Mississippi colleges look to adapt in new era of athlete compensation

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) – Changes to transfer rules and NIL laws have shifted the way college football rosters will look for seasons to come.

WLOX Sports Anchor Matt Degregorio spoke with Yahoo Sports Senior College Football Reporter Ross Dellenger about the financial effects for the NCAA member institutions and athletes moving forward.

College sports fans have spent the past three seasons trying to understand the ins and outs of both the transfer portal and NIL along with the impact each one has on their favorite programs. During that time, major lawsuits including the House v. NCAA were taking place in court to determine if, when, and how college athletes will be compensated.

Dellenger, a Mississippi Gulf Coast native and Mercy Cross High School graduate, has followed these changes in the NCAA at a national level for the past six years.

“NIL is about three years old,” he explains. “It was started from the state level. State lawmakers said what the courts are saying now, you need to compensate athletes. So, the NCAA lifted its rule, allowing athletes to earn compensation on their name, image, and likeness — NIL — and now we’re onto the next evolution with the NCAA and power conferences trying to settle these lawsuits. Along with that settlement is basically a revenue sharing concept so they will begin to share a certain portion of their revenue with college athletes.”

With schools set to have the ability to pay athletes out of pocket, one question comes to mind: How will Power 5 schools like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and LSU share revenue with their athletes?

“We don’t really know yet,” said Dellenger. “Each school will have its own discretion, but as part of the settlement, they’ll have to share 22% of their revenues at the power conference level. It’s an average power conference revenue number that they generate and they’ll have to share 22% of that. It ends up coming out to the low 20 millions. Bottom line is each school will share around $20-23 million a year with their athletes. They’ll be permitted to that. They don’t have to. They’re not required to.”

Power 5 schools, especially in the Big 10 and SEC, are expected to spend to the limit allowed — but what does the revenue-sharing change look like for Group of 5 schools such as Southern Miss?

“A school like Southern Miss almost certainly will not,” he claims. “In fact, I can’t imagine Southern Miss being able to afford to share much revenue with athletes at all. I think they will, but it will be a small portion probably just like it is now. In the world of NIL now, those Group of 5 programs average around $1-2 million that their NIL programs generate for their rosters. You look at power conference schools — like an Ole Miss, for instance — generating 8, 10, 12 million dollars a year for their roster. It will equate to probably the same in the revenue-sharing world. You’re going to have schools, especially Group of 5, C-USA, Sun Belt, that are not being able to afford to share revenue with athletes.”

Schools will not be paying their athletes directly for the upcoming season, so what does the timetable look like?

“All of this is on a delay,” Dellenger concludes. “It’s not going to be implemented immediately. The settlement isn’t even finalized. It should be by early next year, by January or February of next year. It will be implemented next August, probably the Fall semester of 2025 schools will be permitted to be able to pay athletes directly.”

Next summer will certainly be interesting as the transfer portal has the potential to look even more like NFL free agency.

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