College leaders 'discussing' removing penalty for adding scholarships to non-revenue sports – uw-media.freep.com
ROSEMONT, Ill. — Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti confirmed Thursday that leaders in college athletics have discussed amending the revenue-sharing structures created by the House settlement to remove added scholarship investment from the rev-share cap.
Speaking at the start of Big Ten men’s basketball media day, Petitti cautioned that any such change is still in its infancy. But he confirmed the idea has growing support within college athletics, as its leadership class better understands the ramifications of and best practices managing the fallout of the House settlement.
“This is one area that we’ve kind of seen, the sentiment is changing,” Petitti said. “Now the question is, ‘OK, how do we build consensus? Is it the right change, and when?’”
Schools may count as many as $2.5 million against their revenue-sharing cap of $20.5 million annually, essentially converting straight rev-share dollars into additional scholarship support for athletes.
That conversion cannot be done a la carte. Any school wishing to add scholarships over the limits codified by the House settlement would be required to commit the full $2.5 million.
That’s led a number of schools — Indiana included — to elect straight revenue sharing in Year 1 of the House settlement model. Essentially taking the simplest approach (sharing all $20.5 million under the cap strictly as revenue paid directly to athletes) to avoid complication or confusion.
Schools with clearly defined third or fourth sports, like baseball in some southern and western conferences, have chosen to add scholarships under the $2.5 million allowance.
Now, there is a growing interest in removing scholarship addition from the cap entirely.
As athletic departments coast to coast have grappled to balance their rev-share allocations between revenue and non-revenue sports — football and basketball vs. almost everything else — some leaders have suggested simply removing any penalty for adding scholarships from underneath the rev-share cap.
That would, for the most moneyed schools in college sports, allow athletic departments to more directly support non-revenue sports and their athletes with additional scholarship dollars.
Any such move would essentially allow schools to support non-revenue sports more fully through scholarship dollars, while reserving a larger percentage — or perhaps all — revenue-sharing funds for revenue-generating sports.
Petitti cautioned that any such change to the House settlement would require a fair amount of work, since the scholarship provision is already codified within the settlement. But he confirmed discussions about amending that structure, and opening the door for athletic departments to more fully fund non-revenue sports independent of the rev-share cap, are ongoing.
“We are discussing that,” Petitti said, “and then what would that unlock, if that was a change we made to the settlement.
“It is part of the settlement. It is not a simple process to make a change like that, especially because the settlement is a few months old. But there is a lot of talk about, what’s the best way to be structured?”
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