The NCAA finally comes around on five-to-play-five, but it’ll be more expensive now
Coaches in multiple sports have long wanted the NCAA to allow athletes to have five years to play five seasons. They didn’t want to worry about medical hardship waivers that may or may not be granted. They didn’t want to worry about players opting out before they reached some arbitrary magic number of games played, so the player could redshirt.
It was a common-sense solution that would have been easy to implement, say, in 2010. That was back when the NCAA wasn’t a punching bag for antitrust attorneys across the country, but the school presidents and athletic directors resisted — just as they routinely resisted nearly every move that (at the time) could be characterized as pro-athlete. Now, those constituencies have finally come around.
Except this time, the common-sense solution may be significantly more expensive to implement. If it can be implemented at all. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo!
Sports reported Wednesday that the NCAA Division I cabinet will discuss a five-to-play-five rule as soon as next week. If the measure passes through the legislative process, it might go into effect as early as the academic year that begins in August. It is an attempt by the schools to slow the flood of eligibility lawsuits as athletes — who have been allowed to get paid since 2021 — try to extend their eligibility clocks to earn more revenue share and NIL money.
And it is probably the best idea the schools have come up with since they began losing antitrust suits, because there is at least a puncher’s chance that it might not get ripped to shreds in federal court. The price of admission could be settling a not-yet-filed class action suit, but at this point, writing one check might be cheaper than treating the thousands of potential paper cuts that will come if the schools leave their eligibility rules as currently written. No matter what, this will be messy.
Continue to the original source for the full article.