NCAA passes rules to prepare schools to pay players directly

The NCAA passed rules Monday that would upend decades of precedent by allowing colleges to pay their athletes per terms of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement expected to go into effect this summer.

The nine proposals passed by the NCAA board were largely expected but still mark a defining day in the history of college sports. An athlete’s ability to be paid directly by his or her university is on track to be enshrined in a rulebook that has forbidden that kind of relationship for decades.

For the NCAA rules to officially go into effect, the changes prescribed by the House settlement still have to be granted final approval by a federal judge, whose hearing earlier this month led to questions about potential tweaks before the new guidelines are supposed to go into play on July 1.

The changes will eliminate around 150 rules and alter many others in the NCAA’s sprawling rulebook. They essentially codify measures set up by the settlement, including:

—Modifying bylaws to allow schools to pay the athletes directly.

—Eliminating scholarship limits for teams, while also setting roster limits that are designed to replace the scholarship caps. Some details of the roster limits, which were a key sticking point in the April 7 hearing, will be finalized later.

—Establishing annual reporting requirements for schools that pay athletes; a payment pool is set to be approximately $20.5 million for the biggest schools beginning next academic year.

[Related: College basketball’s ‘lawless, cesspool’ transfer portal]

—Setting up a clearinghouse for all name, image and likeness (NIL) deals that come from third parties and are worth $600 or more.

—Granting authority to an enforcement body being developed by the conferences named as defendants in the lawsuit to enforce the new rules passed to implement terms of the settlement. This includes compliance with roster limits, payment of direct benefits to players and meeting requirements for the third-party deals.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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