Good morning!
As someone that grew up in a Chicago Cubs household, raced home from elementary and middle school in the Fall and Spring to watch the Cubs on WGN, and rarely has been able to see the Cubs win a postseason series during my life, it was a great afternoon on Thursday as the Cubs won their series in the Major League Baseball playoffs. Go Cubs Go!
Just like Cubs’ baseball, last week in The Big West and NCAA had its ups and downs—big wins for our teams alongside continued NCAA changes and new federal legislation to review. Fittingly, the Song of the Week is “Ups and Downs” by Frank Forest.
Let’s get to The Bold Type.
CONGRATULATIONS
- To Ryan Swartwood, who was named Director of Athletics at CSUN on Wednesday! Read more >>> Welcome back to The Big West, Ryan!
- To the six former Big West baseball stars on 2025 MLB Postseason rosters and 40 alumni who made appearances during the regular season! Read more >>>
- To UC Santa Barbara, who hosted their rivalry match with Cal Poly on Saturday in front of a crowd of 7,447, the most attended NCAA game this season!!
- To UC Santa Barbara men’s soccer for receiving votes in the latest United Soccer Coaches National Rankings!
- To UC Santa Barbara women’s volleyball for receiving votes in latest the AVCA poll!
- To Cal State Fullerton women’s soccer who is receiving votes in the latest United Soccer Coaches National Rankings!
- To the five teams ranked in the CWPA varsity poll!!
- No. 7 Long Beach State
- No. 8 UC Irvine
- No. 9 UC Davis
- No. 13 UC San Diego
- No. 16 UC Santa Barbara
- To our amazing student-athletes named PLAYERS OF THE WEEK & MONTH!!
- Women's Soccer - Annika Smith, Cal Poly (offensive); Riley Liebsack, CSUN (defensive); Shannon Porubski, Cal Poly (freshman)
- Men's Soccer - Wyatt Ponting, UC Riverside (offensive); Owen Beninga, UC Santa Barbara (defensive); Owen Beninga, UC Santa Barbara (freshman)
- Women's Volleyball - Maria Fernanda Afonso, UC San Diego (offensive); Ximena Cordero Barr, UC Davis (defensive); Madi Maxwell, Long Beach State (setter); nabi Martinez, UC Santa Barbara (freshman)
- Cross Country - Juan Chantaca, UC Irvine (men); Kaia Schmidt, UC Irvine (women)
- Women's Swimming & Diving - Alison Diehl, San Diego
- Men's Water Polo - Ethan Spoon, UC Irvine
- Men's Golf - Davis McDowell, UC San Diego
- Women's Golf - Taylor Baker, Cal Poly
CONDOLENCES
The Big West and UC Riverside Athletics mourn the loss of former men's basketball student-athlete Kyle Owens, who passed away on September 30, 2025, after a courageous battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He was 24 years old. Read more >>>
As you may recall, Chloe Clark interviewed Kyle late last year educating everyone on the need for help to Be The Match as a bone marrow transplant for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Watch the video >>> You get a good sense of Kyle as a person, athlete, student and leader.
Malika Andrews did a short segment on Kyle on NBA Today on Thursday. Watch >>>
Kyle’s courage and leadership will forever be remembered in The Big West family. Rest in peace, Kyle.
THE BIG WEST SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT: CAL POLY
Learn about some Bold Moments, notable alumni and impressive academics at the Cal State System’s oldest polytechnic, Cal Poly! Read more >>>
CELEBRATING HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH
The Big West continues to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by spotlighting Maya Chocano and Maria Mejia of UC Riverside women’s basketball, who shared a bit more about their backgrounds and culture and also talked about what it means to be a Hispanic student-athlete. Read more >>>
FEDERAL LEGISLATION SPOTLIGHT
The conversation in Washington, D.C. around intercollegiate athletics has accelerated. Two competing bills — the SCORE Act (House) and the SAFE Act (Senate) — are now moving through Congress, each with the potential to significantly shape the future of college sports. My quick thoughts on the two draft bills:
-
SCORE Act (House): Anchored in the House v. NCAA settlement framework, it provides budget certainty through a revenue-sharing cap (~$20.5M per school, rising over time), reinforces NCAA authority, preempts state NIL laws, and explicitly prevents athletes from being classified as employees.
-
SAFE Act (Senate): Emphasizes student protections, including guaranteed scholarships, health and safety standards, stronger oversight of agents, privacy protections, and the potential for expanded revenue through Sports Broadcasting Act reforms. It leaves revenue-sharing details open, creating budget uncertainty.
For The Big West, the key takeaway is this: SCORE provides clarity and budget stability, while SAFE potentially provides student-athlete protections and Olympic sport sustainability. I am not a federal legislator, but I anticipate now that a new bill has been proposed, an eventual compromise will be needed to blend elements of both for a bill to pass.
COALITION LOBBYING ON THE SCORE ACT
The government shutdown has taken over the news in Washington D.C., but our 10-conference coalition’s recent support of a revised version of the SCORE Act was widely read on Capitol Hill and in the Administration in a publication known as “Punchbowl News”. Here is the feature, as written:
New NIL letter. A coalition of ten NCAA Division I conferences are endorsing the SCORE Act, an NIL framework that’s set to be considered in the House this year. The coalition includes the Big West, Big Sky, A-10, Horizon League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Ohio Valley Conference, Southern Conference, the Summit League, the Western Athletic Conference and West Coast Conference.
