NCAA eliminating National Letter of Intent

Historic changes are coming to college sports. The NCAA Division I Council approved Wednesday to eliminate the National Letter of Intent program.

The changes come as the NCAA undergoes its most seismic changes to date. The House v. NCAA settlement would permit schools to pay athletes more than $20 million annually, spurring the NCAA and its leaders to rethink their amateurism rules.

The National Letter of Intent (NLI) program started in 1964 and is the binding agreement signed by recruits for generations. Instead, financial aid and scholarship agreements are expected to be used. The entire NLI will not be ditched, however, as the recruiting rules around the program will still be commonplace. When athletes enter the transfer portal and move schools, most just sign an athletics aid agreement.

For years, the NLI has been under the purview of the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA), which pushed for the change in recent months. The National Letter of Intent will not exist but similar written aid offers are not going away.

The CCA met in September to discuss the proposal of eliminating the National Letter of Intent. Previously, when signing an NLI, an athlete agreed to attend an institution full-time for a year. NLI penalties changed last year, no longer forcing athletes to sit a semester if they signed a request for release after a coaching change.

While the House v. NCAA settlement still faces a months-long process to be approved, a new binding document between a school and athlete will need to be created with the introduction of revenue sharing which spurred the elimination of the NLI.

Next for the NCAA D-I Committee could be the evaluation of the recruiting calendar, specifically with the NLI program going away. College football’s early signing period was moved up this year from mid-December to the week before conference championship games. This year’s early signing day is slated for Wednesday, Dec. 4.