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re: CFP Expansion, Conference Realignment, NCAA Changes
Posted on 10/4/23 at 6:18 pm to Alabama_Fan
Posted on 10/4/23 at 6:18 pm to Alabama_Fan
NCAA changes adopted today: ( NCAA.org) — see transfer portal changes below
The Division I Council on Wednesday approved changes to notification-of-transfer windows across all sports, including a reduction from 60 to 45 total days in both FCS and FBS football and a reduction from 60 to 45 consecutive days for men's and women's basketball.
The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee supported 45-day windows as preferable to previously introduced 30-day windows.
"We are pleased the student-athlete voice was acknowledged and emphasized as part of the conversation about amending transfer windows," said Cody Shimp, chair of the Division I SAAC and former baseball student-athlete at St. Bonaventure. "We are happy that the council was able to find common ground and push forward a 45-day window to continue to provide a reasonable period of time for student-athletes to make rational and informed decisions about their athletic and academic futures."
Data from the first year of the notification-of-transfer windows indicate that 61% of student-athletes who transfer are entered into the NCAA Transfer Portal within the first 30 days.
New transfer windows for Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision football will include a 30-day window beginning the Monday after FBS conference championship games. For student-athletes on teams that compete in the College Football Playoff, there will be an additional five-day transfer window in January. A second transfer window of 15 days would occur during the second half of April.
In men's and women's basketball, the windows will open for 45 days the Monday after Selection Sunday.
"In both men's and women's basketball, the council determined that a 45-day window that concludes on or before May 1 best enables coaches to understand their current rosters, provides stability for student-athletes remaining at the school as they prepare for summer basketball, and encourages student-athletes who intend to transfer to do so before final exams at their current schools and summer school application deadlines at most campuses," said Lynda Tealer, chair of the council and deputy athletics director at Florida. "Moving forward, we will continue to evaluate the impact of transfer windows on student-athletes, coaches and athletics programs."
In all other sports, windows will be modified to the following:
Fall sports: 30 days in the fall, beginning seven days after a sport's championship selection, and 15 days in the spring (May 1-15).
Winter sports: 45 days, beginning seven days after championship selection.
Spring sports: 30 days in the spring, beginning seven days after a sport's championship selection, and 15 days in the fall (Dec. 1-15).
The council also heard from the Legislative Committee on an update to graduate transfer waiver guidelines. The Legislative Committee noted that notification-of-transfer deadlines of May 1 for fall and winter sports and July 1 for spring sports apply to graduate transfers transferring for the first time, and that beginning in 2024-25, graduate students seeking waivers for postgraduate eligibility will need to comply with those same deadlines.
The council expressed support for the current transfer waiver guidelines for student-athletes who have transferred multiple times as undergraduate students.
Additionally, the council eliminated the requirement that an undergraduate transfer student-athlete count against financial aid limits if that student-athlete voluntarily withdraws from the school for nonathletics reasons.
Football proposals
The council voted to eliminate the annual limit on initial counters in both FBS and FCS (previously 25 and 30 per year, respectively, per program). Limits on initial counters had been suspended by the council in 2021 as a result of uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of the one-time transfer exception.
The council also affirmed changes to spring practice rules to specify that protective equipment is limited to helmets and spider pads. The action is the first legislative change under the pilot sport oversight committee model, in which the Football Oversight Committee adopted the proposal, which was subject to council review prior to implementation.
Division I membership requirements
The council also adopted changes to membership requirements for Football Bowl Subdivision schools that:
Eliminate attendance requirements at FBS schools (effective immediately).
Increase the application fee for transitioning from FCS to FBS from $5,000 to $5 million (effective immediately).
Require all FBS programs to provide 90% of the total number of allowable scholarships over a two-year rolling period across 16 sports, including football. FBS schools will also be required to fund 210 scholarships each year, amounting to no less than $6 million annually (effective August 2027).
For schools that begin transitioning to FBS in 2024-25 or later, requirements must be met by the conclusion of the transition process.
