UConn paid Alston awards to almost every basketball player after fall

It’s no secret that UConn prioritized its men’s and women’s basketball programs when it left the American Athletic Conference for the BIG EAST, leaving its football program in the wilderness that is FBS independence. UConn also put its money where its mouth is by choosing to pay only its basketball players Alston awards, or financial awards for academic achievement, last academic year.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, a university spokesperson responded in an email that 27 men’s or women’s basketball players each received an award of $2,990 after the fall semester, which totaled $80,730. The spokesperson said as of July 19, UConn hadn’t yet distributed its awards from the spring semester.

These awards are capped at $5,980 annually per student.

The BIG EAST is mandating the availability of Alston awards for men’s and women’s basketball players starting in the 2022-23 school year. They were optional during the 2021-22 school year.

It will be optional for BIG EAST schools to provide Alston awards in the upcoming school year to athletes who compete in other sports.

UConn players must remain eligible

UConn’s publicly available rosters online from the 2021-22 season list 16 men’s basketball players and 12 women’s basketball players. That means 27 of UConn’s 28 men’s or women’s players, or 96.4%, received the maximum possible amount for the fall semester.

Amid an admittedly limited sample size of Division I schools that provided Alston awards last year, that’s a higher percentage than other universities.

For comparison, 71% of athletes at Oregon earned the maximum amount of $5,980 across three academic terms last school year. At Missouri, 32.2% of athletes earned the maximum per-semester amount ($2,990) last fall.

While the two schools’ percentages of athletes who earned the maximum amount are lower than that of UConn, they made their academic financial awards available to all their athletes, not just basketball players. Oregon and Missouri had a total of 536 and 537 athletes, respectively, based on the data obtained from public records requests.

The UConn Alston awards policy, dated January 2022, said the awards for basketball players are “based on their ability to remain academically eligible.” Players must be eligible from the fall to the spring, then from the spring to the fall, in order to receive the financial award both semesters. The university will provide the funds through direct deposit, similar to cost-of-attendance stipends.

Over a four-year career, a college athlete could earn up to $23,920 from Alston payments alone, depending on the policy at the athlete’s school. If a player’s career is five years, due to a developmental or medical redshirt season, that potential total approaches $30,000.

Based on UConn’s data from last fall, it’s almost a guarantee that its men’s and women’s basketball players will earn the award in a given semester.

What are Alston awards?

In a 9-0 decision in the NCAA v. Alston case last summer, the Supreme Court affirmed a district court’s injunction regarding NCAA rules that limited education-related benefits in violation of the Sherman Act.

While college athletes can earn new forms of compensation — through NIL and Alston awards — due to notable events in the summer of 2021, there are important distinctions between the two sources of income. Third parties, such as businesses or boosters, provide NIL compensation for the use of an athlete’s name, image and likeness. Alston awards are direct compensation from universities to athletes, which are tied to an athlete’s academic achievement.

Each school can determine its own policy for providing the academic financial awards — if it offers them at all. Many Division I schools have announced that they’ll start offering Alston awards in the 2022-23 academic year.

There’s no limit to what an athlete can earn through NIL activities. For example, Sierra Canyon High School guard Bronny James leads the NIL 100 with an On3 NIL Valuation that places his projected market value at more than $6 million. However, there’s an argument to be made that if and when Alston awards are ubiquitous at the DI level, they could prove to be the more financially beneficial source of compensation for athletes across all sports.

NIL technology provider Opendorse projects that on average, DI athletes will earn $3,195 in the second academic year of the NCAA’s NIL era. That’s 53% of the maximum Alston award amount per year.

Opendorse projects that athletes who compete in the Group of Five — the AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West or Sun Belt — will earn an average of $5,572 from NIL.

UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin told On3, “I’d like to stress that the one thing that will help all athletes, more than NIL, is funding the Alston stipends this year. That is honestly more than most athletes are making on NIL.”