The U.S. Department of Education has rescinded the Title IX guidance put in place by former President Joe Biden during the final days of his Administration.
During Biden’s final days in office, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance related to Title IX, stating that revenue-sharing payments from schools to athletes must be proportionately distributed to men and women.
On Wednesday, under the new Trump Administration, the Department of Education announced Biden’s “11th hour guidance” had been rescinded.
“The NIL guidance, rammed through by the Biden Administration in its final days, is overly burdensome, profoundly unfair, and it goes well beyond what agency guidance is intended to achieve,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
Trainor said that the Biden Administration claimed that NIL agreements between schools and student-athletes were akin to financial aid and therefore should be proportionately distributed to female and male student-athletes under Title IX.
However, he said that Title IX “says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student-athletes.”
“The claim that Title IX forces schools and colleges to distribute student-athlete revenues proportionately based on gender equity considerations is sweeping and would require clear legal authority to support it. That does not exist. Accordingly, the Biden NIL guidance is rescinded.”
With the new policy clarifying that Title IX does not mandate how revenue should be allocated, it opens the door for schools to prioritize revenue-generating sports like football and men’s basketball for compensation.
U.S. Representative Lori Trahan, a former Division I volleyball player at Georgetown, objected to the Trump Administration rescinding the OCR fact sheet.
College sports may change, but schools’ legal obligations under Title IX doesn’t.
If Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress won’t defend women’s sports, the courts will have to. https://t.co/MAZgkonPLl
— Lori Trahan (@RepLoriTrahan) February 12, 2025
“College sports may change, but schools’ legal obligations under Title IX doesn’t,” Trahan said in a statement. “If Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress won’t defend women’s sports, the courts will have to.”
As outlined by Sportico‘s Michael McCann, the counterview is that NIL rights are tied to an athlete’s unique identity, and intellectual property law protects that right by preventing companies from using someone’s identity for profit without their permission. NIL deals depend on an athlete’s marketability, meaning the big stars get lucrative deals and others get nothing. Title IX usually covers standardized benefits for student-athletes like tuition, housing and travel, but applying it to more individualized aspects of an athletes’ identity “could prove beyond its intended scope.”
I think it’s time for universities to spin off revenue-generating sports (Football, Men’s and Women’s Basketball, etc.) We should stop pretending that they are educational activities, and start treating them as the (for-profit) minor league sports businesses that they are.
This decision is tantamount to saying “collegiate athletes deserve to paid their market rate wage from NIL deals and revenue-sharing,” which (if we consider NIL and rev-share educational opportunities) is inconsistent with the idea that educational opportunities should be distributed equally to men and women.
Where is women’s basketball actually a revenue generating sport?
Almost everywhere.
Depends how you define revenue generating. Most people instinctively see this as synonymous with profit generating. You could make the argument a sport isn’t revenue generating if it’s running at a loss.
I really don’t know what to say about people who don’t know the difference between revenue and profit.
Yes, if you define “revenue” as “profit,” then it does depend on how you define “revenue,” I guess. But if I define “winning a swimming race” as “being the slowest,” I could be an NCAA Champion this year, know what I mean?
But to tidy it up with a stat that I think is interesting – the home NCAA Division II attendance leader in women’s basketball last season had a higher average attendance than the NCAA DI Swimming Championships will average per session. Rocks, glass houses, etc. etc.
If non-revenue generating sports bring in millions of dollars in revenues then why are they called non-revenue generating?
https://www.wakeforestlawreview.com/2024/04/the-memorandum-heard-around-the-college-athletics-world-why-student-athletes-in-non-revenue-generating-sports-should-not-enjoy-the-status-of-employee-under-the-nlra/#:~:text=The%20second%20category%20is%20non,baseball%2C%20soccer%2C%20and%20swimming.
https://www.jmco.com/articles/collegiate-athletics-webinars/misconception-of-revenue-generation/
I’m curious to hear Braden’s response
“In 2021, Notre Dame reported a combined revenue from men’s basketball and football of $91,563,855, offset by $48,630,144 in expenses, resulting in a net profit of $42,933,711.[107] In all other sports, the revenue generated amassed to a mere $4,436,705 while accruing $33,132,089 in expenses, resulting in a net loss of $28,695,384”
Why are the “other” sports defined as “non-revenue generating” when they brought in $4.4mil in revenue?
What is it about them that would cause them to be classified as “non-revenue generating”?
See Wakeforestlawreview link
As stated above, in this case “revenue generating sports” are in fact only ones that make a profit. So I think your answer is wrong Braden, and you should apologize for being snarky.
https://www.jmco.com/articles/collegiate-athletics-webinars/misconception-of-revenue-generation/
That is not what that article says at all, unless, again, you’re defining “revenue” as “profit,” which the article does not argue in favor of. The article, in fact, leads with a description of “revenue generating sports is not the same as profit-generating sports” (paraphrased).
So the confusion can be explained simply here. The revenue generating sports are ones that make a profit and generate revenue “for the university”.
