NCAA President Charlie Baker says new subdivision would allow schools to do more for athletes

NCAA President Charlie Baker on Wednesday provided insight to his new proposal that essentially would allow colleges to pay their athletes cash for playing their sports.

His comments, at the Sports Business Journal’s Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in Las Vegas came a day after he sent a letter to membership detailing a new competitive subdivision whose school would be required to “invest at least $30,000 per year into an enhanced educational trust fund for at least half of the institution’s eligible student-athletes.”

On Wednesday, he explained the rationale for his proposal in fairly stark terms, all but saying that the best way to keep the NCAA’s top-level Division I together is to allow schools that can provide more benefits to their athletes to do so.

“There are some things where there is a difference between what I would describe as the top hundred schools in terms of resources in (Division I) and the other 250. And what happens is the NCAA ends up in one of these collisions that takes place because you have one-third of the schools who have the ability to do more for student-athletes. They just do. If you just look at just look at their budgets, they do. ... But in pursuit of what we would call competitive equity, there's a restraint there. And, you know, once upon a time, the pursuit of competitive equity -- that was considered to be okay. It's not really anymore. …

"If we really want to have a set of rules and a set of sort of operating standards, we need to figure out some way for the folks who want to do a lot more to be able to do a lot more while maintaining what I would describe as the beauty of the distributed competition model that exists. ... We, the NCAA, need to be more flexible and so do the schools.”

The reaction, and what happens now

Baker says he is aware that, "some people are going to say, I've gone too far. And some people say I'm not going far enough." But the former Massachusetts governor added: "That's why I always start with the idea that, you know, make a proposal based on what you're hearing or what people are saying and then have at it."

As for where his proposal goes from here, Baker said: "Tee it up and have a conversation through our existing governance structure and try and move with I would describe to be urgent patience. ... After eight years in government, I know what urgent patience looks like."

What else is Baker aiming at with this?

He said the $30,000 figure is: "about giving (athletes) the ability to launch. And if that means going and taking the labs they couldn't take to sort of round out and complete their degree, or taking an internship that they didn't have time to take, or taking the four courses that they needed to actually complete their graduation, or a whole bunch of other things.

It's about "giving them the resources to have the living expenses that they need, so that they can actually make the next move when they either graduate or their eligibility expires. ... And, you know, schools can make decisions about how they want to organize this with their student-athletes and all the rest. I'm not going to tell anybody how to do this. But in the end, what we want is all of these folks to complete their college career and then go somewhere with it."

What others are saying: The non-FBS view

The reaction Baker’s proposal triggered a wide array of reactions across the association, particularly among people outside the Power Five conferences.

Late Tuesday night, groups representing athletics directors at schools in the Football Championship Subdivision and schools that do not have football teams issued a statement saying that they have been “working diligently to ensure our voices will be heard as the college athletics environment continues to evolve at an historic pace. The time is now for us to double down on our connection to education and our alignment with our institutional missions. We have an opportunity for clarity within Division I, and Charlie Baker’s letter brings that opportunity to the forefront.”

The groups said they have hired a college-sports consulting firm to assist with those efforts.

In an interview, Stephen F. Austin AD Ryan Ivey, who is president of the FCS AD’s group, said the statement is “not meant to be combative. I don’t think anyone is casting stones, but we want to know where we fit within the college athletic eco-system right now. …

“Maybe (Tuesday) was a shock, but anyone who has been paying attention at all could have seen something like this was coming.”

Stephen F. Austin has had notable successes recently in men’s basketball, including NCAA tournament first-round wins as a No. 12 seed in 2014 and as a No. 14 seed in 2016. The Lumberjacks also recorded an upset of then-No. 1-ranked Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium in November 2019.

"We want to continue to play those teams,” Ivey said. “And access to championships is really important. … I don’t think anyone wants to be left at the side of the road when the bus is leaving the station.”

But that does concern Big West commissioner Dan Butterly, whose conference includes Hawaii, which plays Bowl Subdivision football in the Mountain West Conference; two schools that that play FCS football; and schools that don’t have football teams.

“The Big West is nationally competitive in many sports,” Butterly said. “What is doing (what Baker is proposing) going to do to schools in the Big West or the Coastal Athletic Conference or the (Atlantic 10)? What happens to them? And, really, what happens to two, three to five of the conferences in the Group of Five?” the FBS conferences other than the Power Five.

What others are saying: The Group of Five

Jon Steinbrecher, commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, said that among schools he represents, “I don’t see a lot of additional benefits (being provided to athletes) over and above what we do now. And that’s OK. That’s OK. …  It’s easy to get to extremes (right now). Take a deep breath.”

Steinbrecher noted that while Baker is proposing a new competitive subdivision, as a practical matter, “there already is a subdivision” of schools within the FBS that is functioning at a different level from the others. “This would just define it.”

“Look,” he said, “we’ve got small group of institutions (within the NCAA) that really have pressure on them because of the resources they create – and our rules (regarding athlete compensation) get in the way of that. We can de-regulate that and let them do what they may do. That’s been coming. So, let’s have this conversation. …

“This is an effort to preserve (the NCAA), as opposed to destruct. At least I hope so. I’m not really fearful at this point, absent more details. It can be constructive if we manage it properly.”

What others are saying: Basketball powers without football

Virginia Commonwealth AD Ed McLaughlin’s program does not have a football team but has seen its men’s basketball team reach the Final Four and remain a perennial NCAA men's tournament participant. He said that even if Baker’s proposal goes forward, “I do think there is a place for VCU at the table. … I’m not panicked. Yet. But that’s only because we’ve been anticipating it.”

He said his department has spent time over the past 18 months doing financial modeling in anticipation of benefits for athletes being allowed to continue grow, and that while it’s unlikely VCU can have “broad-based nationally competitive” teams, there is a way to have some teams at that level and “do it in a way that’s economically reasonable for us.”

“It’s no different in the Big East” or other non-Power Five conferences. “I would hate to see an NCAA (men’s basketball) tournament without Villanova, Gonzaga or VCU. It’s not March Madness without schools like ours … We just need to know what is expected of schools like ours.”