Ivy League opting out of NCAA settlement

kids that pick ivy league schools do so because of how lucrative it can be after you graduate, not how lucrative it is while you are there. This doesn't change anything.

Not all of them. There have been many transfers of top athletes for given teams to increase their exposure for pro sports contracts or better NIL deals (mainly basketball and football athletes, not so much for TF/XC)

Here are 2 examples they used in this article:

junior WR (2 years of eligibility remaining) transfers to Duke after getting his degree in only 3 years - seeking better NFL and NIL opportunities

basketball player went to Stanford for better NIL

Can you blame either? Academics are basically equivalent at all, and the former (very slightly weaker) will have already gotten his degree - just going for a grad degree with 2 years there (instead of 1 if he stayed).

Here's University of Pennsylvania's version of the announcement. Their article features more direct quotes from current or recently graduated athletes who are more critical of the decision (including Bella Whittaker, All-American in 400m last year who is using remaining eligibility at Arkansas now):

thedp.com

Ivy League set to opt out of House v. NCAA antitrust settlement

Valeri Guevarra, Sean McKeown

An email from Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris stated that the Ivy League student-athletes will continue to not receive shared revenue or direct N.I.L. payments from their universities

Link:www.thedp.com/article/2025/01/ivy-leag...

I'm very curious to see what she thinks she deserves vs what she's actually worth. Somehow I think she believes she's worth near 6 figures per year, while she's probably not even $10,000.

Your examples are not Ivy league schools.

Within Ivy league there are no athletic scholarships, no fake booster collective NIL, and very few incoming transfer athletes. Admittance even more difficult for transfers and many credits will not be accepted.

This is why smart kids who are good athletes pick Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt over the Ivies.

Athlete who chooses Ivy either 1- qualified for need based financial aid, or 2- has funds available to pay full price.

It won’t really affect our sports at all.

I do think a bubble is coming with NIL across the board. Rich people don’t like giving money away for zero return. It is exciting right now but I think the collectives will start fading out

Her quote sounds a bit smug. It wasn't just her - she was part of a talented recruiting class that did well within the conference:

“As a former student-athlete who has single-handedly helped to uplift the Penn program, I am extremely disappointed,” Whittaker, a 2024 College graduate, said in a written statement to the DP. “Ivy League schools are under the impression that they can take, use, and reuse their athletes and give them nothing in return.”

Sorry, I actually misunderstood your post.

Note in your examples that both kids complete their Ivy degree before they transfer. You cannot compete in ncaa sports in the Ivy league as a grad student, so the main reason these kids transfer is because only way they can keep playing is to transfer.

The Ivy league would see this as a huge positive not a loss.

"Ivy athlete completes bachelors degree and will now attend top research university for masters degree!"

Transferring out of any school after completing bachelors to use eligibility in grad school is generally viewed as a positive everywhere, even by coaches.

What pisses people off is athletes transferring out as underclassmen, but hey that's the new world.

a conference with 8 schools and that sponsors 16 sports each for men and women and they are able to list only a small handful of names of people that transferred from the ivy league before getting their degree? Go check how many kids are transferring out of the big time athletics schools and conferences every year and get back to me.

Thanks for this. I read that quote yesterday and it bothered me a bit but didn't get into thinking why so your post got me thinking about the quote and this whole issue again. For decades really I've seen these comments about how college athletes make millions for their schools and get "nothing in return."

They get a college education in return. That's not nothing no matter the school and it certainly isn't nothing if it's from an Ivy school. Maybe it's not as much compensation as some athletes deserve but it isn't nothing. Ask a thirty year old who's been paying back a student loan for nine years, has paid more than s/he borrowed, and still owes more than they borrowed if an athletic scholarship is nothing. Her quote to me might seem appropriate from a Nineteenth Century coal miner but if she felt like Penn was exploiting her she could have quit team.

A 400 meter runner is getting an excellent return on what she does for the school if she is getting anything at all in terms of scholarship or financial aid. Uplift the penn program? To what?

Big time football and basketball players who were denied the chance to make money off their name image and likeness while they briefly held the nations attention are the ones who get screwed over. Johnny Manziel has a right to complain, Isabelle whitaker does not.

This ^. She's arguing the Ivy League should be opting into revenue sharing with athletes?

What revenue? Seriously, I guess Penn Relays makes some dough, but what Ivy League athletic programs are bringing in serious revenue that isn't instantly eaten up by the cost of coaches salaries, team travel, etc across all the sports? I'm not sure Isabella understands that there isn't actually excess revenue to go around, so all opting in would do would be to implement roster limits.

I Whitaker did not get an athletic scholarship to attend Penn.

My guess would be that her family did qualify for generous need based financial aid.

Penn of course did cover her training, gear, nutrition, healthcare and travel, while she was on the team.

Her sister J Whitaker chose to attend Stanford on a full athletic scholarship. That was worth $400,000 at today's rate.

"They get a college education in return" may be true elsewhere doesn't applies to the Ivies, which do not award athletic scholarships and haven't since the 1950s.

It is 100% already affecting our sport

One clarification. Stanford had the same need based financial aid so her sister likely got a tiny athletic scholarship to supplement the discount.

If an Ivy League school wants an athlete and that athlete doesn't go to that particular school it's never because the athlete can't afford to go. I used to know a coach at a D1 school in the Boston area. He had scholarships but he said when he wanted a kid Harvard really wanted he could never match the package Harvard offered.

Despite what people like to make up on this message board, this simply isn't true for track/xc at Ivy League schools. Athletes don't get any more need-based financial aid than if they weren't athletes - these schools have a formula for need-based financial aid that applies to all students the same. The need-based financial aid can be very generous, but it just depends on how much money your parents have, not how much a coach wants you on the team.