NCAA seeks help from Congress, plans to dole out $1.2B to help pay settlement

Stressing his own organization’s ability to pay out $1.2 billion over 10 years to help settle an industry-changing lawsuit, NCAA President Charlie Baker also urged Congress to pass legislation that could put college sports on a better path.

“When I took this job, the message I heard from Congress was clear—fix what you control first,” Baker said Tuesday in his speech at the Indianapolis-based NCAA’s annual convention being held this year in Nashville, Tennessee. “Since then, we have modernized college sports to meet the needs of today’s student-athletes. But we can’t solve every threat we face alone.”

Baker wants Congress to deal with three issues:

— Eliminate the costly possibility of athletes becoming employees of schools. In the past two weeks, advocates and players at Dartmouth and Southern California withdrew court cases against the NCAA that could have led to unions and employment status.

— Replace more than 30 state laws with one federal statute to govern the entire college sports enterprise.

— Protect the NCAA from lawsuits, the likes of which are currently taking place over eligibility issues, via some form of antitrust protection.

“I’ve had people in D.C. say, ‘I now get and understand why you all believe you need some help from us to at least create some kind of framework nationally,’” Baker said of the reaction he’s received from lawmakers.

Cruz appears ready to act

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is chair of the Senate Commerce Committee and has said legislation to help the NCAA regulate college sports is a priority of his.

“College sports is in crisis right now,” Cruz recently told ESPN. “If Congress doesn’t act, we risk seeing devastation.”

Baker is banking on the momentum college sports appears to be gaining since the preliminary approval of the House settlement, which calls for schools to pay players directly for use of their name, image and likeness.

Those payments are currently made mostly by so-called collectives that are affiliated with the schools but not directly part of them. If the settlement is approved in April, as expected, schools will have the option to spend around $22 million on those payments themselves. Colorado and Central Florida, for instance, have said they’re giving up on their collectives in anticipation of bringing the payments in-house.

Meanwhile, the settlement also calls for around $2.8 billion in back pay to former athletes who did not benefit from the NIL payments that were approved in 2021.

Baker confirmed what he had previously said directly to the schools—that the NCAA will pick up about $1.2 billion of that tab, with schools on the hook for the rest.

The NCAA can afford the payments because of a rosier-than-expected financial situation.

Baker told the collection of athletes, coaches and administrators that the NCAA expects to generate nearly $100 million more in ticket sales ($277 million) to its championships in fiscal 2025 than in fiscal 2023. And he said TV revenue is up 19%—by $180 million—over the same time period.

A lot of the increase has been driven by women’s sports. A measure expected to pass at the meetings this week calls for “units” of NCAA revenue to be distributed to conferences based on their teams’ performances in the women’s basketball tournament, in much the same way that happens on the men’s side.

The NCAA is also tapping into a data-sharing initiative that helps it seek out and gain more insight from fans, which then allows it to market to them more easily.

NCAA board chair says change is needed

Unmentioned in Baker’s speech was a growing push to give the four biggest conferences in college sports—the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 Conference—more power in running them.

With football in the hands of the College Football Playoff, March Madness remains the single largest enterprise under NCAA control. There’s broad agreement that part of what makes the basketball tournament great is the ability of small underdogs to break through against the big boys.

Still, it’s likely the big conferences will drive expansion from 68 to 76 or more teams to give their schools more spots. And a proposal circulating calls on the four top conferences to take control of March Madness away from the NCAA.

Baylor President Linda Livingstone, chair of the NCAA board of governors, said “there’s a lot of agreement” that the biggest schools in Division I need more say in how they govern themselves, but the real work will come in determining how, exactly, to make that happen.

Baylor President Linda Livingstone advanced the idea that schools in the “autonomy” conferences  put more resources into athletics and, so, will need more authority to dictate the rules that guide the top levels of college sports.

“Now, the hard work is to roll up our sleeves and see what’s in the best interest” of not just the biggest conferences, but those that represent the rest of Division I’s 365 schools, Livingstone said Tuesday, shortly after addressing the NCAA’s annual convention.

Baker has been pushing for change in Division I. One of his more controversial ideas was for some schools to give at least half their players $30,000 per year in an educational trust funds.

The House settlement will allow schools to make NIL payments directly to players. The NCAA and the four power conferences are defendants in that lawsuit and figure to be writing the biggest checks, which partly explains the push for a new governing structure.

“My own view, I think there are a lot of things in the NCAA that need to be fixed,” Baker said. “(But) I’m a hard sell on that the biggest problem we have is we don’t do a good job running championships. I actually think that’s something we’re pretty good at.”