Expect these guys to start getting paychecks soon.

Plagued by recruiting scandals and accusations of pay-for-play schemes, the NCAA met this week to look at revising their standards on college scholarships, academic eligibility, and a whole host of other issues and boy, did they move quickly.  The NCAA has voted in a drastic change to the traditional scholarship structure, higher academic standards, and changes in recruiting rules, changing the landscape of college sports overnight.  Now, college athletes will get an extra $2000 on top of full room, board, books, fees, and all the free stuff they get from their teams.

“It was one of the most aggressive and fullest agendas the board has ever faced,” said NCAA president Mark Emmert after the meetings.  “They moved with dispatch on it, and I think they’re taking positive steps for schools and student-athletes.”

The changes are expected to be far-reaching.  Not only do athletes in money sports (football and men’s basketball) get $2000 per year in mad money (dubbed full cost-of-attendance in NCAA-speak), there must also be a similar fund set aside for women athletes, thanks to Title IX.  Another change to scholarships is that schools now have the option to give multi-year scholarships; currently, all scholarships are on a year-to-year basis and players can lose their funding at any time.  Another new wrinkle for the NCAA is increased team academic standards; if your team Academic Progress Rate score is under 930 (versus 900 under the old rules), your team is banned from the postseason–teams also face limits on practice times, scholarship reductions, fines, and coach suspensions for failing to make academic progress.

Making student athletes be students AND athletes?  That’s a pretty radical change, NCAA.  While I’m not crazy about giving athletes even more free stuff for their mad basketball skills, I can understand why the NCAA is doing this.  They have to give the players something in the form of money to keep the press off their back about actually paying athletes what they’re worth.  Nobody wants that, because Title IX would bankrupt every school in the country if they had to pay women athletes like they’d have to pay one five-star men’s basketball recruit.  This keeps the increased spending even and easy to distribute and buys the NCAA a PR victory.

Tags: NCAA athletics, NCAA, college sports, NCAA Division 1, NCAA allows schools to give athletes money, scholarship athletes now get 00, new academic standards for schools, colleges face post-season ban for poor athletics, NCAA allows multiple-year scholarships, NCAA changes athletic scholarships, athletic scholarship changes, basketball summer recruiting changes, NCAA sports, cost-of-attendance,  Academic Progress Rate

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