NCAA plans to eliminate over 150 rules with House settlement approval

In anticipation of the House settlement, a wide variety of rule changes are coming to the NCAA. On Monday, the Division I Board of Directors announced schools will be permitted to directly pay student-athletes once the court approves the settlement. To help, over 150 ruled are being eliminated by the NCAA.

“The Division I Board of Directors on Monday adopted changes to NCAA rules that would take effect if the House settlement is ultimately approved by the court,” the NCAA said in a statement. “More than 150 rules will be eliminated to allow for schools to provide additional benefits to student-athletes under the settlement, as a first step toward further implementation.  

“Moving forward, if final approval of the settlement is granted, NCAA rules will permit schools to provide direct financial payments to student-athletes, including for use of a student-athlete’s name, image and likeness. Schools have until June 15 to decide whether to opt to provide benefits that would be permissible under the settlement for the coming academic year.”

The number of $20.5 million was mentioned by the NCAA. Each school that opts into the agreement has a nine-figure budget for its entire athletic department. From there, everybody will decide how to divide the money between each individual sport.

Rece Davis calls for college athletes to be considered employees

Rece Davis believes making college athletes employees is the way forward for college athletics as a whole. In the era of the transfer portal and NIL, it must be done.

Some will look at the unlimited transfers and say it’s out of control. Or, the amount of money being thrown around.

The Nico Iamaleava situation certainly turned a lot of heads and there is more conversation about slowing things down. Maybe not guard rails, because Davis doesn’t like that word, but rules and regulations as employees

“I’ve been against players being employees, because I said for a long time, and perhaps erroneously so, that universities were so ill-equipped to sometimes run their own athletic departments, not that the athletic directors don’t do a good job. I don’t mean that, but just from a whole legal Employee Negotiations union, they were ill-equipped to do so, and therefore it wasn’t a good idea,” Davis said on the College GameDay Podcast. “I now believe it’s really the only answer, because you have to have some type of parameters. 

“And I don’t like the word guard rails, because that implies that everybody’s, including the players, are somehow out of control trying to get money when they’re just getting in the business of exercising their rights in the market, competitive commerce. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report