If NIL can’t make even a bigger mess of college athletics it has found a way.  The Dept of Education has just laid out interpretations that all distributions of the $ 20.5million allowed by the NCAA must be distributed equally to both men and women.  The plan anticipated by most Power 5s to distribute about 75% to football and 25% to basketball will not be viable as a violation of Title IX.  Ugh, just a mess.

This original ruling came down as a way to allow the athletes to earn some money from of the vast TV revenues they are generating for their schools and the NCAA. 

So now we are going to force an equal portion to go to athletes whose entire program is paid for by football and basketball revenues? 

That would be like forcing the WNBA owners to pay their players the same as NBA players. One league makes 100s of millions and completely pays for the other league which loses money yearly. It makes no sense. 

I'm all for Title IX and having opportunities for women in college athletics. I just don't see how the swim team (men's or women's) for example, deserves the same cut as the football team.

6 hours ago, Jumper_Dad said:

This original ruling came down as a way to allow the athletes to earn some money from of the vast TV revenues they are generating for their schools and the NCAA. 

So now we are going to force an equal portion to go to athletes whose entire program is paid for by football and basketball revenues? 

That would be like forcing the WNBA owners to pay their players the same as NBA players. One league makes 100s of millions and completely pays for the other league which loses money yearly. It makes no sense. 

I'm all for Title IX and having opportunities for women in college athletics. I just don't see how the swim team (men's or women's) for example, deserves the same cut as the football team.

There you go being logical.  Zero logic in NIL and portal to date.  A sad case of Ready….Fire…Aim.

10 hours ago, Oldercoach said:

If NIL can’t make even a bigger mess of college athletics it has found a way.  The Dept of Education has just laid out interpretations that all distributions of the $ 20.5million allowed by the NCAA must be distributed equally to both men and women.  The plan anticipated by most Power 5s to distribute about 75% to football and 25% to basketball will not be viable as a violation of Title IX.  Ugh, just a mess.

And this is something that a lot of us said was going to happen once you started paying players.

That said, if this money is exclusively via private sources, I don't know if this will survive legal scrutiny.  But if it does deal with media rights stuff, then that makes sense it goes into a larger pool.

What's also interesting is that the memo lays out that schools have to equally promote all teams or else that opens itself up to a Title IX violation as well.  Some interesting language via an ESPN article noted:  "Male and female athletes also deserve equivalent publicity, including in sports information personnel, the amount and quality of promotion, and even in social media postings. If a school fails to provide equitable publicity, those students risk losing out on NIL opportunities, the memo states. ESPN reported a little over a year ago that 55 athletic departments -- or 84% of the then-Power 5 -- mentioned men's teams more often than women's teams on their main accounts on what was then Twitter, and women's teams were more likely to have to share social media managers with other teams."

So, get ready for lots of lawsuits.