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Board sponsors legislation for new DI membership standards

By Michelle Brutlag Hosick
NCAA.org

Division I schools will have the opportunity to voice their opinion on new criteria for membership in the NCAA’s most high-profile division.

The Division I Board of Directors introduced legislation Thursday to codify a series of new membership standards proposed by the Division I Leadership Council.

The first votes on the recommendations, including a four-year transition process from Division II and an application fee of approximately $1.3 million, will be cast at the 2011 NCAA Convention in January.

In August 2007, the Board placed a four-year moratorium on consideration of new members that expires in August 2011 when the legislation would take effect, if it is adopted. The moratorium was prompted by the presidents’ view that the division should assess the impact of membership migration and develop updated expectations and requirements for membership.

The Leadership Council constructed the new standards were constructed over a period of 18 months. The recommendations include:

• A requirement that all new Division I members first spend at least five years as active members in Division II.
• New Division I members must have a bona fide offer of membership from a Division I multisport voting conference.
• A four-year reclassification process would be created for new members.
• An application fee would be established commensurate with  the estimated annual average value of direct benefits of Division I membership through distributions and championships (approximately $1.3 million currently).
• No school subject to a historically based penalty under the Academic Performance Program would be elected to active membership.
• Preliminary certification would be required in the first year of reclassification, and a full compliance review would be required before election to active membership.
• New members would be eligible for revenue distributions related to sport sponsorship and grants-in-aid after three years as an active member. Institutions would qualify immediately for Student-Athlete Opportunity, Special Assistance and Academic Enhancement Funds, as well as basketball grant funds as determined by its conference.
• The practice of allowing schools to sponsor a single sport in a different division would be eliminated, except in sports where no championship is conducted in its division.  Divisions II and III schools currently taking advantage of this opportunity would not affected unless they fail to conduct the sport in Division I for any ensuing year.
• The Administration Cabinet would be responsible for review of the reclassification process and appropriate benchmarks.
• The Board would vote to elect institutions to active membership (not the Leadership Council).

Leadership Council members believe – and Board members agree – that the recommendations consider a variety of factors, including allowing student-athletes access to championships (by requiring five years of Division II membership before reclassifying) and protecting the Division I “brand” (by requiring compliance with some Division I standards earlier in the reclassification process and tying the application fee to benefits derived from membership).

The proposal will be considered as part of the regular legislative cycle, with an effective date of August 1, 2011. Schools already in the reclassification process will not be affected by the change.

In other business, the Board approved legislation that requires schools to communicate with prospective men’s basketball student-athletes when recruitment of a student-athlete stops because of an institution’s decision to employ in some way someone who has a close relationship with the prospect.

The new rule requires institutions to notify prospects why the recruitment has stopped, avoiding a case in which a prospect is left to wonder why an institution is no longer recruiting him. The original rule prohibits institutions from hiring someone closely associated with a prospect and also recruiting the prospect. If the institution hires the associate, the prospect is ineligible at that institution. The change was approved by the Board last October, when a number of proposals designed to clean up the men’s basketball recruiting environment were adopted.