The NCAA News - News and Features

September 15, 1997

Subcommittee seeks to provide assurance on exempted contests

The Exempted Contests Subcommittee of the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet, concerned that institutions are being asked to sign binding contracts without knowing if an event has been certified as exempt from contest limits, has asked the cabinet to approve a change in procedure.

The cabinet will consider the subcommittee's report when it meets September 23-25 in Dallas.

Subcommittee chair Richard J. Ensor, commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, said the subcommittee wants to help institutions avoid situations in which they sign contracts to participate in an event that has been incorrectly portrayed as being exempt from the contest limits.

The subcommittee has recommended to the Championships/Competition Cabinet that if the sponsor of an exempted contest does not attach a letter of certification approval with any contract, the cabinet should encourage the Administrative Review Panel to deny requests from institutions seeking relief to participate in that event until the event is certified. Certification is done on an annual basis.

The subcommittee believes that some sponsoring agencies are giving institutions a tight deadline to execute contracts. When contracts are executed and the event subsequently does not meet certification requirements, affected institutions -- believing they entered the contract in good faith-- have appealed to the NCAA Administrative Review Panel for relief.

The subcommittee feels that such action compromises the certification process.

Ensor noted that such a scenario occurred recently. An event was not certified, but institutions that had signed contracts to participate asked the Administrative Review Panel to overturn the subcommittee's decision and to certify the event as exempt so that the institutions could honor their contracts and not exceed the maximum contest limits.

The subcommittee is concerned because it has received information indicating that the sponsors of the same event that prompted the recent appeal are distributing contracts for the 1998-99 competition even though the event has not been certified.

Ensor said the change recommended by the subcommittee would help alert institutions to be cautious in signing contracts. He also encouraged institutions to contact the membership services staff at the NCAA national office to obtain an updated list of certified events.

"An institution should check with the NCAA to see if the event is certified for the year in question," he said.

Events are reviewed annually by the subcommittee, which took over that task from the former NCAA Special Events Committee. Criteria for determining if an event will be certified were adopted at the 1996 NCAA Convention following a report from the NCAA Special Committee to Review Contest Exemptions. The special committee was created in 1995 because of concern about the increasing number of events seeking exemptions from contest-limits legislation.

The legislation replaced the previous process, which required Convention delegates to vote on a case-by-case basis on exemption requests.

The criteria and principles for evaluating events seeking exceptions from the contest limits are set out in NCAA Bylaw 30.10 and include requirements for insurance, financial reports, reimbursement of expenses for participating institutions, providing a competitive and cultural experience for the student-athlete, and sponsorship of the event by an active NCAA member in the state or territory where the event will be held.

The subcommittee's report to the Championships/Competition Cabinet also includes recommendations for strengthening some of the criteria. One of the recommendations asks the cabinet to move forward from 1999-2000 to 1998-99 the effective date for requiring an exempted contest to provide a participating institution 50 percent of its travel expenses.