The current NLI will be replaced with a contract that provides for future revenue sharing: NCAA approves elimination of national letter of intent program - ESPN The NCAA Division I Council has approved the immediate elimination of the national letter of intent program, the NCAA announced Wednesday, marking a historic shift to the recruiting landscape. Established in 1964, the NLI program has existed as the formal, binding agreement between prospective athletes and college programs for the past 60 years. The NLI will be replaced by a new financial aid agreement that will provide many of the same core functions as the NLI and will likely be tied to a contract related to an impending revenue-sharing model across college athletics. Under the new rules, transfer athletes will be allowed to sign with a new school after they've formally entered the portal. Per the NCAA, once a prospect has signed a written offer of athletic aid, other schools will be "prohibited from recruiting communications." The Division I Council's move to nix the NLI program comes as the NCAA and college athletics prepare for sweeping change via the impending House settlement, which is set to grant roughly $2.8 billion in damages to former and current college athletes and pave the way for college programs to begin paying their athletes more than $20 million annually as soon as next fall. A final hearing to approve the settlement is scheduled for April 7, 2025.
I'm interested in what the impotent NCAA plans to do (yeah, I know, nothing) about the current problem of POACHING and blatant pay-for-play and how they will enforce (again, I know, they won't) the "prohibited from recruiting communications" provision after a financial aid agreement is signed. Seems like that would already prohibit the POACHING. Does anyone know if these financial aid agreements can be signed before ESD? Before a portal period officially opens?
The article didn't address the signing period, just the type of contract signed plus it is immediate. On November 13, UF has 3 gymnasts in the 2025 class that will sign with the new revenue sharing contract.
Schools have to offer more than just money to keep teams together for more than one season. The fact the players can already leave their teams at will makes the latest NCAA offer of NO more LOI almost a moot point. But what this latest off by the NCAA really does is reinforce their useless governing task as THE NCAA, and their lack of power/inability to put limits on transfers to and from teams. They ceded their oversight control to teams, and left the conferences without any power to control limited transfers. Why even have the NCAA if they are simply going to abdicate their power and mission? The NCAA, simply put, just quit being a governing body... and they committed sports governing suicide as an organization. They do nothing, and now they admit it by giving up trying to work for the schools and conferences. Nothing the NCAA says or does matters anymore. Now... the SEC Conference must get rid of the BUTT TARGETING RULE that they have implemented. Butt targeting or targeting of any body part OTHER THAN THE HEAD is an insult to the nature of TACKLE FOOTBALL and to tackle football purists.
NIL, the Portal, now Elimination of NLI. This is how college football as it has been for over 100 years has been destroyed. I sincerely hope that scholarships are the next to go. After all, professional athletes should pay there own way in what amounts to a professional farm system of the NFL.
The highest level of college football has always been the farm for nfl talent. The vast majority of players don’t fall into that category. They can pay em like baseball if they want where the 5* guys get millions straight out of hs but the weird thing is that the boosters have always picked up that tab. I question why the schools don’t foot the bill when they are the ones bringing in all the money.
Now that D-1 sports players will be professionals, academics are an afterthought, and loyalty to a school is non-existent, it's time for a process that eliminates the need for the transfer portal: a fantasy-sports-style annual 50-player/team redraft. Maximum player age to be drafted or sign as an undrafted player is 22 years old on January 1st. Teams would have a salary cap for drafted players, to divvy up as they see fit. Any player unwilling to sign with the team that drafts them can go bag groceries somewhere for a year. All undrafted players will be eligible to sign a standard, identical-compensation 'bottom 35/non-travel-squad' contract with any team they can convince to take them. Roster size will be capped at 85. No duplicate numbers allowed. Coaches can spend their off-season developing their draft boards instead of recruiting, and not worry about developing players while truly embracing a mercenary 'what-have-you-done-for-me-lately' attitude. Oh, and start paying the fans, too.
You cannot be both... Either you are a student athlete or you are a professional sports entity and deserve none of the perks of being a student athlete from any colleges or universities. You either play sports as a student on campus, as a student athlete, or you get your own football field and stadium to play on as a professional athlete.
If only the schools would go along with that. Whatever gets Bama into the playoffs every year and generates their 200 mil is what’s going to happen. Now they could start their super league and we could go with Vandy and miss st and create a solely amateur league like the Ivy League.
I assume you realize that nothing I wrote there was remotely serious. Except maybe the part about paying the fans.
So you think Bama his behind this attempt to change college football? Interesting... I haven't heard who was driving this possible change/attempt to make football a professional sport. I thought it was the NFL sycophants... but that still might be the case, especially if they have Bama's support behind it. Now what do you think their end game is, what college football will be if they get their way? The end game...
They e been buying rosters all along. They’re just pissed the rest are paying now too. They’ll never agree to an even playing field.
The monster revealed itself...private equity firms. Uniquely designed to switch me from my current "I hate it but damn I still love it" to "total loathing."
Reality has pissed folks off. They prefer the chirade that has been going on the entire time. Tge portal is tge only real difference and our laws won’t allow citizens to be forced to attend a certain school. Go figure, it works both ways and the schools can’t have it both ways.
