WCU grapples with cost, resources amid changes in NCAA policy
WCU’s $15 million allotted to sports ranks ‘towards the bottom’ of the Southern Conference.
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For decades, college athletes generated millions of dollars in revenue for universities in exchange for a full tuition scholarship, at best. But a series of lawsuits beginning in the late 2000s — and a cultural shift toward athlete equity — paved the way for a monumental National Collegiate Athletic Association decision. The policy change, effective July 1, 2021, allowed these players to profit from any promotional use of their name, image and likeness, known as NIL, in company marketing.
However, the legal challenges didn’t stop when the NCAA permitted NIL deals with external brands and sponsors. In the landmark House v. NCAA lawsuit earlier this year, the organization went to court over what the plaintiffs argued was pay retroactively owed to qualifying pre-2021 athletes.
The dispute was resolved in a nearly $2.8 billion settlement divided among the 319 participating Division I universities. And it resulted in a series of policies — including the creation of a College Sports Commission to oversee all deals over $600 — affecting far more than simply backend profit.
While NIL partnerships were previously third-party territory, presiding Judge Claudia Wilkens permitted universities to engage in revenue sharing agreements. This meant on July 1, schools opting in to the settlement would begin paying their athletes up to $20.5 million for NIL usage.
Technical and multifaceted, the outcome of House v. NCAA has drastically shifted the collegiate athletic landscape in Western North Carolina.
A Dec. 11 board of trustees’ advancement and athletics subcommittee meeting revealed that Western Carolina University, having opted into the settlement, is responsible for payments totaling $270,000. At the same time, the Cullowhee institution is still grappling with July-mandated revenue sharing agreements and roster limits — and the potential implications of each policy.
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Revenue shares not created equal
The initial $20.5 million revenue share cap per institution is meant to mitigate university over-expenditures in hopes of securing a competitive advantage. But with an athletic budget of less than 75% of the settlement’s limit, WCU seems to be struggling with the opposite problem.
At the Dec. 11 meeting, Director of Athletics Kyle Pifer said WCU’s $15 million allotted to sports ranks “towards the bottom” of the Southern Conference.
When it comes revenue sharing, the university currently pays nine athletes a total of $213,000 — nowhere near the likes of $1 million, let alone $20.5. That puts the school at a disadvantage with any recruits looking to maximize athletic deals, payment and resources. Schools from the “power four” athletic conferences, on average, pay their athletes a total of $20.5 million. Mid-major schools spend, on average, $3.3 million. FCS schools give just over $929,000 total, schools without football about $570,000.
But WCU isn’t completely out of options.
Travis Chandler, assistant athletics director for compliance, teamed up with Pifer to discuss a few creative mechanisms the university has used to keep its top players. Chandler mentioned the practice of “not paying [athletes] in full up front,” adding that “they have obligations as an athlete and representing our institution.”
Pifer explained that retention strategy can be influenced by academic timing.
Football spans only one semester, he said, but “we want [football players] to pass classes be eligible. We’ll pay them some after that happens in December.”
He added that while basketball “goes over” two semesters, “the transfer portal opens in March, and so we have payments in April and May that they will receive if they do not go into the portal … So, we put some incentive there for them to stay.”
Roster and conference changes
The House settlement instated equivalent roster limits across all Division I conferences — likely reducing or eliminating walk-ons — while axing athlete scholarship restrictions. Conferences were free to further those limits or retain old regulations, provided that each policy followed NCAA guidelines.
“Even though the House settlement says we can have 105 [football players] and our roster limits 105 as a Southern Conference, we can only have 63 student athlete equivalencies,” Chandler told the audience.
SoCon, he explained, has chosen to “retain scholarship limits in old legislation.”
This conference-level policy was perhaps implemented to prevent member schools — smaller, non-flagship, with modestly-funded athletic budgets — from bankrupting the program through the provision of scholarships.
Indeed, financial capacity varies wildly among schools of different Division I conferences, and analysts have noted an increasing disparity in conference-based revenue.
In a Sept. 10 press release, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation reported that, when comparing power four schools and those of all other conferences, “a revenue gap that was approximately $6 million per school per year in 2002, has grown to over $43 million per school per year in 2023.”
The release also noted that TV media deals provide excessive financial gains for top schools in power conferences.
Plus, roster restrictions mean well-resourced schools will be pickier about who they select — which might facilitate transfer portal usage among talented players from lower ranked conferences.
“Are [top athletics schools] going to groom an 18-year-old when they can go find a 20- to 21-year-old that’s been molded already and experienced?” Chavis rhetorically posed to the audience.
“The shifts in retention and recruiting are changing,” he added.
And the rapidly evolving college athletic landscape affects more than coaches and athletes. A strong program enhances student feelings of belonging, boosts name recognition of the university and encourages alumni engagement.
Then there’s the ‘Flutie Effect’ — the spike in applications to a university driven by a major success of its sports team.
A 2014 Higher Ed Dive article reported that at the University of Florida, “it was estimated that the back-to-back victories [in 2006 and 2007 March Madness] were responsible for 1,805 of 2,286 new applicants, or roughly 79%.”
Equity concerns
Many advocates praise NIL policy for ending an era in which unpaid talent generated millions of dollars for coaches, universities and administrators. Some critics argue that while NIL deals represent a first step, they’re far from equitable or fairly distributed.
And it’ll be difficult to ascertain the specifics of NIL deals moving forward, at least those existing among public universities in North Carolina. The state passed a law shielding all public university-maintained NIL contracts from public records requests just a week shy of the House v. NCAA settlement.
It’s clear, however, that universities tend to give the best packages to athletes that generate the most revenue — meaning deals are skewed heavily toward men who play certain sports. For example, of the $213,000 in WCU revenue shares, about $200,000 is entirely devoted to men’s basketball. That means the money is monopolized by a single sport — and a single gender. And this isn’t just a WCU problem; it’s the reality of paying college athletes.
Power four schools, for example, spend an average of 75% of revenue shares on football, 15% on men’s basketball, and 10% on everything else — including women’s sports.
American University’s Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law reported that “as of 2024, schools that provided NIL data shared that men out-earned women $92 million to $19 million.”
The Biden administration’s January 2025 declaration that NIL third party payments were subject to Title IX policies — and thus must be equitably distributed — was an attempt to level the playing field. Trump’s Department of Education reversed it the next month. Furthermore, Judge Wilkens initially held that Title IX did not apply to the $2.8 billion backend payments, and on Nov. 13, overruled Title IX objections pertaining to House on the grounds that the court lacked the ability to modify the settlement or its provisions.
She did, however, leave room for future lawsuits challenging school-specific Title IX violations.
