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Congress did something of great significance to Ivy League sports Friday.
It did nothing at all.
Congress allowed a section of the Higher Education Act allowing key antitrust protection for the Ivy League to expire. The expiration increases the Ivy League’s exposure to legal challenges to its refusal to grant academic and athletic scholarships.
Conference realignments, eye-popping TV deals and compensation for college athletes’ name, image and likeness have upended the college sports landscape. What is Ivy hoops’ place in all the hoopla? How should the Ivy League and its member schools raise the profile of its basketball programs? With Ivy student support waning and NIL on the rise, what moves would improve Ivy hoops? Our writers consider these looming questions below:
Ivy Hoops Online contributor and Manhattanville College sports law professor Richard Kent joined Sports Talk with John & Jimmy on 99.1 The Sports Animal WNML-FM 99.1/AM 990 Monday to discuss the NCAA’s name, image and likeness policy approach, the outlook for reform after the Ivy League’s antitrust exemption expires later this year and more:
Editor’s note: The authors of this article submitted this article to the Ivy League’s eight presidents Monday to share their views and recommendations, eight days after it was published here:
In June 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in NCAA v. Alston that the antitrust laws prohibit the NCAA from limiting in any way its Division I schools from offering “education-related compensation or benefits” to student-athletes (men and women) who play basketball and football.
This means, for example, that the NCAA is barred from preventing any college from giving full tuition, room and board or other education-related benefits — such as tuition for graduate or professional school, textbooks, or internships while in school — to these college athletes. The Supreme Court agreed with the federal district trial court that the NCAA could set standards or definitions of what types of expenditures are “education-related,” including those items just noted. In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court recognized that the antitrust laws exist to ensure and protect competition and to prevent practices that interfere with a student athlete’s right to have schools compete for their services.
As the Supreme Court described the effect of the district court’s finding, “competition among schools would increase in terms of the compensation they would offer to recruits, and student-athlete compensation would be higher as a result … Student-athletes would receive offers that would more closely match the value of their athletic services.”
The NCAA on July 1 enacted an interim policy allowing college athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness (NIL) for the first time with the following guidance:
The Ivy League has noted that it has adjusted rules to allow athletes to engage in NIL activity.
But what will the impact of the NCAA’s new NIL policy be on Ivy hoops athletes and the Ivy League itself? Ivy Hoops Online writers weigh in:
The NCAA’s new, long awaited policy of allowing players to use their name, image and likeness for commercial profit extends to the Ivy League, which says it has adjusted rules to allow players to take part in NIL activity.
Former Columbia Lions Tai Bibbs and Randy Brumant quickly signed a deal to advertise for GCDC, a Washington, D.C. grilled cheese bar, per Dafter having transferred from Morningside Heights to Howard to join former Columbia assistant coach Kenny Blakeney.