The fact that a swim meet sells tickets is revenue for the swim team, yes. But if that income is offset by expenses, then they do not generate revenue for the University. So they are non revenue generating teams.
So Braden, I think these questions are very valid because there is kind of a difference in the “definition of revenue.” The definition used here is not just generating revenue for the team in any small amount. It’s team profits that turn in to revenue for the school.
https://www.jmco.com/articles/collegiate-athletics-webinars/misconception-of-revenue-generation/
A Banana Republic, if you can keep it.
America and Felon 47 will provide endless entertainment for the rest of the world in the next 4 years.
There seems to be confusion in this article between the concept of revenue-sharing and NIL. They are two different things. NIL deals are specific to individual student athletes—offering the individual money in exchange for the use of his or her name, image and likeness. I’m quite sure that the Biden administration guidance pertained only two revenue-sharing–not NIL. Sharking NIL money would not make sense and clearly invite legal challenges.
Revenue-sharing involves how each university that agrees to the House settlement plans to divvy up the roughly $21 million annually (to be adjusted each year) that must be allocated to all its student-athletes, in toto. I believe that, under the agreement, which I don’t think has been completely finalized, schools… Read more »
I’ve never had a problem with TITLE IX and women’s sports.
However, NIL is a separate deal. Let the athletes who CAN make money, actually MAKE money.
Capitalism is a glorious thing, even in American sports, male and female.
I *think* the middle ground will be to enforce Title IX equality on the School collectives.
The Libertarian in me says why is the federal government involved with NIL? Why is NIL being attached to Title IX? Keep the government out and let it play out at universities. My 2 cents
This is harsh and it’s not directed at you personally –
Is “Libertarianism” not essentially “I am a liberal, but I want to pat myself on the back that my beliefs somehow are unrelated to current governance and societies problems”?
American politics has devolved into meaningless newspeak which all just seems to be ways for people to deflect responsibility and accountability – according to politicians it seems no one (unless it’s politically advantageous to point a finger in a specific direction which usually changes in a single 24 hour news cycle) has been governing this country since Nixon resigned.
Again – not personally attacking you – just reflecting on whatever label you want to give the mess… Read more »
Libertarianism is the belief that while there are legitimate purposes for government, overreach is a major concern and there should be minimal intervention in the lives of the citizens. It’s an oversimplification, but a typical libertarian set of viewpoints would be to agree with classical conservatives (think Milton Friedman, whose takes are different from both modern Democrats and modern Republicans) on regulation of taxes and the business environment and would agree with moderate liberals on social issues. It’s kind of a “live and let live, but maintain enough structure that things don’t devolve into chaos” philosophy.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
A solution that would make everyone happy would just be Football, Men’s and Women’s basketball and women’s gymnastics getting the lion’s share of revenue sharing and other sports just simply operating as they always have.
Maybe that’s unrealistic, but the idea of “revenue sharing” for any sports that don’t generate revenue seems a little bit ridiculous.
This is why I keep saying that the only thing that will solve the problem is congressional intervention.
The law doesn’t contemplate which employees make money and which ones don’t, for obvious reasons. You don’t get to pay your HR & payroll folks below minimum wage because business development brings in all the revenue.
There will always be a lawyer who will be able to push the “all athletes” case in front of the judges to grow the class and increase the fees. You will never be able to completely work that out of the system. So until there’s a carevout in the law, it’s always going to be “all athletes”.
The thing is HR and Payroll actually provide value to the organization from an efficiency standpoint.
This argument would apply more to the idea of not shrinking athletic administration because players are getting paid.
I love swimming, but swimmers do not make an athletic department more efficient in spite of not making money like your HR / Payroll example.
I very much doubt that this idea would make “everyone happy.”
Non-revenue sports going on basically unaffected would be the best case scenario.
If by everyone you mean University Administrators that just look at non revenue sports as a money pit then I agree with you. I don’t care about those people at all.
Women’s basketball and women’s gymnastics? You think those are “revenue generating”?
I’d love to hear the opinion of a coach or participant who is outspoken about protecting women’s sports by barring transgender athletes but somehow is ok with this, too
Your ignorance is astounding.
I’m ok with it….
Here we go again. The rules have been changed on trans in sports but this is always brought up like we are having a large influx of males in women’s sports. I have coached over 10k athletes and had zero trans and 4 adults come out as gay. That is not a high %. Also as a woman who qualified for DGWS and was not allowed to participate from Syracuse university it’s not all fair ind even in women’s sports!!!!
The head of NCAA testified in Congressional hearing that there are 510,000 athletes in NCAA and only 10 are trans athletes. A whopping ..002%
Guess the Congresswoman is upset she wasn’t invited to the White House for the signing last week …
“If Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress won’t defend women’s sports, the courts will have to.”
She does realize the equal part goes both ways, toss out football and most of the NCAA stars are women not men
If we are calling a star anyone that makes at least 250k from NIL (arbitrary number for a healthy amount of money). I genuinely don’t think the amount of women’s stars and men’s stars outside of football combined equals the amount football has.