Athletic Director Tom Michael said Eastern Illinois has not yet decided whether it will opt into the NCAA House settlement ahead of Monday’s deadline.
Michael said the university was initially planning to opt out, largely due to concerns about how the settlement’s roster caps could impact opportunities for student-athletes. But the recent inclusion of a grandfather clause will allow schools to keep existing athletes on teams exceeding the new roster limits.
“We originally were not going to, and then with the new parameters around the settlement, it might be advantageous for us to do that,” Michael said. “So that’s what we’re trying to determine right now.”
Whether they opt in or not, the athletic department will face long-term financial implications.
Michael said the university is anticipating losing between $260,000 and $270,000 in NCAA funding per year over the next decade, which will compensate athletes who were denied the opportunity to profit from name, image and likeness (NIL) before rules changed in 2021. The exact amount isn’t final, but it will be the same as all other FCS teams – and EIU is already preparing for the losses.
“That’s what we continue to work on with the president [Jay Gatrell], with VP [Matt] Bierman, with the department trying to figure out how we can reduce our costs to make up for some of that lost revenue,” Michael said.
One way EIU has already prepared: by cutting its men’s and women’s tennis programs.
The settlement also enables schools to share revenue with athletes. Michael said they are open to the opportunity but would not use university dollars to do so.
“It’s an opportunity for us, and we have to be creative in the current environment that we’re in,” Michael said. “It’s not gonna be university dollar that we use to rev-share with our students. It’s going to have to be outside dollars that we bring into the institution.”
The settlement also gets rid of the NCAA scholarship caps, but Michael said Eastern does not plan on adding more scholarship money to any program at this time. If EIU opts out, the university would still be under the current NCAA scholarship caps.
Michael anticipates some Ohio Valley Conference programs will increase their spending. A few were already at the NCAA’s maximum scholarship limits, and now with the ability to expand to the full roster limit, he expects they’ll increase even more. He mentioned that there will always be different spending levels across leagues.
“Just because you spend the most doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to have success,” he said. “Everybody is trying to figure out how to get the biggest bang for your buck.”
Michael said scholarship equity has always been an issue.
“We are fully-funded in some sports but we are not in many as well,” he said. “We have dealt with that in different ways. Though, to this point, there has not been a significant discrepancy but that could change with the new outcomes.”
On the other side of the spectrum, Michael anticipates there may be one or two OVC teams that don’t opt in this year. But most will, he believes.
Opting out would also mean the school would not be protected by the settlement’s legal release, which shields participating schools from further legal action related to past athlete compensation claims, so athletes or attorneys could pursue new antitrust claims against that individual school.
