A NEW DAY AT NCAA
Sweeping rules make life better for players
College basketball will be played under new rules meant to buff its tarnished image.
The NCAA announced Wednesday changes to its eligibility rules by offering more flexibility, allowing top prospects to hire agents as early as high school and giving players leeway to return to college after declaring for the NBA draft, among other things.
But in a lot of ways, this is about survival and image. The NCAA has tried to implement impossible rules in the name of maintaining amateurism, resulting in a cascade of investigations, suspensions and vacated victories. It fueled charges of hypocrisy since the universities were earning billions off athletes who aren’t allowed compensation.
Those athletes still can’t be paid by their university or earn money off their image. The big difference is they’ll no longer lose NCAA eligibility if they hire an agent to help them make “informed decisions about going pro,” according to Wednesday’s release.
There is no mention of endorsements, agent compensation or the sneaker companies that were at the center of the FBI’s investigation into corruption. The revisions are basically about removing consequences for declaring for the NBA draft.
These are the highlights from the NCAA’s website:
- College basketball players can be represented by an agent beginning after any season.
- Once the NBA again allows high schoolers to enter the NBA draft, they can be represented by an agent beginning July 1 before their senior year in high school. However, the player must be identified as an elite senior prospect by USA Basketball.
- Agents can pay for meals and transportation for players and their families if the expenses are related to the agent selection process. Also, the student cannot miss class, and the money must be spent where the student lives or attends school. Additionally, high school and college student-athletes and their families can have meals, transportation and lodging paid for by an agent if those expenses are associated with meetings with the agent or a pro team.
- Basketball student-athletes can make more frequent campus visits paid for by colleges (referred to as official visits), which can begin as soon as Aug. 1 the summer before their junior year in high school.
Division I schools will be required to pay for tuition, fees and books for basketball players who leave school and return later to the same school to earn their degree. Former student-athletes will be eligible for financial assistance to complete their first degree if they were on scholarship and fewer than 10 years have passed since they left school. Additionally, students must have been in school for two years before leaving.
Neither the NBA nor USA Basketball were consulted despite being referenced in the rules changes. It left the impression they were hastily constructed.
According to ESPN, USA Basketball was “blindsided” by the rule stating it would be in charge of evaluating which high school players were eligible to hire agents. There is also the issue of evaluating nonAmerican top high school prospects — and there are plenty — who are not accounted for in the NCAA’s new rules.
The changes reflect the recommendations made in April by the Rice Commission, led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It was formed in response to an FBI investigation into payments from shoe companies to coaches for steering players to certain schools. Most notably, former Louisville coach Rick Pitino was fired as a result.
The NBA, sensing the system’s failures, is “ready” to abolish the one-and-done rule, according to Commissioner Adam Silver, and it’s only a matter of time before high school seniors will again be eligible for the NBA draft.
Now the NCAA is giving more flexibility to its basketball players — a small step in the right direction — while also establishing new rules it will undoubtedly struggle to uphold.