Good morning!
Last week featured significant federal, legal and NCAA matters that will continue to define the future of NCAA Division I athletics. Rather than trying to define them directly, I am utilizing a number of media reports on the various topics.
Music this week provided by the “Oppenheimer” soundtrack.
Given the tone of this week’s update, let’s get to The Bold Type!
CONGRATULATIONS
- To UC Santa Barbara baseball player Tyler Bremmer who was taken second overall in the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft! Mr. Bremmer was the first collegiate player taken in the draft. Read more >>>
- To the fourteen Big West baseball players who were selected on Day Two of 2025 MLB Draft! Read more >>>
- To Big West alums Bryan Woo and Joe Ryan who competed in the 2025 MLB All-Star Game! Read more >>>
- To Cal Poly pole vaulter Lexi Evans who was named a CSC Academic All-American! Read more >>>
- To UC Davis Senior Associate AD for External Relations and CMO Danielle Shank who has added SWA responsibilities to her role! Read more >>>
- To Dr. Dennis Assanis for being appointed the next Chancellor at UC Santa Barbara! Read more >>>
KYLA BRUHN TO THE NCAA NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS!
Kyla Bruhn proudly represented both The Big West and UC San Diego's Triton Athletes' Council at the NCAA Division I SAAC meetings held in Indianapolis.
As the conference's student-athlete representative, the women's water polo player was joined leaders from across the country to learn, collaborate, and advocate—amplifying the student-athlete voice and driving meaningful change at the national level. Read more >>>
THE NCAA UNVEILS HISTORICAL CHAMPIONSHIP DATABASE
The NCAA has launched a groundbreaking historical championships dashboard, detailing every NCAA championship and the winning schools. This first-of-its-kind resource allows users to explore championship history by year, division, sport and school, offering a comprehensive visual catalog.
The database covers data from 1921 to the current academic year, including over 4,500 team and 23,000 individual championships. Championship data will be updated after each sports season, providing ongoing access to the latest information.
Access the dashboard >>>
GRAND CANYON WOMEN’S SWIMMING
With the announcement that Grand Canyon University will join the Mountain West Conference effective immediately, GCU informed The Big West they will move their women’s swimming & diving program to the Mountain West effective immediately. Grand Canyon will keep their men’s swimming & diving program in The Big West.
INSTITUTIONS THAT OPTED-IN TO THE NCAA SETTLEMENT
The College Sports Commission has released a list of all participating institutions who have opted into revenue sharing. (link); Which means here’s the list of those that have opted out. (link)
SCORE ACT IN ACTIVE LEGISLATIVE DISCUSSION
On July 10, the bipartisan Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act was introduced by Rep. Bilirakis (R-FL), Rep. Bynum (D-OR), Rep. Figures (D-AL) and leadership from the House Committees on Education and Workforce, Committee on Energy & Commerce, and Committee on the Judiciary. Check out the bill text, release, and fact sheet.
