Anticipating an increased number of budget requests from NCAA committees due to the new television contract with CBS, the NCAA Executive Committee has developed a process for allocating dollars from the new contract that establishes guidelines and parameters for those groups to follow.

The policies, developed during the Executive Committee's January 11 meeting in conjunction with the NCAA Convention in San Diego, maintains the Executive Committee as the ultimate authority for determining allocations and gives other NCAA groups more structure in making their future budget requests.

The process calls for the Executive Committee's Budget Subcommittee to develop budget parameters and assumptions based on the new contract revenues. Each division would then be provided projected revenues based on the increases in the television contract and would be expected to provide a three-year plan for the allocation of the contract dollars based on each division's strategic plan. Those plans would be presented to the Executive Committee for consideration in January 2001.

Multiple groups will be responsible for determining each division's three-year plan, including various budget committees and presidential bodies.

Those guidelines would then serve to give other committees within each division some idea of the boundaries they have to work with in order to prioritize future budget requests.

"The process accomplishes at least two objectives," said Jim Isch, NCAA vice-president of finance and information services. "It allows for sufficient time for input by the membership and it allows each division to develop its own plan within the overall budget parameters established by the Executive Committee."

The new television rights contract, which begins in 2003, will increase Association revenues to $360 million the first year, with increases of about 8 percent annually throughout the remainder of the 11-year agreement. The NCAA has an exclusive option to renegotiate the deal after eight years. The potential for additional revenue from the contract also exists inasmuch as the NCAA will share half of any gross revenues in excess of 110 percent of the annual rights fee payments.

While the new contract is a landmark for the Association, Isch said it is important to remember that the NCAA, from a budget standpoint, will be operating under the terms of the current contract with CBS for the next three fiscal years.

"Committees must remember that the new contract doesn't go into effect until 2003," Isch said. "This new process that the Executive Committee created should assist those committees in being able to prioritize their future needs."

The Executive Committee did, however, deal with one part of the new television contract that will have an immediate impact. The contract contains a $40 million bonus payment, which the Executive Committee recommended be distributed as follows: a total of $30 million to Division I, and totals of $1,748,000 and $1,272,000 to Divisions II and III, respectively, with $6,980,000 set aside in Association-wide reserves.

The Divisions II and III allocations are based on the constitutional percentage guarantees and are in addition to the base budget allocations for 1999-00. The Division I allocation will allow institutions to recover the dollars withheld from the distribution formula for the last year and the current year to pay the restricted-earnings judgment. Of the $30 million for Division I, $10 million will be distributed by March 31, 2000. The remaining $20 million will be added to the normal distribution schedule for 1999-00 ($10 million to basketball and $10 million to broad-based distributions).