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

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short ornery norwegian said:
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I'll bet this directive gets rescinded.
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Your post doesn’t hold water for several reasons, but you are right on one account. It probably belongs on the off-topic board. Be happy to discuss in a side convo though.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I think the only way to un-bleep this mess is through congressional action.
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Yah, because the morons who run our government sure have it figured out 🤣. I agree with most of your premise and I'm sure it will be some congressional thing but that is going to be full of issues too because congress/government worry about the same thing the ncaa does, their own pocket books, that's it that's all.

I mean to me the answer seems easy. At the end of the year you take your school's athletic budget, whatever sports made money you divy that up proportionately. Just for ease say the U made $100m total, 80 from football 5 from hockey 5 from bball 5 from vball 3 from women bb 2 from women's hockey that's the % of the money they should get. If some school like maybe Villanova or Gonzaga has different %s than say most sec/b10 teams, good for them. If a school happened to have women's teams that made oodles of money great for them they should be rewarded. There has to be some logic here. I get paid less than my boss who makes less than their boss, im not throwing a fit! The only caveat would be that tv deals would need to specify ok we are paying x for football y for bball etc. Maybe they do that now I don't know.

It's just a cluster f and neither the ncaa or the government has any clue (or morality) on what to do.
 

GophersInIowa said:
According to what I can find, the U of MN has around 725 athletes. That's about $28K per person.
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This is an interesting equation that simplifies a school's potential approach to these revenue sharing guidelines.

Football - 105 scholarships
Volleyball - 15 scholarships
Basketball - 13 scholarships each
Hockey - 20 scholarships each

We are now down to 186 scholarships which would quadruple the annual payments to each athlete. Cut every other program in hopes of maximizing the payouts and potential success of each remaining program?

For those here that know way more about this stuff, does this mean we would need to still maintain other Women's programs to balance out the extra 90 scholarships going to football?
 

short ornery norwegian said:
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.
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There will be a class action lawsuit shortly afterward then
 

Slim Tubby said:
For those here that know way more about this stuff, does this mean we would need to still maintain other Women's programs to balance out the extra 90 scholarships going to football?
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Unfortunately I think the answer is "yes". At this point, if title 9 can't be re-written for it's intended purpose, which is just providing the opportunity for women's teams to exist, then I'd vote for not requiring athletes to be enrolled at the school. Just contract out 105 football jobs and 12 men's college basketball jobs and don't have an official athletic department.
 


leib0039 said:
Yah, because the morons who run our government sure have it figured out 🤣. I agree with most of your premise and I'm sure it will be some congressional thing but that is going to be full of issues too because congress/government worry about the same thing the ncaa does, their own pocket books, that's it that's all.

I mean to me the answer seems easy. At the end of the year you take your school's athletic budget, whatever sports made money you divy that up proportionately. Just for ease say the U made $100m total, 80 from football 5 from hockey 5 from bball 5 from vball 3 from women bb 2 from women's hockey that's the % of the money they should get. If some school like maybe Villanova or Gonzaga has different %s than say most sec/b10 teams, good for them. If a school happened to have women's teams that made oodles of money great for them they should be rewarded. There has to be some logic here. I get paid less than my boss who makes less than their boss, im not throwing a fit! The only caveat would be that tv deals would need to specify ok we are paying x for football y for bball etc. Maybe they do that now I don't know.

It's just a cluster f and neither the ncaa or the government has any clue (or morality) on what to do.
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Yeah, you entirely missed the point.

Everyone understands that the amount of NIL funds SHOULD be in relation to revenue. Your "answer" is just common sense that happens at every single company on the planet every single day.

The question is how do you achieve that goal? How do you get to a point where schools are allowed to operate in the fashion you have described.

There is a massive roadblock to your "answer". That roadblock is Title IX. Title IX is a creature of federal legislation. To get to your "answer", Congress would have to pass some sort of clause that exempts NIL payments/distribution of sports revenue from Title IX compliance.

I completely agree that the government never should have gotten involved in this kind of stuff. I am for as little government intervention as possible. That said, there is CURRENT federal law that prohibits the exact thing you're arguing should happen. Therefore, it would require government intervention to achieve that goal. Do I trust the government will do the right thing? Nope.
 

Slim Tubby said:
This is an interesting equation that simplifies a school's potential approach to these revenue sharing guidelines.

Football - 105 scholarships
Volleyball - 15 scholarships
Basketball - 13 scholarships each
Hockey - 20 scholarships each

We are now down to 186 scholarships which would quadruple the annual payments to each athlete. Cut every other program in hopes of maximizing the payouts and potential success of each remaining program?

