The NCAA Board of Director (BoD) has crafted a new structure for Division I athletics granting "more autonomy" to the five "power conferences."
Faced with inevitable change for years, the NCAA has finally come with its own terms of restructuring. News of the plan to give the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC "more autonomy"' is not new, but the BoD took a major step toward creating an official proposal.
According to ESPN, the 65 schools in the DI power conferences (named for bringing in more money than the rest) would be able to provide their student-athletes with stipends to cover the full cost of attendance. The schools would also be allowed to pay for transportation for players' families to home games and tournaments and would also be able to provide medical coverage.
The NCAA recently changed a rule about meal plans, allowing for unlimited snacks and meals to all college athletes, scholarship and walk-on alike, which received its final approval. The proposal is another attempt at better compensating student-athletes without handing them a paycheck.
"The model we sent to the membership today is not a final product," DI board chair and Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch said in an NCAA press release announcing the proposal. "Some aspects of the model remain under discussion, and we hope the membership will provide us further input."
CICK HERE to read the NCAA's release in full.
Still left to discuss for the BoD is whether or not to allow the 65 power conference schools to set their own rules for recruiting, team activity time limits, transfers and coaching staff limits.
The NCAA is facing two lawsuits and potentially a union on the Northwestern University football team, a member of the Big Ten conference. More than ever the NCAA's model of amateurism is being challenged. The NCAA is scrambling to keep that model intact while pleasing its critics who say they unfairly benefit from generating billions of dollars without properly compensating or protecting the players.
The new proposal could take effect by Aug. if it is passed. It is not yet clear how the other DI, DII and DIII conferences will respond to the new proposal.
