December 19, 2019 – Richard Keroack
Introduction
In response to external pressures on college athletics, I have created an athletic scholarship model proposal that is intended to maximize the amount of financial aid that student-athletes can receive. These ideas are my own and do not represent the position of my employer or anyone else.
Objectives
- Maximize participation opportunities and access to higher education for student-athletes.
- Eliminate restrictions and limitations on financial aid.
Major Themes
1. All sports would be equivalency model. Head count model would be eliminated.
The equivalency model allows athletic scholarships to be split up and awarded to multiple student-athletes. Being able to spread the athletic aid amongst all student-athletes on a team would increase the number of student-athletes that could potentially receive athletic aid. More students on at least a partial athletic scholarship would represent, at the very least, an opportunity for more students to access higher education.
Breaking up full scholarships to be awarded in equivalencies also allows the coach to award athletic aid based on the student-athlete’s absolute athletic talent and value to the team. This is a more efficient allocation of athletic aid from the head count model where the awarding is binary and the best player is receiving the same award as the worst player when their relative value is not equal.
2. No team scholarship maximum limits.
Eliminate the current team scholarship maximum limits. The cost of higher education has increased at a pace greater than inflation. It is in the best interest of students to not limit how much athletic aid they can collectively receive. The total athletic aid available will be as much as the membership can communally afford to offer. Critics of this idea will say that it will be harmful to competitive equity because the institutions with the most resources will be able to offer more scholarships and secure the best talent. The reality is that the institutions with the most resources already offer more to student-athletes in the form of better amenities. Eliminating athletic aid maximum limits would force institutions to invest their limited resources in scholarships, which benefit students directly, instead of facilities and personnel. My belief is that eliminating scholarship maximums could help tamp down the facilities arms race and spur a market correction in coach salaries.
3. There will be scholarship minimums.
Establishing a scholarship floor will ensure that institutions remain committed to investing the necessary resources to maintain a competitive program. This will ensure that there is some semblance of competitive equity (similar to how NFL teams are required to spend at least 89% of their salary cap each season).
4. All institutional aid counts.
All institutional aid (athletic, merit, need-based) will count towards meeting scholarship minimum requirements. This would allow students flexibility to be awarded and accept the best financial aid package that they are offered. Current legislation limits which types of aid can be received in addition to athletic aid. Without team maximum scholarship limits there would be no reason to limit the types of aid student-athletes receive, provided that the total aid package is within federal financial aid regulations. Allowing all institutional aid to counts towards scholarship minimum requirements could potentially reduce athletic scholarship expenses for an institution by allowing institutional merit and need-based aid to offset the amount of athletic aid that needs to be offered to meet minimum scholarship requirements.
5. Sport Sponsorship is tiered.
The NCAA sports will be grouped into tiers and institutions will be required to meet the sport sponsorship requirement of each tier.
Tier One Sports
Institutions must sponsor at least eight tier one sports. Scholarship minimums apply.
| Sport | Minimum Scholarships Required | |
| 1. | Men’s Basketball | 10 |
| 2. | Women’s Basketball | 10 |
| 3. | Football | 50 |
| 4. | Women’s Soccer | 10 |
| 5. | Women’s Cross Country | 10 |
| 6. | Women’s Track & Field – Indoor | |
| 7. | Women’s Track & Field – Outdoor | |
| 8. | Women’s Tennis | 4 |
| 9. | Women’s Volleyball | 10 |
Tier Two Sports
Institutions must sponsor at least five tier two sports. Scholarship minimums apply.
| Sport | Minimum Scholarships Required | |
| 1. | Men’s Golf | 4 |
| 2. | Baseball | 10 |
| 3. | Men’s Cross Country | 10 |
| 4. | Men’s Track & Field – Indoor | |
| 5. | Men’s Track & Field – Outdoor | |
| 6. | Women’s Golf | 4 |
| 7. | Softball | 10 |
Tier Three Sports
Institutions must sponsor at least one tier three sport. Scholarship minimums do not apply.
| Sport | |
| 1. | Men’s Tennis |
| 2. | Men’s Swim & Dive |
| 3. | Women’s Swim & Dive |
| 4. | Women’s Gymnastics |
| 5. | Women’s Rowing |
| 6. | Men’s Soccer |
| 7. | Men’s Wrestling |
| 8. | Women’s Lacrosse |
| 9. | Women’s Field Hockey |
Tier Four Sports.
Institutions not required to sponsor any tier four sports. Scholarship minimums do not apply.
| Sport | |
| 1. | Beach Volleyball |
| 2. | Men’s Lacrosse |
| 3. | Men’s Gymnastics |
| 4. | Men’s Ice Hockey |
| 5. | Women’s Ice Hockey |
| 6. | Men’s Fencing |
| 7. | Women’s Fencing |
| 8. | Rifle |
| 9. | Men’s Water Polo |
| 10. | Women’s Water Polo |
| 11. | Men’s Rowing |
| 12. | Men’s Volleyball |
| 13. | Skiing |
| 14. | Women’s Bowling |
Summary
Removing the limits on the amount of athletically related financial aid that institutions can award would essentially open the doors for schools to award as much as they can afford, forcing them to compete on how much scholarship to award rather than how much they can pay for coaching salaries and facilities. Setting scholarship minimums ensures that institutions are still fielding competitive teams.
Institutions would still need to be Title IX compliant. Additionally, I propose that institutions need to be transparent to the public and annually disclose how aid is awarded to each sport so the public can know and comment on the departments that choose to invest heavily in the revenue sports at the expense of the Olympic sports.
This model opens up the athletic scholarship ecosystem to take the shape of the true college athletics market.
Appendix
Atlantic Coast Conference Sport Sponsorship
Big 12 Conference Sport Sponsorship
Big Ten Conference Sport Sponsorship
Pacific 12 Conference Sport Sponsorship
Southeastern Conference Sport Sponsorship
