A new lawsuit will cause massive changes in college recruiting. Athletes have sued The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) because they wanted payment for colleges using their name, likeness, and image (NIL) to make money.
This lawsuit calls for over $2.78 billion to be paid to plaintiffs for damages related to NIL, as well as academic awards and scholarships. Along with paying this sum, many colleges will be required to follow new regulations with this settlement.
These new regulations apply to Division 1 NCAA-sponsored sports that give out scholarships. The NCAA is implementing these regulations to help pay off the money owed from the settlement. The regulations limit roster spots with a fixed maximum number of people on a team. This change will also impact scholarships as it removes scholarship caps.
This means that while colleges can give out scholarships to more people, they are still required to stick to the set roster limits. These limits make roster sizes significantly smaller, which will lead to athletes being cut, especially from big colleges and universities.
“There are gonna be major impacts all across the board,” swim coach Jeff Thompson said. These impacts range from athletes getting cut from teams to struggling to get recruited since fewer people are needed.
However, we still need to navigate these changing rules. Coach Thompson said “I do not believe that the way it is now is how it will be in five years. I think it’s very fluid. It’s gonna, you know, we’re gonna work out the kinks in this, but it’s gonna have significant impacts.”
A major change is how this settlement is “going to also impact recruiting for high school athletes, specifically on the boy’s side because they’re not going to be ready to compete against 22-year-old men,” Coach Thompson said. “So the coaches are going to go to the portal to find those guys that can do it.”
This means that certain schools will recruit solely from the transfer portal, an online database athletes use to transfer to and from colleges and universities. While many high school athletes excel in competitions against those their age, they are often still at a disadvantage to college athletes. College athletes have more experience and physical advantages. With roster cuts, the room on teams is limited and coaches only want the best of the best.
This could lead to many Division 1 schools being much more competitive in who they look to recruit. However, this leaves an opportunity for many Division II and Division III schools to recruit very good athletes who are not yet ready to be recruited from Division 1 schools.
“Every coach is looking for as many recruits as possible because they have to have a pool to select from,” college counselor Mr. Jonathan Na said.
Additionally, with new NCAA rules, colleges are required to pay athletes for NIL, meaning that the colleges will earn less revenue from major sports. This money earned was used to pay for and support less popular sports.
“A lot of the secondary sports, I think, are going to get cut,” Coach Thompson said.
This provides a new issue of finding schools that have specific sports the athlete intends to play. As of now, these rules do not impact available sports in college, but they may in the future. Fortunately, not all colleges are impacted by these new rules as all Ivy League, Division II and Division III schools are not participating in these new NCAA regulations.
College athletes need to “ask the coaches the hard questions because they’re also trying to figure it out and when they understand from the institution what they have and what they don’t have,” Mr. Na said. “I think it’s important that the recruits would get that information from them.”
Adding to this, Coach Thomson said, “I think the best thing student-athletes can do that are currently in college, is to stay on top of your academics, because strong academics will ensure that if something happens and you need to pivot, do you have options. communicate with your coach. Be honest and upfront. Let them know you know where your head is at. Try and get a clear picture of what they believe you’re going to need to do to have a spot the next year.”
It is important to reach out and to be prepared for the college recruitment process. Unfortunately, there are so many athletes and not enough spots on Division I teams for everybody which pushes athletes harder to make the final cut.