NASHVILLE — As the NCAA Board of Governors entered the third hour of its meeting on Thursday night, the phones of college sports leaders within the gathering began buzzing.
Texts. Emails. Calls.
While some of college sports’ most powerful executives met here to end this week’s annual NCAA convention, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights released some jaw-dropping news that stands, if upheld, to completely alter the way many schools plan to pay their athletes in the future revenue-sharing world of college sports.
The department issued long-awaited guidance related to Title IX: Revenue-sharing payments from schools to athletes must be “proportionately” distributed to men and women athletes, or institutions risk violating Title IX, the 53-year-old federal law requiring universities receiving federal funding to provide equal benefits to women and men athletes.