The Division I Council on Wednesday approved changes to notification-of-transfer windows across all sports, including a reduction from 60 to 45 total days in both FCS and FBS football and a reduction from 60 to 45 consecutive days for men's and women's basketball.
The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee supported 45-day windows as preferable to previously introduced 30-day windows.
"We are pleased the student-athlete voice was acknowledged and emphasized as part of the conversation about amending transfer windows," said Cody Shimp, chair of the Division I SAAC and former baseball student-athlete at St. Bonaventure. "We are happy that the council was able to find common ground and push forward a 45-day window to continue to provide a reasonable period of time for student-athletes to make rational and informed decisions about their athletic and academic futures."
Data from the first year of the notification-of-transfer windows indicate that 61% of student-athletes who transfer are entered into the NCAA Transfer Portal within the first 30 days.
New transfer windows for Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision football will include a 30-day window beginning the Monday after FBS conference championship games. For student-athletes on teams that compete in the College Football Playoff, there will be an additional five-day transfer window in January. A second transfer window of 15 days would occur during the second half of April.
In men's and women's basketball, the windows will open for 45 days the Monday after Selection Sunday.
"In both men's and women's basketball, the council determined that a 45-day window that concludes on or before May 1 best enables coaches to understand their current rosters, provides stability for student-athletes remaining at the school as they prepare for summer basketball, and encourages student-athletes who intend to transfer to do so before final exams at their current schools and summer school application deadlines at most campuses," said Lynda Tealer, chair of the council and deputy athletics director at Florida. "Moving forward, we will continue to evaluate the impact of transfer windows on student-athletes, coaches and athletics programs."
In all other sports, windows will be modified to the following:
Fall sports: 30 days in the fall, beginning seven days after a sport's championship selection, and 15 days in the spring (May 1-15).
Winter sports: 45 days, beginning seven days after championship selection.
Spring sports: 30 days in the spring, beginning seven days after a sport's championship selection, and 15 days in the fall (Dec. 1-15).
The council also heard from the Legislative Committee on an update to graduate transfer waiver guidelines. The Legislative Committee noted that notification-of-transfer deadlines of May 1 for fall and winter sports and July 1 for spring sports apply to graduate transfers transferring for the first time, and that beginning in 2024-25, graduate students seeking waivers for postgraduate eligibility will need to comply with those same deadlines.
The council expressed support for the current transfer waiver guidelines for student-athletes who have transferred multiple times as undergraduate students.
Additionally, the council eliminated the requirement that an undergraduate transfer student-athlete count against financial aid limits if that student-athlete voluntarily withdraws from the school for nonathletics reasons.
Football proposals
The council voted to eliminate the annual limit on initial counters in both FBS and FCS (previously 25 and 30 per year, respectively, per program). Limits on initial counters had been suspended by the council in 2021 as a result of uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of the one-time transfer exception.
The council also affirmed changes to spring practice rules to specify that protective equipment is limited to helmets and spider pads. The action is the first legislative change under the pilot sport oversight committee model, in which the Football Oversight Committee adopted the proposal, which was subject to council review prior to implementation.
Division I membership requirements
The council also adopted changes to membership requirements for Football Bowl Subdivision schools that:
Eliminate attendance requirements at FBS schools (effective immediately).
Increase the application fee for transitioning from FCS to FBS from $5,000 to $5 million (effective immediately).
Require all FBS programs to provide 90% of the total number of allowable scholarships over a two-year rolling period across 16 sports, including football. FBS schools will also be required to fund 210 scholarships each year, amounting to no less than $6 million annually (effective August 2027).
For schools that begin transitioning to FBS in 2024-25 or later, requirements must be met by the conclusion of the transition process.
1
Posted on 12/5/23 at 12:55 pm to Alabama_Fan
NCAA president Charlie Baker on Tuesday proposed the creation of a new subdivision within Division I that would allow the highest-resource schools the ability to compensate athletes directly through a trust fund and direct name, image and likeness (NIL) payments.
