Interesting news from NCAA convention.
On the policy front, the NCAA Div. 1 council approved legislation that will allow athletes designated as elite by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and corresponding national governing bodies in other countries to receive additional training expenses, including travel for parents, guardians, coaches and sports experts.
“The intent is to be as supportive of student-athletes, college athletes as we can be and allow them this very extraordinary singular opportunity to represent their country every four years and do that in a way that isn’t damaging to the overall college athletic model,” NCAA president Mark Emmert told USA TODAY Sports in an interview last week. “The NCAA has been trying to be as helpful as it can both to the U.S. Olympic movement and also to the young men and women that get to compete in those sports.”
NIL progress:
Emmert is scheduled to give his annual state of the NCAA address on Thursday, at which time he is expected to address the NCAA’s push to modernize its rulebook to allow college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. University of Pennsylvania athletics director Grace Calhoun, who chairs the Div. 1 council, said there was progress made in discussions on how to fit that model within the context of college sports.
“The thing we keep going back to is we really have to control the pre-enrollment activity,” she said. “What’s unique about college athletics is the recruitment. In most other markets you don’t have this sense of manipulation of free choice of where the student would end up going. So we’re really looking at the representatives of athletics interest (boosters) and how they’d be involved with this both pre-enrollment but also how that would play out and how you do have a true sense of market. Is there transparency? Reporting? What other controls could be put in place to make sure that happens?”