The SCORE Act was mentioned in The Bold Type last week, and has some big impacts for The Big West, including if an institution has coaches on their payroll who earn more than $250,000 a year, they would be required to sponsor at least 16 varsity sports. Other key elements:
Here is what occurred as of Friday morning on the SCORE Act:
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On Tuesday, the SCORE Act, a college athlete compensation bill endorsed by the NCAA and power conferences, took a step toward becoming the first bill of its kind to make it to the floor of Congress for a vote. The bill passed a markup in the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, with members voting in favor of it 12-11—right down party lines. Next, the bill will be brought to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for a full markup. (LINK)
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The SCORE Act passed the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee by a 12-11 vote along party lines. The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty outlines next steps: “A markup hearing in the House's energy + commerce committee, which will be similar to this morning's process and likely end with a vote to advance the bill to the full House floor. Three committees in on the bill: Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, Education + Workforce. There's a world in which the three committees, all Republican-controlled, decide to send the bill straight to the House floor from here. But that's unlikely, according to folks in the know, so I would expect that Energy and Commerce committee markup hearing in the near future.” (link, link)
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USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz details political pushback to the proposed SCORE Act from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), outlining “significant concerns” in a letter to House leaders. “The SCORE Act will only cause more chaos and damage to the college athletics system. We urge you to pull this flawed bill from the mark up until the defects are fixed.” Cantwell warns that the Act would put even more power in the biggest conferences and “hands the NCAA unfettered ability to set rules that would make the rich schools richer.” She wrote that there will be greater distance between the wealthiest schools and the rest, and will “inevitably lead to the loss of men’s and women’s Olympic sports as schools are implicitly forced to devote even more resources to the college football arms race.” In closing, she writes: “We urge everyone to think long-term and big picture about the future of college athletics that we want to achieve.” (link)
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The NFLPA released a joint statement from the players’ associations for the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA and MLS, urging House Committee members to “reject any antitrust exemption or legal liability shield from legislation regulating college athletics.” They argued that any antitrust exemption would “permit the NCAA and its members to collude to harm athletes.” The statement says antitrust exemptions are rarely granted and should not be here: “The NCAA should not have a blank check to impose their will on the financial future of over 500,000 college athletes.” (link)
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The USOPC sent a letter to lawmakers about the SCORE Act, urging them to make amendments to the bill to prevent negative impacts on non-revenue sports. From the letter: “Many Olympic and Paralympic programs exist at the collegiate level not because they generate profit, but because they serve broader missions - equity, access, excellence, and national pride. … We encourage Congress to consider a model that ensures proportionate investment in operating costs and scholarships across sport programs. Full letter. (link)
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Student-athlete members of Athletes.org assert that the SCORE Act, as written, is a “serious, and grave, step in the wrong direction.” Additionally, they argue the bill “threatens to roll back the progress athletes have fought for over the past century, would limit financial opportunities for every college athlete, and would also completely strip certain rights from athletes. Namely, limiting earning potential by unfairly monitoring and subjectively restricting our ability to generate money outside of our relationship with our schools, limiting how much schools can pay us, limiting our ability to transfer, and prohibiting college athletes from being considered employees and being protected by employment laws – without our input or say. No other entity or group of individuals in the college sports – or pro sports – industry is limited in this capacity without their agreement. Full statement. (link)
POTENTIAL PRESIDENT TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER
- What could an executive order on NIL, college sports from Trump entail? (link)
- Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger reports that “a draft of the long-discussed presidential executive order intends to ‘preserve’ college athletics from ‘unprecedented threat’ and destruction, it says, by implementing new policies related to athlete compensation, antitrust protection, athlete employment, state law uniformity and Olympic sport participation.” The seven-page draft titled SAVING COLLEGE SPORTS outlines policy directives to cabinet members related to various aspects of college athletics, and Dellenger notes: “Those aspects primarily include directing the attorney general and [FTC] to: (1) provide college leaders with protection from antitrust law around the ‘long-term availability’ of scholarships and opportunities for athletes; (2) prevent ‘unqualified and unscrupulous agents’ from representing athletes; and (3) support uniformity by, presumably, preempting the varying name, image and likeness state laws. The draft also requests the assistant to the president for domestic policy work with the U.S. Olympic Team to provide ‘safeguards’ for NCAA Olympic sports; and directs the secretary of education and National Labor Relations Board to implement policy ‘clarifying that statuses of athletes, presumably as students and not employees.” (link)
- On reports/tweets from CBS News last night that President Donald Trump intends to sign an executive order to establish national NIL standards, Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich explains that “while it’s still unclear what the president’s order would contain, it’s unlikely to significantly conflict with current efforts in the House (vis-a-vis the SCORE Act). But an executive order wouldn’t have the power to grant some of the antitrust protections that the NCAA and power conferences have been asking for in Congress to govern the NIL era, sources previously told FOS. Instead, the order could establish a commission to investigate the issue and report back best practices, as Trump has done in the past.” (link)
- House plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman’s response to the EO is blunt: “Plain and simple, college athletes don’t need Trump’s help, and he shouldn’t be aiding the NCAA at the expense of athletes. Mr. Trump boasts of his deal-making prowess. As a result of our case, college athletes are now free to make their own deals. For Trump to want to put his foot on their deal-making abilities is unwarranted and flouts his own philosophy on the supposed ‘art of the deal.’” (link)
- President Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would require federal authorities to clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of their schools, according to ESPN’s Dan Murphy and Pete Thamel, who report: “The draft calls on the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to ‘determine and implement the appropriate measures with respect to clarifying the status of collegiate athletes.’ The draft states the employment status of college athletes should ‘maximize the educational benefits and opportunities schools can provide through their athletic departments. (link)
NCAA SETTLEMENT BEING CHALLENGED
- In guidance released last Thursday, the newly established College Sports Commission (CSC) laid out a firm approach to how it plans to handle booster-funded NIL collective deals. The key goal behind the House v. NCAA settlement was to shift the flow of dollars to athletes from collectives to institutions. The CSC and its Deloitte-run clearinghouse, NIL Go, stated in the guidance that booster-backed collectives must meet a "valid business purpose." But in a two-page letter to NCAA and power conference officials on Friday, according to Yahoo! Sports, House plaintiff attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman requested that the NCAA and conferences "retract" the guidance.
