The NCAA Division I Council approved new rules Wednesday surrounding NIL and undergraduate transfers.
The council is recommending legislation that schools can help with college athletes’ NIL opportunities—including facilitating deals between college athletes and third parties—if athletes report NIL activity of more than $600 to the school.
The council has also changed its existing transfer rules, essentially greenlighting a NCAA free agency market where undergraduate athletes are now immediately eligible if they meet academic requirements. They can transfer as often as they want if it is within the transfer windows. Athletes cannot transfer and play during the same season.
The proposed rule changes won’t be official until they are ratified by the NCAA Division I Board, which meets Monday.
The prior transfer rule allowed college athletes to be immediately eligible after one transfer and sit out a year or apply for a waiver if they transferred a second time. This decision gets rid of that rule.
Regarding NIL, some schools have compliance officers that help athletes. Larger universities that have NIL collectives, which operate separately from the school, had the collectives engage with athletes because the school wasn’t allowed to. Now colleges and universities are allowed to get involved.