National Signing Day at your local high school may look a little different this year. The same pomp and circumstances will encompass the day: family and friends surrounding the athlete as they declare where they plan to begin their collegiate journey with a game of “hat roulette.” Yet one major difference on the horizon: student-athletes will no longer be signing a National Letter of Intent (NLI).[2] On October 9th, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I Council approved the elimination of the NLI.[3] This shift comes on the heels of the preliminary approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, which would allow schools to opt into a revenue sharing program that would pay student-athletes up to $22 million annually.[4]
Background
Established in 1964, the NLI program was governed by the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA), while the NCAA managed the daily operations of the program.[5] The NLI was a binding agreement between the prospective student-athlete and its future school.[6] This agreement required the student-athlete to attend their institution for one academic year, while in return the institution agreed to pay the student-athlete their agreed upon athletic aid for that full academic year.[7] Once a student-athlete signed their NLI, other schools were prohibited from recruiting them.[8]Whether schools adhered to that rule, is up for debate.[9]
The goal of this program was to provide structure and security in recruiting, something that has gone to the wayside in recent years.[10] The October 9th Division I Council meeting allowed them to agree upon transitioning the NIL program into the NCAA’s signing and recruiting rules and step away from the CCA’s purview.[11] It was then when they decided to scrap the NLI program all together.[12]
What Changes
In place of the traditional NLI agreements, financial aid and scholarship agreements are expected to replace it.[13] These agreements are not entirely new.[14] This change hopes to streamline the process between the student-athlete and the school.[15] The recruiting stipulations appear to remain the same as well.[16] Once you sign a grant-of-aid agreement, other schools are no longer allowed to speak with you.[17] What changes is the increased flexibility for student-athletes and schools to navigate this process.[18] While these aid agreements are as binding as the NLIs were, there is no longer the same strict time commitment attached to it.[19]
With the freedom of the transfer portal currently available to college athletics, the rigid structure of the NLI program no longer made sense.[20] Getting out of a NLI was a long process that required a release agreement from your institution accompanied by possible penalties, such as sitting out a semester.[21] With the only tie between student-athletes and their prospective institutions being an aid agreement, severance of the agreement has become much easier.[22]
There is not much preventing larger schools from poaching away smaller school’s recruits, even once an aid agreement is signed. It is foolish to believe there is no concern over player tampering once these agreements are signed.[23] Smaller schools may be hurt the most by this decision as larger revenue-generating programs will be able to navigate these changes more efficiently.[24]
Transfers
Perhaps the greatest effect of this change will be seen in transfers.[25] Under the previous system, transfers typically did not sign NLIs.[26] They signed similar aid agreements as all athletes will now sign.[27] However, they were not restricted from communicating with other schools once they signed their aid agreement.[28]
With the new system, after a transfer signs an aid agreement, other schools will be prohibited from communicating with that student-athlete.[29] This is meant to bind these transfers to these institutions and limit multi-time commits in the transfer portal.[30] It is ironic to see the NCAA looking to restrict transfers, something they had moved away from doing in recent years, while at the same time looking to offer more flexibility to high school commits.[31]
Future Outlook
On the surface, this change doesn’t seem to alter much. However, this is just another domino falling in the overhaul of collegiate athletics. The NLI was holding on as one of the last remaining pieces of the NCAA’s amateurism model.[32] As the NCAA continues to seek to pick up the pieces and organize the current chaos of its athletics model, student-athletes are gaining more freedom and flexibility by the day.[33] There is no question of that with revenue-sharing staring the NCAA down by the day.[34] There needed to be a change.[35]
We have already seen what can happen when there are disagreements regarding student-athlete compensation (come on down Matthew Sluka).[36] These new agreements between schools and student-athletes can lay out in detail their expected compensation.[37] Student-athletes are going to need to be careful with these new-age agreements.[38]Institutions are going to be sure to have a few tricks up their sleeve and without the proper legal representation looking over their agreements, there will more than likely be a few loopholes down the road.[39] This is just another reflection of student-athletes transitioning closer to the world of professional sports.[40] Early National Signing Day is scheduled for December 4th.[41] What that day will look like this year remains to be seen.
Joe Messina (guest writer) is a 2L at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. He is a member of the Sports Law Concentration and the Baseball Negotiation Team. As a former college baseball player at both La Salle University and West Chester University, he is interested in the field of sports law and hopes to work one day either representing athletes or working in a MLB front office.
References:
[1] Brewster Academy, National Letter of Intent Day, November 2020, Flickr (Nov. 11, 2020)
[2] Pete Nakos, NCAA eliminating National Letter of Intent (Oct. 9, 2024), On3, https://www.on3.com/news/ncaa-announces-elimination-national-letter-of-intent-nli/
[3] Id.
[4] Jonathan D. Wohlwend, Taking It to the House: Preliminary Approval of Settlement in House v. NCAA Could Bring Significant Changes to College Sports (Oct. 15, 2024), National Law Review, https://natlawreview.com/article/taking-it-house-preliminary-approval-settlement-house-v-ncaa-could-bring
[5] About the National Letter of Intent, National Letter of Intent, http://www.nationalletter.org/aboutTheNli/index.html
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Sportse Media, NCAA Eliminates National Letter of Intent: What It Means for College Sports (Oct. 9, 2024), SportsEntrepreneur, https://sportsepreneur.com/ncaa-eliminates-national-letter-of-intent-college-sports/
[10] Id.
[11] Meghan Durham Wright, DI Council approves changes to notification-of-transfer windows in basketball, football (Oct. 9, 2024), NCAA, https://www.ncaa.org/news/2024/10/9/media-center-di-council-approves-changes-to-notification-of-transfer-windows-in-basketball-football.aspx
[12] Id.
[13] See, Nakos, supra note 1
[14] Chris Hummer, What to know about NCAA's NLI elimination, from if National Signing Day will continue to major transfer impact (Oct. 10, 2024), 247 Sports, https://247sports.com/article/what-to-know-about-ncaas-nli-elimination-from-if-national-signing-day-will-continue-to-major-transfer-impact-237747594/
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] See, Sportse Media, supra note 8
[19] Id.
[20] See, Hummer, supra note 13
[21] Id.
[22] Id.
[23] See, Sportse Media, supra note 8
[24] Id.
[25] See, Wright, supra note 10
[26] See, Hummer, supra note 13
[27] Id.
[28] Id.
[29] See, Wright, supra note 10
[30] See, Hummer, supra note 13
[31] Id.
[32] See, Sportse Media, supra note 8
[33] Id.
[34] See, Nakos, supra note 1
[35] Id.
[36] Michael McCann, UNLV’S QB Dispute Over NIL is a New Twist on an Old Principle (Sept. 14, 2024), Sportico, https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2024/matthew-sluka-unlv-nil-contract-1234798711/
[37] See, Nakos, supra note 1
[38] See, Sportse Media, supra note 8
[39] Id.
[40] Id.
[41] Hunter Shelton, Insider explains what's next for recruiting following elimination of National Letter of Intent (Oct. 9, 2024), On3, https://www.on3.com/news/insider-explains-whats-next-for-recruiting-followiing-elimination-of-national-letter-of-intent/
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