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NCAA passes new rules to allow direct payments to players

April 21, 2025

By EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer

The NCAA passed rules Monday that would upend decades of precedent by allowing colleges to pay their athletes per terms of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement expected to go into effect this summer.

The nine proposals passed by the NCAA board were largely expected but still mark a defining day in the history of college sports. An athlete’s ability to be paid directly by his or her university is on track to be enshrined in a rulebook that has forbidden that kind of relationship for decades.

For the NCAA rules to officially go into effect, the changes prescribed by the House settlement still have to be granted final approval by a federal judge, whose hearing earlier this month led to questions about potential tweaks before the new guidelines are supposed to go into play on July 1.

The changes will eliminate around 150 rules and alter many others in the NCAA’s sprawling rulebook. They essentially codify measures set up by the settlement, including:

• Modifying bylaws to allow schools to pay the athletes directly.

• Eliminating scholarship limits for teams, while also setting roster limits that are designed to replace the scholarship caps. Some details of the roster limits, which were a key sticking point in the April 7 hearing, will be finalized later.

• Establishing annual reporting requirements for schools that pay athletes; a payment pool is set to be approximately $20.5 million for the biggest schools beginning next academic year. (Not all Division I schools will choose to operate in the new system enabled by the settlement, as the Ivy League has chosen to opt out and continue to operate under the current structure.)

• Setting up a clearinghouse for all name, image and likeness (NIL) deals that come from third parties and are worth $600 or more.

• Granting authority to an enforcement body being developed by the conferences named as defendants in the lawsuit to enforce the new rules passed to implement terms of the settlement. This includes compliance with roster limits, payment of direct benefits to players and meeting requirements for the third-party deals.

One change allows for the creation of technology platforms for schools to monitor payments to athletes and for the athletes to report their third-party NIL deals.

Players will still be allowed to hire agents for NIL purposes, but the NCAA will still use certain eligibility rules that have been used to “distinguish Division I athletics from professional sports,” according to a document that summarizes the legislative changes. For the athletes to receive these benefits, the NCAA will require them to be enrolled full-time, meet Division I progress-toward-degree requirements and earn the benefits during their five-year eligibility period.

The board received updates from a working group designed to propose ways to streamline NCAA governance – a topic that has come up as the bigger conferences have sought more decision-making power in some areas.

Orange County Register

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NCAA passes new rules to allow direct payments to players

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