- Sportico’s Michael McCann says the House settlement has set up philosophical battles over the intent of NIL and collectives and how to guard against inevitable pay-for-play setups. How will those be resolved? McCann: “Athletes and NIL collectives whose deals are rejected by the CSC could commence their own litigation. They could bring federal antitrust and state NIL statute claims, though those claims could face sizable hurdles.” (link)
- Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger reports college sports leaders “are in active negotiations with plaintiff attorneys over, perhaps, the most significant piece of the House settlement: whether to permit traditional booster collective deals to athletes.” (link)
OTHER MEDIA ARTICLES ON NCAA MATTERS
- SBJ’s Ben Portnoy has obtained the nearly 100-page governance structure recommendation compiled by the NCAA Division I Decision-Making Working group in June and notes the document also includes previously unreported feedback recorded by the NCAA’s research team centered on subjects related to potential changes. Of note: A May poll found that “while 83% of [Power 4] respondents were supportive or very supportive of weighted voting for autonomy conferences, less than 20% of respondents from the other Division I subdivisions indicated such support.” (link) Given 80% of those that responded from the 28 conferences not in the CFP-4 are against what is being recommended. I am hopeful the concerns of the non-CFP 4 conferences and institutions will be addressed during the upcoming NCAA DI Board of Directors meeting.
- The Wall Street Journal’s Rachel Bachman notes that eventual NCAA Men’s Tournament expansion could hinge on one single facet – booze. With the NCAA needing to secure more funding surrounding any potential expansion, the event’s current TV contract with CBS and Turner locked in through 2032 and broadcast partners not required to pay for additional expansion teams, a person familiar with the situation says, ”the NCAA needs to wring significant amounts of money from selling official NCAA sponsorships in categories it has previously shunned: beer, wine and hard alcohol (link)
- The NCAA won its appeal on a 2-1 decision of the eligibility lawsuit brought by Wisconsin Football student-athlete Nyzier Fourqurean who sought to have his seasons of competition in DII not count towards his DI eligibility. The majority opinion noting Fourqurean “failed to show some likelihood that the (NCAA's) Five-Year Rule constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade. […] (link)
- Meanwhile, UCLA wide receiver Kaedin Robinson has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California arguing that the NCAA’s eligibility rule is “unlawful” because it has “substantial anticompetitive effects” on junior college players. Robinson was initially thought to have another season of eligibility remaining due to the NCAA issuing a blanket waiver to junior college players following Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia’s injunction. On3’s Pete Nakos reports Robinson is requesting immediate and permanent injunctive relief against the NCAA to play this season. The lawsuit also states he was offered an NIL contract by UCLA worth $450K. (link)
- “Lawsuits are about to come,” a source tells On3’s Pete Nakos after the College Sports Commission and NIL Go issued firm guidance last Thursday on plans to handle booster-funded NIL deals, noting that they must meet a “valid business purpose.” (link)
QUOTES OF THE DAY
Dan