2024. The college football future belongs to the programs who have the hearts and wallets of these people.

Carson Beck reportedly had a $10M offer to play QB at Miami next year. Stealing our DC was peanuts for them. This is going to be commonplace at a few schools in the very near future. A few extremely deep booster pockets take it all, regardless of how many fans show up, recruiting, coaching, player effort, etc.

Anything that slows down the impeding college football oligarchy is good for the Gophers. I would like there to be one thing in America that isn't just winner take all for the richest person, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
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The old system was the closet thing to your last sentence. College sports was essentially a socialist economy. Many football programs made huge amounts of money but it wasn’t in most cases a straight profit. It went to subsidize the non-revenue sports. But many pushed a narrative that this money was simply pocketed by the universities. But in actuality it was going to give opportunities to athletes whose sports don’t make money.

And now we are left with the problem of how do we stick that false narrative and hand out the money to the revenue athletes and still fund non-revenue sports. The answer is it probably can’t unless the revenue athletes get paid from actual revenue and the non-revenue athletes are subsidized by increased fees on the students and reliance on the taxpayers.

in short how do we pretend college athletes are pro athletes and still stick the rules like Title IX that were written for amateur athletics? Like Bob said. You probably can’t
 

WashedGoph said:
I’m guessing the guidance was written to make sure schools don’t circumvent title IX by cutting scholarships and paying players directly. Theoretically, before this guidance, a school could cut most of their football and basketball scholarships, pay players directly, and could then drastically reduce the scholarship opportunities for women.
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I don't think this is correct. I would think everyone would understand that Title IX would apply to every financial benefit. Title IX does not specifically call out scholarships, we just always talked about it in those contexts because that was our world for so long.

My opinion is that this ruling was an attempt to avoid a slew of incredibly expensive litigations. I do not believe the EEOC offices and Title IX folks just want to protect female scholarships. There is a mass delusion on this issue that is really hard to work around. It's incredibly common for WNBA players to complain about the amount of money they make compared to the NBA and they are entirely a charitable creation of the NBA. They lose money. That kind of mass delusion has emboldened these types of folks.

I think the only way to un-bleep this mess is through congressional action.
 



I think revenue sharing should be different then NIL. NIL is individual based and should stay that way. Michael Jordan got more in NIL as an NBA player then Christian Laettner did. That shouldn't bother anyone.
 

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