NCAA Board Vote

[GGGG]

Will the athletes on a half scholarship only receive half of the additional benefits? How would that work for the lifetime bennies like returning to finish a degree or medical coverage let alone the $2-5K/year in 'Full cost of tuition".

That is a good question.  My *guess* is that each 1 FTE scholarship will simply be raised to "full cost of attendance" levels and that any breakdown from that will be off that new figure.

Old system:  Scholarship worth $8,000.  Two students get .5 scholarship...or $4,000 each.

New system:  Scholarship worth $10,000.  Two students get .5 scholarship...or $5,000 each.

BTW, women's basketball, gymnastics, volleyball and tennis are also "headcount sports."  (ie, no partial scholarships)

[ChicosBailBonds]

Chicos, this is really confusing to me since many olympic athletes are supported by corporate sponsors. Are college athletes in the Olympic sports allowed sponsorship and still get a Scholarship?

When I say Olympic sports, it is merely a catch all phrase for sports that are found in the Olympics, but doesn't mean they are Olympic athletes.  It's just an older term used by those in college sports circles to define non revenue sports, typically.  Those are the ones that will get cut and reduce opportunities.

As to your question, no, those athletes who are truly Olympian caliber cannot receive those benefits while on scholarship.  You will see on occasion a great, young, Olympic athlete that will not attend college in order to take sponsorship dollars instead.  Or, they will attend college but not be eligible to swim on their college team because they do.  The reasons for this are pretty simple, the amount of abuse in the sponsorships would be a problem if they allowed it.  Providing unfair recruiting advantages to those willing to grease the skids.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Incidentally, it is the 5 power conferences AND Notre Dame that have this new autonomy. 

[mu03eng]

Incidentally, it is the 5 power conferences AND Notre Dame that have this new autonomy. 

And the fact they allowed Notre Dame makes it a guarantee that they have to allow any school or conference that applies to be granted the same autonomy.