Good morning! I hope each of you had a great weekend.
I spent much of last week in my home state of Illinois, which was the site of the Division I Collegiate Commissioner Association (CCA) meetings. The meetings were dominated by discussions on the SCORE Act, College Sports Commission, NCAA Basketball, and updates from NCAA President Charlie Baker. In my six years as a commissioner, and through all of the significant challenges faced during that time, I found these meetings to be the most collegial and productive. In many ways, the CFP4, Group of 6, FCS and Basketball Centric subdivisions were rowing in the same direction. We were focused on working together, not competing with each other, as we continue to work with Congress on the SCORE Act.
However, similar to each of you in your businesses, the end of every meeting leads to even more work ahead.
Before we get into all of that, let’s get this morning started off right, because in The Big West, it’s another “Beautiful Day.”
Time for The Bold Type!
CONGRATULATIONS
- To Carter Henderson who was named the new Director of Athletics at Cal Poly! Read more >>> Welcome to The Big West, Carter!
- To UC Irvine men’s soccer who is receiving votes in the latest United Soccer Coaches National Rankings!
- To Cal State Fullerton women’s soccer who is receiving votes in the latest United Soccer Coaches National Rankings!
- To Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara women’s volleyball who are both receiving votes in latest AVCA poll!
- To the five teams ranked in the CWPA varsity poll!!
- No. 7 Long Beach State
- No. 8 UC Irvine
- No. 9 UC Davis
- No. 15 UC San Diego
- No. 17 UC Santa Barbara
- And to UC Santa Barbara for their Big Win on Sunday!
- To our amazing student-athletes named PLAYERS OF THE WEEK!!
- Women's Soccer - Cynthia Ramirez, Cal State Bakersfield (offensive); Isaac Ranson, Cal State Fullerton (defensive); Lakelee Perkins, UC Davis (freshman)
- Men's Soccer - Jack Civitts, Cal Poly (offensive); Dorian Drucks, CSUN (defensive); Daniel Garcia, CSUN (freshman)
- Women's Volleyball - Elise Agi, Long Beach State (offensive); Paige Sentes, CSUN (defensive); Madi Maxwell, Long Beach State (setter); Jessica Bates, UC Irvine (setter)
- Cross Country - Dheeraj Gurusamy, Cal Poly (men); Kelli Gaffney, Cal Poly (women)
- Women's Swimming & Diving - Sydney Wilson, San Diego
- Men's Water Polo - Bennett Axline, UC San Diego
TICKET PRICING SET FOR THE 2025 BIG WEST WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
The Big West has announced ticket pricing for The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2025 Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship with all-session seats available for purchase today! Read more & secure your tickets today >>>
The Big West is home to some of the nation’s premier women’s volleyball programs, and our championship has quickly become a must-see event on the national stage. I encourage fans to secure their tickets now and be part of another historic moment in Big West volleyball.
THE BIG WEST BASKETBALL PREVIEW/MEDIA DAY SET FOR OCT. 17
The Big West announced its 2025-26 men’s and women’s basketball previews will once again air on The Field of 68 on Friday, October 17. Mark your calendars, as this will be must-watch programming. Read more >>>
THE SCORE ACT, LOBBYING, NEGOTIATION AND OUTCOMES
Much of the Collegiate Commissioner’s Association (CCA) meetings focused on the SCORE Act, which was close to being acted upon in the House of Representatives earlier this month, but stalled recently as some representatives voiced opposition, and various concerns were raised as additional proposed legislation was added to the draft bill.
A reminder, the three core features of the SCORE Act for our student-athletes, institutions, conference and the NCAA are:
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Student-athletes across the country would benefit from a permissive uniform standard for NIL, thereby eliminating confusion wrought by a patchwork of state-specific NIL laws.
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Limited and precise liability protection that goes no further than allowing for the existence of rules that serve the educational mission of college sports, such as rules related to academic eligibility standards, transfer rules, and the limits on seasons of competition that are needed to allow for a perpetual cycle of one class of students moving on to become citizens and leaders as a new class comes in.