Also, here is an article published Friday morning:
Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger shares details regarding compromises made between the power conferences and 10 non-FBS leagues during last week’s commissioner meetings in Chicago. “First, you should know that the 10 non-FBS conferences that formed a coalition, which we’ll call the Coalition of 10, requesting portions of the SCORE Act be amended, are now fully supporting legislation with a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday. That support only came after the compromise reached last week. The compromise is two-fold: (1) The power leagues agreed to amend the voting threshold for any proposal that changes Division I membership standards from a majority to a super majority (roughly 80%). This eases concerns for officials in non-FBS conferences, who expressed concern that the power leagues – which make up 65% of the new NCAA governance structure – could collectively change membership standards after a five-year moratorium on standards ends. (2) The SCORE Act requires all Division I schools to sponsor 16 sports, which is the NCAA FBS minimum. However, those in non-FBS operate under a minimum of 14, and 40 of those schools have fewer than 16 sports. The compromise here is that those non-FBS leagues can operate under the NCAA’s standard of 14.”
As noted last week, the 32 Division I Commissioners have written a letter to Congress indicating support of the SCORE Act.
DIVISION I GOVERNANCE MEETINGS HIGHLIGHT THE WEEK AHEAD
The week ahead will have me in Indianapolis attending basketball oversight committee and Administrative Committee meetings. The new NCAA governance structure is now operational.
MEDIA REPORTS ON NCAA AND LEGAL MATTERS
- Long Beach State launched The Anchor Fund designed to support student-athletes in response to changes in collegiate athletics following the House settlement. The strategic initiative will complement the existing Beach Athletic Fund, address recruitment and retention while continuing to focus on scholarship support and operational excellence. (link)
- UC Davis launches IGNITE 2.0, a refreshed strategic plan consisting of five pillars, including student-athlete development & welfare, competitive excellence, culture, assessing and valuing personnel and revenue generation, designed to help continue to win championships while developing holistic student-athletes who personify Aggie Pride. (link)
- The College Sports Commission is creating an “anonymous reporting tip line” to share information about NIL rules violations, according to Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich, who notes that some in the industry are calling it a “snitch line.” Christovich adds: “NIL Go only has four full-time employees to manually scrutinize every deal. It’s unclear how the CSC would be able to uncover rules violations among schools, collectives or other NIL entities. Now, the CSC hopes to rely on the industry to partially police itself. The CSC spokesperson said more information would be available about the tip line in the coming weeks.” (link)
- Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair Cody Campbell tells SBJ’s Ben Portnoy that he’s “encouraged by the SAFE Act. It’s a good step forward, and I’m glad to see that there are people who are actually digging in and looking at the root cause of the problems that we have in college athletics and not just the headlines because this has never really been about NIL or about the transfer portal or anything else. Those are really symptoms of a deeper problem. And those problems are economic problems and problems with the way that the sport is governed.” Campbell goes on to say: “You have schools that are dealing with just unbearable financial problems. They’re all faced with decisions around whether to cut sports or not to save money. … Our goal is to make sure that all the sports are preserved at all the schools. The only way you can do that is by getting more money into the system. (link)
- In parsing the section-by-section explanation of the SAFE Act, it appears one unreported provision of the bill includes this from Section 907: “Prohibits media rights contracts in existence as of October 1, 2025, between conferences, schools, and networks from being renegotiated or extended before the contracts expire.” There’s also this from Section 702: “Prohibits an association or conference from prohibiting sponsorship jersey patches on uniforms in any sport, provided that any institution deriving revenues from jersey patches preserves roster spots and scholarships for student athletes in non-revenue generating and women’s sports at levels comparable with the 2023-2024 year.” (link)
- Former San Jose State Volleyball AC Melissa Batie-Smoose has filed a lawsuit against the school in which she alleges she was fired in retaliation for filing a Title IX complaint about a transgender player on the team. (link)
- Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, who highlights new rules announced last month and approved this week by the Division I Board of Directors, include that schools can no longer guarantee a student-athlete any third-party NIL deal money verbally or in writing and that all collective or booster deals must include a specific direct activation. Dellenger adds: “A third rule - requiring the reporting of deals by high school enrollees - is also in this batch. Rules must be posted for 30 days before formal adoption.” (link)
- The Big Ten is exploring a private capital deal that would bring at least $2B into the league, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel. The deal would come alongside the formation of a commercial entity, tentatively named Big Ten Enterprises, to house all revenue generation, with 20 equity shares held by each member, the conference and a new investor and an extension of the B1G’s grant of rights through 2046. All schools in the league are expected to receive at least a nine-figure amount up front. The final financial details are still being discussed as bigger brands are expected to receive more money.” (link)
- Meanwhile, Michigan regent Jordan Acker weighs in: “As a Regent, I believe selling off Michigan’s precious public university assets would betray our responsibility to students and taxpayers. I will firmly oppose any such effort – and I hope colleagues at [Michigan State] and [Ohio State] will stand with me as well.” Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair Cody Campbell agrees, writing on X: “Amen. Private Equity deals, at the conference level, make zero business sense. All these deals do is give more power, control, and job security to the Conference Commissioners (which probably explains these suspicious media leaks and obfuscation with respect to the actual terms of the deals). Why would an entity (like Michigan), with a $19B endowment, take money from Private Equity, when (through their endowment) they invest in Private Equity funds and pay a fee and promote to do so?? Doesn’t pass the ‘smell test’ at a very basic and common sense level.” (link)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We share, to a large extent, one another’s fate. We help create those circumstances which favor or challenge us in meeting our objectives and realizing our dreams.” – Walt Disney
CLOSING OUT
Please say hello and a big thank you to The Big West’s athletic trainers, game managers, SIDs, and all the staff that take care of our athletic departments, but most importantly our student-athletes. Like my Cubs, it takes a full team effort behind the scenes to create wins—and we’re grateful for all you do.
Have a great day today, and week ahead.
Dan