NCAA President Charlie Baker calls for new tier of Division I where schools can pay athletes

By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Sports Writer

LAS VEGAS (AP) — NCAA President Charlie Baker wants to create a new tier of Division I where schools with the most athletic resources can offer unlimited educational benefits, enter into name, image and likeness partnerships with athletes and directly pay them through a trust fund.

In a letter sent Tuesday to more than 350 Division I schools, Baker told members that the disparity in resources between the wealthiest schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision and other DI members — along with the hundreds of Division II and III schools — is creating “a new series of challenges.”

“The challenges are competitive as well as financial and are complicated further by the intersection of name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes and the arrival of the Transfer Portal,” Baker wrote.

In the letter, Baker says that 59 Division I schools spend more than $100 million annually on their athletics programs, while 259 Division I members spend less than $50 million. More than half of those, 144, spend less than $25 million.

UNC reported total athletic department revenue of nearly $140 million in the 2022-23 academic year. NC State reported total athletic department revenue of $105 million in fiscal year 2023.

Baker said the difference in the way schools that participate in revenue-generating college sports operate and the vast majority of college sports is complicating attempts to modernize the collegiate sports model.

“The contextual environment is equally challenging, as the courts and other public entities continue to debate reform measures that in many cases would seriously damage parts or all of college athletics,” he wrote.

Baker calls for a subdivision "comprised of institutions with the highest resources to invest in their student-athletes" that would be required to invest at least $30,000 per year into an educational trust fund for at least half of the institution's eligible athletes and work with NCAA and peer institutions to create rules such as scholarship commitments, roster size, recruitment, transfers and name, image and likeness.

"Colleges and universities need to be more flexible, and the NCAA needs to be more flexible, too," Baker wrote.

Baker and college sports leaders have been pleading with Congress to help the NCAA with a federal law to regulate the way athletes can be paid for NIL deals.

The NCAA is also facing a new round of legal threats that could force members to share some of the billions in revenue generated by major college football and basketball, along with giving athletes employees status.

WRAL's Brian Murphy contributed to this report.