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Clarity that students are not employees by virtue of being varsity athletes, which not only affirms that the appropriate relationship between students and their institutions in this educationally-based model of athletics is not an employer-employee relationship.
As you may recall, the Big West joined nine other conferences in an effort to state our support for the bill, but raised some concerns on the added legislation from the first draft of the bill to the second.
During the CCA meetings, Ross Dellenger from Yahoo Sports stated it well:
“This week in Chicago, power conferences and the 10 non-FBS leagues - who formed a coalition requesting amendments to the SCORE Act - made progress on a compromise that would see changes to the legislation related to governance & DI membership standards”.
Basically, the lobbying efforts of the 10 conferences, representing 110 institutions, had an impact on improving the draft legislation while protecting our institutions and their DI programs in the process. Although our institutions are aware of the outcomes of these negotiations, I do not want to preempt the release of this information in the next few days from our consortium.
Based on the outcome of these negotiations, I have encouraged full institutional support of the SCORE Act based on the fundamental principles of the legislation as provided. Ultimately, our coalition believes the House version of the SCORE Act, including modifications to the governance structure, while not perfect, is an important step forward to provide a fair and sustainable path forward for all Division I athletes, conferences, and institutions.
On Wednesday evening, the 32 commissioners agreed to collectively sign a letter from the CCA supporting the SCORE Act. The federal legislation is that important to the future of NCAA Division I athletics.
The 10 commissioners of our lobbying consortium sent a letter on behalf of our group.
On Thursday afternoon, we learned that a task force of the Congressional Black Caucus is in negotiations with its Republican colleagues to amend portions of the SCORE Act, some of which have already been agreed to.. (LINK) Our group will keep a close watch on any adjustments in an updated draft that will likely be published before a formal vote is to take place, which we now believe will be in October.
STATISTICS FROM NIL GO
Bryan Seeley from the College Sports Commission provided NIL Go engagement numbers to-date that I thought were very interesting :
30,800 student-athletes have filed NIL deals
3,400 representatives have filed on behalf of student-athletes they represent
1,200 institutional users
7,800 deals cleared
$53 million valued of deals cleared
420+ deals not cleared
0 arbitrations
Commissioners had good discussion with Seeley on many facets of the CSC, NIL Go and his leadership. Mr. Seeley is starting an entity from scratch, after the House-NCAA settlement was completed, which is a highly challenging task. I look forward to Bryan’s leadership and to how the full operations functions once he finalizes his leadership team and staff.
MEDIA REPORTS ON NCAA AND LEGAL MATTERS
- If you want to get a sense of the cost increase of NCAA Division I athletics post-settlement, check out this article related to Virginia Tech University: The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors will hold a virtual meeting on September 30, during which members will consider a four-year athletics budget adjustment. If approved, the proposed total additional investment would be $229M over four years, which is intended to bridge funding to reach a sustainable financial position by FY29. From the university’s release: “University leaders believe the proposed amended budget, if approved, will position Virginia Tech to compete at the highest levels of the conference resulting in significant increase in media rights and conference revenue. This proposed investment would be a shared responsibility between the university and donors, involving a targeted fundraising effort seeking to raise $120M in new funding over four years. The proposal calls for limited increases in student fees in future years, consistent with state limitations. Virginia Tech currently maintains the lowest student fee of any public university in the Commonwealth. The proposed budget amendment before the board Sept. 30 will not impact current academic operations.” (link); Tech Sideline’s Andy Bitter breaks down the proposal further and reports the athletic department will receive $47.1M in increases in FY26 and more than $61M in FY27, FY28 and FY29. (link); VTScoop247’s Doug Bowman adds: “Another way to look at the $229.2M in incremental funding. 52.35% will be on donors/fans (philanthropy). 9.29% will be on students (student fee revenue). 21.07% will be from institutional support (the university). 17.28% will be on bridge funding (presumably the university).” (link)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." —Robert Collier
As we saw in Illinois last week, success for our conference and our student-athletes is built one small effort at a time — repeated, shared, and bold.
To all Big West athletic trainers, game managers and communications staff, on behalf of The Big West, thank you for all that you do! Have a great week ahead, and continued success to all.
Dan