(NewsNation) — NCAA president Charlie Baker has proposed a system to pay a subsect of Division I athletes through a trust fund and name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments, according to a report published Tuesday by The Athletic.
Baker’s proposal includes the creation of a Division I subdivision for “high-resource” schools and an “enhanced educational trust fund.” Schools would be required to invest at least $30,000 annually per athlete for at least half the eligible student-athletes, according to The Athletic, which obtained a copy of the proposal.
The subdivision would create its own rules concerning NIL, scholarship limits, roster size and transfers.
According to The Athletic, Division I schools would additionally be allowed to enter into direct NIL agreements with their athletes and no caps would be applied to schools’ distribution of athlete funding for educational benefits.
The NCAA lifted its ban on NIL compensation in 2021. Since then, at least 28 states have passed their own laws to address the issue, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Earlier this summer, Baker called a federal law to regulate how college athletes are compensated for endorsement deals.