Dept. of Education: Title IX applies to athlete pay
The direct payment plans that many major college athletic departments are making for athletes would violate Title IX law, according to a Department of Education memo.
Back to the drawing board! Again!
The NCAA and its power conferences have agreed to allow each school to share up to $20.5 million in direct payments to its athletes via name, image and likeness deals as one of the terms of a pending antitrust settlement. Many schools from those power conferences have developed plans to distribute the majority of that money to athletes in sports that generate the most revenue -- mostly football and men's basketball players.
In some cases, athletic directors have publicly shared that they intend to provide upward of 75% of that money to their football players.
However, the Office for Civil Rights -- the division of the Department of Education that enforces Title IX law -- said in its memo Thursday that those future payments should be considered "athletic financial assistance" and therefore must be shared proportionally between men and women athletes.
"When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete's NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes," the memo said.
