Chip Scoggins: Guidelines for spending money for athletes lack consensus

By this time next year, the Gophers athletic department likely will be able to put an additional $2,200 into the pockets of athletes on a full-ride scholarship.

Athletes at rival Wisconsin will receive nearly double that amount.

Sounds odd, right?

That discrepancy, caused by cost-of-living calculations for students in Twin Cities and Madison, underscores the uncertainty among schools in the NCAA's five major conferences over how a landmark proposal will work in their new governance structure.

Those 65 schools — the so-called Power 5 — are seeking new guidelines that better serve their big-school interests and provide more benefits to their big-time athletes.

These conferences submitted their list of proposals to the NCAA this past week. Their top priority is to provide athletes spending money in addition to their scholarships, making them "full cost of attendance" scholarships.

This measure is long overdue. College sports generate billions in revenue, but the NCAA has resisted changes to its amateurism model.

Here's a primer on the seismic changes coming to college athletics:

The NCAA defines a full-ride scholarship as tuition, room, board, books and fees. It doesn't cover personal expenses such as transportation and entertainment. Individual schools — not athletic departments — establish their own cost-of-attendance (COA) figure, which is part of the financial aid package for all students.

The "gap" between a full scholarship and COA for the 65 schools ranges from $1,200 to $6,200 per year. That's a sizable difference between schools with similar interests. So what is the answer?

Some suggest that the Power 5 should establish a flat COA rate for every school. That seems unrealistic. That many schools couldn't agree on a time for lunch, much less satisfy everyone's financial desires.

Think about it: If they set the dollar amount at, say, $3,000, that figure would far exceed or fall short of the COA set by many of those schools. The more likely scenario is that each school sticks with its own COA number. But that's not perfect, either.

So here's a hypothetical: Minnesota and Wisconsin recruit the same kid in football. But the Badgers can offer that recruit nearly twice as much money per year for living expenses.

Think Jerry Kill will like that?

Some suggest that full-cost-of-attendance money should be made available only to athletes in head-count sports — teams that offer full-ride scholarships. The Gophers have six head-count sports: football, men's and women's basketball, volleyball, women's soccer and women's tennis.

Good luck telling legendary wrestling coach J Robinson that his wrestlers won't get any money but women's tennis will. Not going to happen.

College administrators believe the Power 5 will reach a consensus on this issue, and that the likely scenario is that athletes who receive partial (equivalency) scholarships also will receive a percentage of the full-cost figure.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby sounded a fiscal alarm at his league's media day in July. Bowlsby warned that schools of lesser means will be forced to eliminate some men's Olympic sports to afford these new costs.

"In the end, it's a somewhat zero sum game," Bowlsby said. "There's only so much money out there. I don't think coaches and athletic directors are likely going to take pay cuts. I think that train's left the station. I think over a period of time what we'll find is that instead of keeping a tennis program, they're going to do the things that it takes to keep the football and men's and women's basketball programs strong."

Myriad lawsuits against the NCAA further complicate matters, the Ed O'Bannon case in particular. In a blow to the NCAA, a federal judge ruled in August that football and men's basketball players should be compensated for the use of their names, image and likeness.

The judge set a cap of $5,000 per year that would be put into a trust. That means, at each of these big schools, the 85 football players and the 13 men's basketball players could collect $20,000 once they've completed their four-year eligibility. Legal appeals and possible Title IX challenges could delay the impact of this ruling for years, but it looms as another huge expense for these schools. The totality of lawsuits, combined with full cost of attendance expenses, would strain athletic departments' finances.

The Big Ten sent the NCAA other proposals, including guaranteed multiyear scholarships, improved health insurance and a pledge to make scholarships available for life so that athletes who leave school for a pro career can return later to finish their education.

Administrators say that a proposal for improved medical insurance needs more vetting to determine what that entails.

The intent is clear, though. Schools in major conferences feel compelled to do more for their athletes. That's the right thing to do. Now they just have to figure out how to make it all work.