Ivy League won’t sign up with NCAA antitrust settlement

Jan 24, 2025, 05:23 PM ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.– The Ivy League will not sign up with the antitrust settlement that will enable schools to pay their players straight, a decision that leaves the conference of eight elite scholastic organizations holding on to college sports’ amateur model even as it is increasingly deserted by the NCAA’s biggest powers.Ivy League executive director Robin Harris said in an e-mail to players and coaches this week that the conference will keep its scholarly focus instead of accept the roster and recommendation regulations consisted of in your home settlement that will shape the NCAA’s latest leap towards professionalism.

“This choice to ‘not opt in’ implies the Ivy League and its schools … will continue to supply an educational intercollegiate sports model that is focused on scholastic primacy and the overall student-athlete experience,” Harris composed.

“I strongly believe that the totality of the Ivy League design– one that provides student-athletes an alternative with first-rate academics and a chance for personal development while yielding constant national athletics success– is a well-rounded experience that will continue to resonate in this developing and unpredictable era of college sports.”

The $2.8 billion Home settlement would deal with antitrust claims implicating the NCAA and its five most significant athletic conferences of conspiring to prevent players from getting their cut as college sports grew from a good little extracurricular activity into a billion-dollar business.The agreement

also changes sport scholarship limitations with lineup caps and intends to take control of the brand-new and anarchic world of name, image and similarity, in which athletes can be paid for endorsements. The NIL loophole regularly degenerated into a badly disguised quid professional quo in which athletes enjoyed millions– however only from third parties.Schools, which were formerly allowed only to compensate athletes just with scholarships and an expense of presence stipend, can now pay them directly.(The Ivy League does not offer athletic scholarships, though it does award funding based on academic benefit and financial requirement.)The ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and Pac-12 have actually agreed

to the settlement, which still should be authorized by a federal judge. The smaller sized athletic conferences, including the Ivy League, should decide whether to choose in.Harris said the conference”will not be altering our rules in response to the pending

Home antitrust settlement. “The decision was initially reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian, the Penn school paper. The Associated Press acquired a copy of the e-mail from a Brown University athlete on Friday.”The Ivy League remains dedicated to its fundamental concepts and longstanding guidelines that deliberately cultivate student involvement in intercollegiate sports as an important element of a holistic education,”Harris said in a statement that was emailed to the AP.”Ivy League institutions will continue to use an experience that resonates with student-athletes, and we securely think the League will continue to flourish competitively as one of the top 5 sports conferences across all of Division I.”In the email to players and coaches, Harris said the decision does not impact their standing as Division I members or their access to NCAA champions.(While the big-money sports like football and basketball are controlled by power conferences like the Big Ten and SEC, the Ivies are competitive in the non-revenue sports, boasting, for instance, of the fifth-most medalists at the 2024 Olympics of any NCAA conference.)Harris likewise wrote that Ivy athletes will still be able”to take advantage of all genuine NIL opportunities.”However the schools will not be taking control of them.”We continue to think in our league’s strong position in the considerably altering landscape of intercollegiate sports,” Brown athletic director Grace Calhoun composed when she forwarded the Ivy League email to the school’s athletes.”And we will continue to browse our method forward.”