The NCAA’s release of the Presidential Task Force report prompted a response from the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, which called the report "a major step forward for presidential leadership" but criticized some of the report’s recommendations.

Interestingly, the Knight Commission, long critical of college sports’ commercial activities, took issue with a Task Force recommendation to eliminate the portion of the Division I philosophy statement that calls for athletics departments to be self-sustaining. The Knight Commission recognized that not many Division I programs do in fact sit on their own bottom lines, but its concern is that eliminating the encouragement to do so has the inverse effect of tempting universities to allocate academic funds to balance athletics budgets.

The Task Force rationale behind eliminating the clause is to ease the pressure on institutions to spend beyond their means, and to ensure that budgeting in athletics is no different than budgeting in other university departments. Striking the clause does not preclude athletics departments from generating revenues within the university mission, but it does mean that institutions should consider athletics budgets holistically rather than as an individual cost center.

The Knight Commission, whose membership includes several Task Force members, including commission co-chair Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University, would prefer a Division I Board of Directors edict for athletics budgets to "be in line with university budgets," a message the Task Force indeed supports — and which NCAA President Myles Brand reiterated in his remarks to the National Press Club.

The Knight Commission also opposed a Task Force recommendation to establish a maximum number of "special admissions" for student-athletes. The commission believes that admissions procedures for athletes "ought to be consistent with those of the rest of the student body, but strict caps could be problematic on a number of levels." The commission prefers that academic and admissions officials alone have the final authority on admitting student-athletes.

Overall, however, the commission praised the report as "a good diagnostic tool for identifying the significant issues facing Division I athletics." Members were most pleased in fact with the Task Force focus on collecting clear, concise and comparable financial data to drive decision-making.

However, Turner said, "It will require a concerted, cohesive effort by member institutions to implement the proposed solutions."