For those here that know way more about this stuff, does this mean we would need to still maintain other Women's programs to balance out the extra 90 scholarships going to football?
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Yes.

This is why schools like Wisconsin cut baseball.

There is not a football equivalent female sport (105 scholarships).
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yes.

This is why schools like Wisconsin cut baseball.

There is not a football equivalent female sport (105 scholarships).
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Always been a shame that they couldn't just exempt football from the Title IX equation. It is easy to match the other sports but football is a massive problem, yet it is also the main revenue producer at a lot of schools so they have to have it.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
 




As SON implied, the timing of this is odd and appears to be a political move to gum up the works for the new administration as the old administration exits. I wouldn't count on any new rules until the new administration has a chance to give some guidance.

The memo language from the OP suggests the guidance applies only to the direct payments from schools from TV and media revenue. It sounds like payments coming from third party collectives like DTA don't fall under this.

In the end, if all that football TV revenue is forced to be shared equally with all varsity athletes including women, we can say bye-bye to varsity scholarship athletics and hello to "informal" club teams. Back to true amateurism for non-revenue sports. Maybe D3 and Ivy League had it right?

NCAA D1 could be dead in the water.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
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.
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OT Board-bound or not, I've had the same thoughts. If US DOE goes away or is limited in scope, which agency is the enforcer in that scenario? It would be like having speed limits with no cops. As bobloblaw said, it likely ends up in court if this were come to pass. Who knows what happens from there.

I just think this is another possible nail in the NCAA coffin. They played hardball and lost and things have been falling apart ever since. Maybe it all ends up in the same place regarding of what approach the NCAA took out of the gate, but I think we are on our way to full-blown minor league football. It won't happen overnight, but as long as the NFL can maintain some control over the process and have an organized league (or set of leagues) that would be a private operation to a great extent located on college campuses (and with the universities involved at some level), I think that's where this is all headed.
 

Could Trump’s New Administration Change College Athlete Pay Plans?​

Biden’s Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights released a nine-page fact sheet on Thursday saying Title IX, the gender equity statute that governs college sports, applies to NIL (name, image and likeness). The memo says that revenue-sharing payments would be considered “athletic financial assistance,” and must therefore comply with the Title IX statute, requiring schools to provide “proportionate” payments to men and women college athletes.

The decision has major implications for the House v. NCAA settlement that would allow schools to share revenues with players, which is expected to be finalized in April and begin in July. In the settlement’s first year—2025—schools will be capped at giving athletes $20 million, most of which is currently projected to go to football players.

Arthur Bryant, an attorney who specializes in Title IX cases, doesn’t think the new administration can change the ruling as it pertains to the House settlement. Bryant is currently representing more than two dozen female athletes from the University of Oregon in a lawsuit against the school over disproportionate NIL deals between male and female athletes. “Biden’s administration is not mandating equal pay. This is not equal pay. This is about sex discrimination by nonprofit educational institutions receiving federal funds. Title IX says the schools can’t discriminate to make money."

"The law is clear that colleges can’t discriminate against women to make money or avoid losing money. If sports leagues want to operate in paying men more money than women, they need to do so as pro or semi-pro sports leagues. Not as college athletics. College athletics is covered by Title IX and men’s football and basketball are not exempt from that. The Senate established that 53 years ago.”

Bryant doesn’t think Trump’s incoming administration could drastically alter Thursday’s announcement because the court’s interpretation of the ruling would still be a factor. “I think it’s unlikely that the Trump Administration would even try to correct it because I think it’s right [with the law],” Bryant said. “The Office of Civil Rights clearly said what the law is, what it has been in the past, and how it applies to these facts. That’s not going to change regardless and the courts are going to consider this.”

frontofficesports.com

Can Trump Change Department of Education NIL Ruling?

Biden’s Department of Education made a Title IX ruling that threw a wrench into the House v. NCAA settlement. But will Trump change it?
frontofficesports.com frontofficesports.com
 
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MNVCGUY said:
Always been a shame that they couldn't just exempt football from the Title IX equation. It is easy to match the other sports but football is a massive problem, yet it is also the main revenue producer at a lot of schools so they have to have it.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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Sort of defeats the intent.
 



First of all, what the DOE put out is only guidance. The lame duck DOE mind you. In other words, it's bullshit and not law.

