NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Touting his organization’s ability to pay $1.2 billion over 10 years to help settle the industry-changing lawsuit, NCAA President Charlie Baker also urged Congress to pass legislation that would Could put college sports on a better path.
“When I took this job, the message I heard from Congress was clear — first fix what you control,” Baker said in his speech at the NCAA’s annual convention on Tuesday. “Since then, we’ve 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 address three issues:
- Eliminate the costly prospect of athletes becoming employees of schools. In the past two weeks, lawyers and athletes at Dartmouth and USC Court cases against NCAA withdrawn Which could lead to unions and employment status.
Replace more than 30 state laws with a single federal law to govern the entire college sports organization.
Protect the NCAA from lawsuits, the likes of which are currently occurring over eligibility issues, through some form of antitrust protection.
“I’ve said to people in D.C., ‘I understand now and understand why you all believe you need our help to create at least some kind of framework at the national level,'” Baker said of the backlash he received from lawmakers.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and has said legislation to help the NCAA regulate college sports is a priority.
“College sports are in crisis right now,” Cruz recently told ESPN. “If Congress doesn’t act, we risk seeing disaster.”
Baker is banking on the momentum he seems to have had since college sports. Preliminary approval of house settlementwhich requires schools to pay athletes directly for the use of their name, image and likeness.
Those payments are currently made mostly by so-called conglomerates that are affiliated with the schools but are not directly part of them. If the settlement is approved in April, as expected, schools would have the option to spend about $22 million on those payments themselves. Colorado and Central Florida, for example, have said they are withdrawing from their gatherings in anticipation of bringing payments in-house.
Meanwhile, the settlement also calls for nearly $2.8 billion in restitution to former athletes who did not take advantage of the approved NIL payments in 2021.
Baker confirmed what he had previously told schools directly — that the NCAA would pick up about $1.2 billion of the tab, with the rest going to schools.
The NCAA can afford payments due to a higher-than-expected financial outlook.
Baker told the gathering of athletes, coaches and administrators that the NCAA expects to get about $100 million ($277 million) more in ticket sales for its championships in fiscal 2025 than in fiscal 2023. $180 million — over the same period.
Women’s sports have grown tremendously. A measure approved at meetings this week calls for NCAA revenue “units” to be distributed among conferences based on the performance of their teams in the women’s basketball tournament, just as it would have been on the men’s side. is
The NCAA is also tapping into a data-sharing initiative that helps it find and gain more insights from fans, which then allows it to more easily market to them.
Not mentioned in Baker’s speech was a growing push to give the four largest conferences in college sports — the Southeast, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast and Big 12 — more power to run.
With football in the hands of the College Football Playoff, March Madness is the single largest entity under the control of the NCAA. It is widely agreed that part of what makes a basketball tournament great is the ability of small underdogs against powerhouses.
Still, it’s likely that major conferences will expand from 68 to 76 or more teams to give their schools more spots. And a proposal circulating calls for the four major conferences to keep March Madness out of the NCAA.