The groundbreaking proposal was sent out to Division I members and obtained by The Athletic on Tuesday morning, and it included the following recommendations:
The formation of a new subdivision made up of institutions with the highest resources that can directly compensate athletes through an “enhanced educational trust fund,” which requires the schools that opt into it an investment of at least $30,000 per year per athlete for at least half of the school’s eligible athletes. Schools would have to adhere to Title IX, providing equal monetary opportunities to both female and male athletes.
Schools in the new subdivision could create their own rules separate from the rest of D-I, and those rules would allow them the ability to address policies such as scholarship limits and roster size as well as transfers and NIL.
Any Division I school would be able to enter into an NIL deal with its athletes directly, which is not currently permissible.
Any Division I school would be able to distribute to any athlete funding related to educational benefits without any caps on such compensation.
These recommendations from Baker come amid mounting pressure to allow schools to directly compensate their athletes, and as the NCAA is facing significant legal challenges to its model. In the letter to D-I members, Baker called his proposal a “forward-looking framework” that “gives the educational institutions with the most visibility, the most financial resources and the biggest brands an opportunity to choose to operate with a different set of rules that more accurately reflect their scale and their operating model.”
Schools in both Division I subdivisions would compete against one another for NCAA championships, except for in FBS football, which is run and governed by the College Football Playoff. It’s clear, though Baker doesn’t spell it out, that the highest-resourced schools he is referring to throughout the letter are those in the Power 4 leagues — the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12. Commissioners of the four conferences have recently been lobbying Congress together, seeking help on issues such as NIL that affect their constituents in a far different way than their peers at lower levels of Division I.
The new proposed model “kick-starts a long-overdue conversation among the membership that focuses on the differences that exist between schools, conferences and divisions and how to create more permissive and flexible rules across the NCAA that put student-athletes first,” Baker wrote in the letter. “Colleges and universities need to be more flexible, and the NCAA needs to be more flexible, too.”
Presumably, this would be a subdivision within the FBS, similar to the oft-discussed power-conference split.
Baker ended his letter by asking Division I members for feedback.
The groundbreaking proposal was sent out to Division I members and obtained by The Athletic on Tuesday morning, and it included the following recommendations:
The formation of a new subdivision made up of institutions with the highest resources that can directly compensate athletes through an “enhanced educational trust fund,” which requires the schools that opt into it an investment of at least $30,000 per year per athlete for at least half of the school’s eligible athletes. Schools would have to adhere to Title IX, providing equal monetary opportunities to both female and male athletes.
Schools in the new subdivision could create their own rules separate from the rest of D-I, and those rules would allow them the ability to address policies such as scholarship limits and roster size as well as transfers and NIL.
Any Division I school would be able to enter into an NIL deal with its athletes directly, which is not currently permissible.
Any Division I school would be able to distribute to any athlete funding related to educational benefits without any caps on such compensation.
These recommendations from Baker come amid mounting pressure to allow schools to directly compensate their athletes, and as the NCAA is facing significant legal challenges to its model. In the letter to D-I members, Baker called his proposal a “forward-looking framework” that “gives the educational institutions with the most visibility, the most financial resources and the biggest brands an opportunity to choose to operate with a different set of rules that more accurately reflect their scale and their operating model.”
Schools in both Division I subdivisions would compete against one another for NCAA championships, except for in FBS football, which is run and governed by the College Football Playoff. It’s clear, though Baker doesn’t spell it out, that the highest-resourced schools he is referring to throughout the letter are those in the Power 4 leagues — the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12. Commissioners of the four conferences have recently been lobbying Congress together, seeking help on issues such as NIL that affect their constituents in a far different way than their peers at lower levels of Division I.
The new proposed model “kick-starts a long-overdue conversation among the membership that focuses on the differences that exist between schools, conferences and divisions and how to create more permissive and flexible rules across the NCAA that put student-athletes first,” Baker wrote in the letter. “Colleges and universities need to be more flexible, and the NCAA needs to be more flexible, too.”
Presumably, this would be a subdivision within the FBS, similar to the oft-discussed power-conference split.
Baker ended his letter by asking Division I members for feedback.
Page 14 of 14
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