NCAA member schools vote to ratify new streamlined constitution

3:20 PM

NCAA members voted Thursday to approve a new version of the association's constitution.

The motion passed with 80.4% of members voting in favor, which is expected to pave the way for the first part of a two-step process to significantly reduce the responsibility of the association's national office and to change rules at all levels of college sports during one of the most tumultuous times The NCAA's three divisions will begin revising or creating their own rules to align with the fundamental principles of the new constitution.

"This needs to be a declaration that we know that we're going to think afresh about college sports in the coming months," NCAA president Mark Emmert said shortly before the vote.

The new NCAA constitution is designed to simplify what many college sports leaders have called a complex and outdated rulebook. The board of governors is shrunk from 20 members to nine to ensure that athletes have a bigger say in the future of the NCAA.

After a summer in which politicians and Supreme Court justices questioned the NCAA's claims that it is unique and distinct from professional sports, administrators and committee members wanted to make sure the NCAA's focus on the "primacy of the academic experience" remained.

Are we spending our resources in a way that emphasizes our core values and helps as many students as we can? He asked during his address. "That's what's driving frustration and anger both inside and outside college sports, and that's what puts the whole enterprise at serious risk."

The new constitution states that college athletes should not be paid directly by their schools for athletic participation, but leaves it up to each division to decide what education-related benefits that athletes can receive from their schools and how athletes can make money from other sources by selling the rights to their own names.

The groups in charge of sorting through those specifics and writing new rules met this week during the NCAA's annual convention in Indianapolis and are expected to complete their work by August.

The Division I Transformation Committee will meet on a weekly basis for the next seven months to work through the details of its new rules. They will be tasked with finding a way to curb escalating and competitive spending that has called college sports' amateur status into question while also avoiding any nationwide rules that could be challenged by antitrust lawsuits.

The major reorganization was rushed to help Division I schools, which generate the majority of revenue for the NCAA, according to Dissent from Division II and Division III members. The new constitution was described as "Band-Aids on the unclothed emperor" by those who spoke out against it. The financial model that distributes more than 90% of the NCAA's revenue to Division I schools was objected to by members of Division II and Division III.

Today's expected vote was a "big shift moment" for college sports, according to NCAA President Mark Emmert, who spoke remotely before Thursday's vote and did not take questions from reporters.

"This is something we have to embrace," he said. We have to do it now.