Secondly, if I understand it correctly, the whole purpose of the original lawsuit regarding TV revenue and NIL was that athletes (mainly football) felt the schools were reaping a financial windfall from athlete name image and likenesses but not compensating said athletes. The court agreed. With that in mind, what would stop a collection of football athletes from suing schools for unfairly distributing their share of revenue to non-revenue female athletes? We then end up at the same place.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Sort of defeats the intent.
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Ten or twenty or a hundred million women in America probably agree with you.
If some universities want to treat male and female athletes differently then they need to separate their revenue producing sports from their educational and research missions and acknowledge that they are now in the business of owning and operating professional sports teams as side gigs.
 
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Panthadad2 said:
First of all, what the DOE put out is only guidance. The lame duck DOE mind you. In other words, it's bullshit and not law.

Secondly, if I understand it correctly, the whole purpose of the original lawsuit regarding TV revenue and NIL was that athletes (mainly football) felt the schools were reaping a financial windfall from athlete name image and likenesses but not compensating said athletes. The court agreed. With that in mind, what would stop a collection of football athletes from suing schools for unfairly distributing their share of revenue to non-revenue female athletes? We then end up at the same place.
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I'm someone who loathes Title IX, but it is current law and I actually agree with the DOE's memo. It's why I've been saying, since these litigations started, Title IX was going to be a massive barrier to this having realistic and rationale guardrails. I have not seen a single instance where the schools were not forced to distribute everything in an equitable fashion.

The thing that is stopping the athletes from making that claim is that it's hard to argue the schools are doing anything unfairly if they are simply following the law. The schools are being forced, legally, to distribute revenue share to non-revenue female athletes.
 

Slim Tubby said:
This is an interesting equation that simplifies a school's potential approach to these revenue sharing guidelines.

Football - 105 scholarships
Volleyball - 15 scholarships
Basketball - 13 scholarships each
Hockey - 20 scholarships each

We are now down to 186 scholarships which would quadruple the annual payments to each athlete. Cut every other program in hopes of maximizing the payouts and potential success of each remaining program?

For those here that know way more about this stuff, does this mean we would need to still maintain other Women's programs to balance out the extra 90 scholarships going to football?
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The more its broken down, the less of a big deal I think this probably is. The top players are already making hundreds of thousands if not millions from NIL. Whether they are getting an additional $25K or $100K from revenue sharing may not be a huge deal.
 

Go4Broke said:
Ten or twenty or a hundred million women in America probably agree with you.
If some universities want to treat male and female athletes differently then they need to separate their revenue producing sports from their educational missions and acknowledge that they are now in the business of owning and operating professional sports teams as side gigs.
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You're saying millions of woman feel entitled massive amounts of revenue that they didn't earn? That's kind of sexist.

If they could separate those sports, they would have done it 20 years ago. But you say that like it is outlandish, universities own and partner with hospitals, research facilities, and sports stadiums. It wouldn't be anymore outlandish for them to own and operate a professional sports team. They already do, we just pretend it's amateur.
 

GophersInIowa said:
The more its broken down, the less of a big deal I think this probably is. The top players are already making hundreds of thousands if not millions from NIL. Whether they are getting an additional $25K or $100K from revenue sharing may not be a huge deal.
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But that's only the top players. For someone like Travis Hunter, this would have almost no impact.

For someone like Anthony Smith, Kerry Brown, or Greg Johnson, this is massive. It's certainly enough to lose players to a place with a massive private NIL fund.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm someone who loathes Title IX, but it is current law and I actually agree with the DOE's memo. It's why I've been saying, since these litigations started, Title IX was going to be a massive barrier to this having realistic and rationale guardrails. I have not seen a single instance where the schools were not forced to distribute everything in an equitable fashion.

The thing that is stopping the athletes from making that claim is that it's hard to argue the schools are doing anything unfairly if they are simply following the law. The schools are being forced, legally, to distribute revenue share to non-revenue female athletes.
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Distributions won't be spread equally among all athletes in athletic departments as they exist now. It won't happen. There's too much money involved.

Let's say pro-rata distribution among all athletes does happen. That scenario would give a big advantage to universities that cancel all men's sports except football and maybe basketball so all funds could be directed to athletes in those sports. The school would need to retain just enough women athletes to make it legal under Title IX. There will be heavy competition for the super lucky female rowing roster spot that receives the same compensation as the star QB on the football team that's actually generating the revenue.

I don't see the above ridiculous scenario playing out.
 

Slim Tubby said:
For those here that know way more about this stuff, does this mean we would need to still maintain other Women's programs to balance out the extra 90 scholarships going to football?
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Yes.

This is the sole reason women's rowing exists at the University of Minnesota. They picked the sport that offers the most women scholarships to get as close as they could to equal without having to add 2 or 3 other women's sports.

It is also why we have only women's soccer (no men's).
 

