The NCAA will distribute millions of dollars in March Madness money to member schools as a reward for academic performance by athletes, starting in 2019-20.
The NCAA announced Thursday that the Division I Board of Directors and NCAA Board of Governors approved the change to the revenue distribution model. The money will come from the NCAA’s multimedia rights deal for the men’s basketball tournament.
The NCAA agreed to an eight-year extension of that contract with CBS and Turner this year. The agreement now runs through 2032 and ups payment to the NCAA to about $1.1 billion per year, an increase of about $330 million annually. For the first six years of the new distribution, 75 percent of the increase in rights fees will be used to create academic distribution units similar to the units that are earned by conferences based on team performance in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.
After the first six years, the NCAA said, the percentage of growth allocated to the academic unit will equal the percentage applied to all other distributions.
“The creation of an academic distribution unit underscores the NCAA’s commitment to putting its money where its mission is – with students,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement.
Academic units will be awarded to schools that earn:
The academic unit revenue, like athletic performance units revenue, will be paid to a conference and distributed in a manner agreed upon by its members.
