Daniel Feig

Some free advice for college presidents and ADs: 1. Understand the moment. This is a turning point for college athletics—not because revenue-sharing is starting (that’s been happening through back-door funding of collectives for years)—but because power has shifted from the NCAA to the universities. You now have the authority to fix a system that was fundamentally broken. The NCAA let the tension between high- and low-revenue programs fester, creating a bloated bureaucracy that lost sight of the core mission: to support college-athlete development athletically, academically, and personally. You now have a chance to build a better system—one that preserves what’s great about college sports, compensates athletes fairly, and enforces common-sense rules. Don’t miss it.

My advice to universities and conferences right now is “burn the boats.” With the fairness hearing for the House settlement scheduled for April 7, 2025, schools and conferences must start implementing the injunctive relief now. With new signing classes fast approaching, schools and conferences need to implement measure now so that the offers being made can actually be delivered in the fall under the new enforcement model. There are mechanisms for schools and conferences to impose these measures now. Although there is no action in this space that does not create some risk, if these measures are implemented judiciously, they can be done prior to settlement approval without materially increasing exposure. On the other hand, doing nothing before April could create massive new exposure if schools or collectives make promises that they ultimately cannot deliver.