When more than 50 university presidents gather in Indianapolis next week for a two-day retreat sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, they’ll tackle many questions aimed at solving some of college sports’ toughest problems: Should revenues be redistributed among Division I institutions to close gaps between wealthy and struggling programs? Should the association seek an antitrust exemption so it can cap escalating coaches’ salaries? Should it beef up penalties for coaches and players—and even parents—who break rules or impede NCAA investigations?
These questions and numerous others appear in more than 50 pages of documents, obtained by The Chronicle, that the NCAA has provided to the attendees in preparation for next Tuesday’s meeting, which is closed to the public and the press. Focused on three main topics—financial sustainability, the academic performance of athletes, and “threats” to the collegiate sports model—the materials comprise a playbook of sorts for revamping a college-sports enterprise often criticized for having lost its way.
Mark A. Emmert, who led the University of Washington until he became president of the NCAA last October, first announced the summit in June. “I want to hear from the presidents themselves on what they see the future direction should be,” he said at the time.
The basic outline of the agenda has since been made public. But the latest materials, which appear to be intended as background information on each area as well as to raise potential discussion questions, reveal an ambitious scope to next week’s gathering. And they contain more than a few provocative proposals for the presidents to consider. (Whatever conclusions or suggestions they reach during the meeting, Mr. Emmert has said, will be vetted so that NCAA member institutions have an opportunity to comment.)
On financial matters, for instance, the presidents will be asked to examine how best to “change the current course” of athletic programs’ spending habits, which recent studies have found to be unsustainable in the long term as expenses continue to outpace spending at all but a handful of programs. A few possible options are set forth, including:
- Reallocate athletic programs’ revenues to create a more even distribution of wealth.
- Change the membership criteria for Division I institutions by imposing minimum academic or financial requirements.
- Loosen restrictions on spending for programs that can afford it—allowing institutions that can provide the full cost of attendance to athletes to do so.
John G. Peters, president of Northern Illinois University and a member of the Division I Board of Directors, said he anticipated a discussion about the increasing gap between, as he put it, “the haves and the have-nots.”
College sports “has always been commercial,” says Mr. Peters, who also serves on the Bowl Championship Series’ Presidential Oversight Committee. But now, with exponential growth in some conferences’ media-rights deals infusing many programs with new money, “it should be used to make sure athletic departments are running on their own revenues,” he said. “This is particularly true of state-supported institutions.”
John Broderick, president of Old Dominion University, said he, too, was concerned about escalating costs. But his concerns are with another major revenue stream for many midmajor Division I programs: student fees.
At Old Dominion, those fees have helped pay for the university’s revival of its football program. But Mr. Broderick worries about continued student-fee increases as many campuses face financial challenges. “I’ve gone on record with our own athletics staff that we’re going to have to draw the line on anything more in our department that is based on student fees,” he said. “I don’t think too many schools across the country can continue to build and grow athletic programs off the backs of students.”
Strengthening Academics—and Fending Off ‘Threats’
Seven years have passed since the NCAA adopted its existing academic requirements for athletes, and many of the core policies have become familiar terms in Division I athletic programs. Next week, the college presidents could take up the issue of whether it’s time to strengthen them.
Among the issues that appear to be up for debate: whether to raise the cutoff score for academic-progress rates, which measure athletes’ progress toward their degrees; whether it’s necessary to increase initial-eligibility standards for incoming athletes (or make freshmen ineligible for competition altogether); and whether athletes who transfer into NCAA programs from two-year colleges should be subject to stricter academic requirements.
Also on the table could be a range of concerns about the daily lives of college athletes. How much time do they spend studying and playing their sport? Why do some athletes tend to cluster in certain academic majors? How does “tension” from commercial forces—television contracts, for instance, that call for midweek games—influence the academic lives of athletes?
The presidents may also consider whether Division I’s revenue-sharing model should be based in part on the academic performance of athletes—an approach the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics recommended in a report last year.
Some of the strongest language in the materials appeared in the final section, titled “Reinforcing Integrity.” It cites a list of “threats” to college sports’ integrity and describes several areas that need attention:
Simplifying NCAA rules. This could be done, the document suggested, by appointing a group to carry out “meaningful deregulation” of the NCAA’s labyrinthine rule book. Armed with veto power, this group could be charged with screening future legislative proposals to align with a set of “core principles"—and nixing ones that don’t.
Strengthening penalties. The current penalty structure has fallen short in deterring would-be rulebreakers, the document said. Presidents could be asked to consider a multitiered structure (there are now only two options: major or secondary violations) that would allow for greater flexibility in leveling charges of varying severity against institutions and coaches. The document also suggests creating “penalty guidelines” that would link certain sanctions to certain violations.
Getting tough on “external influences.” The NCAA has grappled publicly in recent years with parents, guardians, agents, financial advisers, and other “third parties” associated with talented athletes. Next week, the presidents may be asked whether they approve of a pending recommendation from the NCAA’s Amateurism Cabinet that would broaden the definition of an agent. They could also be asked to consider how to allow athletes with true potential for a professional athletic career to talk with advisers about their professional prospects without running afoul of NCAA rules.
After all that, the presidents’ playbook concluded with a stern warning.
“Without strong and swift action to address the increasing pressure and strength of these threats, the viability of the collegiate model is at stake,” it read. “The time is ripe for change.”