Title IX long overstepped its bounds when it was used for kangaroo courts for civil liability in rape accusations, now it needs to just be put to the pasture
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
You're saying millions of woman feel entitled massive amounts of revenue that they didn't earn? That's kind of sexist.

If they could separate those sports, they would have done it 20 years ago. But you say that like it is outlandish, universities own and partner with hospitals, research facilities, and sports stadiums. It wouldn't be anymore outlandish for them to own and operate a professional sports team. They already do, we just pretend it's amateur.
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The bolded is where we're headed if non-revenue sport athletes are legally entitled to the same compensation as the football and basketball players generating the revenue. Revenue generating sports like football will operate as separate legal entities from the universities.
 


In the smattering of articles and podcasts I read/listened to on the House settlement, NIL, etc... in trying to learn/understand it, this topic was always brought up, and there seemed to be a fair number legal experts quoted that thought this wouldn't hold up in court. So, based only on that, I guess am a still not sure this will come to fruition; however, if it does, it seems likely non-revenue sports would be impacted negatively.
 


Panthadad2 said:
Distributions won't be spread equally among all athletes in athletic departments as they exist now. It won't happen. There's too much money involved.

Let's say pro-rata distribution among all athletes does happen. That scenario would give a big advantage to universities that cancel all men's sports except football and maybe basketball so all funds could be directed to athletes in those sports. The school would need to retain just enough women athletes to make it legal under Title IX. There will be heavy competition for the super lucky female rowing roster spot that receives the same compensation as the star QB on the football team that's actually generating the revenue.

I don't see the above ridiculous scenario playing out.
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I didn't see equally, I said equitably across genders. There was a lot of money involved in sports prior to NIL and the NCAA was still pushed around by the overreaching hands of Title IX.

You're 100% right with it killing all non-revenue men's sports and it drastically overvaluing female rowing or volleyball players. I get that you think it's ridiculous, but this has already been happening for years. Schools have cut baseball programs and the women's rowing team always had incredible swag because everything had to be spread in an equitable fashion. It's already absolutely insane. For example, the U could not give the football team priority of time in the weight room even though it was entirely built on the revenue generated by the football team. We are already living in the ridiculous scenario you have suggested.

I'm not suggesting that there won't be changes and I'm certainly not suggesting that our reality isn't absurd. The NCAA and the courts cannot ignore the law. I am saying that it will require either an executive order or congressional action.
 

SomeGopherFan said:
In the smattering of articles and podcasts I read/listened to on the House settlement, NIL, etc... in trying to learn/understand it, this topic was always brought up, and there seemed to be a fair number legal experts quoted that thought this wouldn't hold up in court. So, based only on that, I guess am a still not sure this will come to fruition; however, if it does, it seems likely non-revenue sports would be impacted negatively.
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Be really careful with some of the podcasts and experts discussing the issue. I've seen a ton of them conflate two different scenarios.

(1) Private NIL collectives - these are not officially affiliated with the schools and are not beholden to Title IX.
(2) NIL Derived from University Funds - These are beholden to Title IX (think BTN revenue).

IMO, the biggest issue with House is the cap issue. I have not heard a single argument that makes any sense that somehow Title IX won't apply to the revenue generated from the BTN. I've heard a lot of arguments that it shouldn't.

I hope I'm wrong.
 

The revenue sharing lawsuit was about athlete name, image and likeness. Let's face it, the true fair market value of NIL for your average cross country, rowing, swimming or even the 3rd string offensive lineman is worth exactly zero. I don't think we're done with the lawsuits.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Be really careful with some of the podcasts and experts discussing the issue. I've seen a ton of them conflate two different scenarios.

(1) Private NIL collectives - these are not officially affiliated with the schools and are not beholden to Title IX.
(2) NIL Derived from University Funds - These are beholden to Title IX (think BTN revenue).

IMO, the biggest issue with House is the cap issue. I have not heard a single argument that makes any sense that somehow Title IX won't apply to the revenue generated from the BTN. I've heard a lot of arguments that it shouldn't.

I hope I'm wrong.
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I think those offering their opinion were specific to the university side. From my recollection (...so take it for what it's worth - maybe I will try to revisit the arguments), they seemed to think this money would be considered outside of the opportunity Title IX dictates.

Also, as an aside, in thinking about this more, I am less sure of what the impact would be should this hold. Assuming the U would still max out, they aren't spending any more total than they were planning to spend. Perhaps they would just look at the 10.25 million they would be required to spend on women's revenue sharing as a sunk cost to be compliant in the same way they might see a women's rowing program today (...albeit this one would be more expensive and nonsensical...).
 

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