<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4GFT6W_0w2G8AaT00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4GFT6W_0w2G8AaT00" width="1920" height="1084" ><figcaption>Back on Beacon Hill, former Gov. Charlie Baker speaks to the New England Council at the UMass Club on Oct. 10, 2024 about his work with the NCAA.</figcaption></figure>BOSTON, OCT. 10, 2024.....After a $2.78 billion settlement that will allow colleges to pay their athletes got preliminary approval earlier this week, NCAA president and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was in Boston on Thursday touting the deal as “[solving] one of the biggest questions” in college sports.“I do think it answers and solves one of the biggest questions that’s been out there for a long time. Which is: What’s the right way, as this thing went from being a pastime to being a business for some schools, to establish the right relationship between these schools and these young people? And I think this is the right way,” Baker said Thursday.U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken released an order on Monday granting preliminary approval to a legal settlement with the NCAA that would allow the colleges with expensive Division I athletic programs to develop a revenue-sharing model to pay student athletes, while still allowing them to cut name, image and likeness deals with advertisers — a major transformation to the landscape of college sports. Of the $2.78 billion settlement, $21.5 million could go toward a pool to be distributed in the first year to current student athletes.A final hearing is set for April 7 next year, the day that March Madness, one of the biggest money marketing events in collegiate athletics, comes to a close.“[The settlement] will create the transparency and the accountability around process and decisions, of which we basically have very little in the current way the system works, and I also think it will create — finally — an opportunity to give some kids, especially those who play sports at that big-time level, the benefits that they deserve,” Baker said.Baker was in Boston on Thursday morning speaking to business leaders and higher education leaders at a New England Council event at the UMass Club.He made waves with a pitch last December to allow some schools to pay their athletes and allow any D1 school to allow their student athletes to engage in name, image and likeness licensing deals.“This was sort of an earthquake,” he said, “no one at the NCAA had every suggested anything like that before.”Baker said the current system “wasn’t working,” and that he wanted to create a more direct relationship between students and schools.The NCAA chief also spoke Thursday about the transfer portal, which Baker described as creating a “frenzy” and a “churn” of players through schools. The portal is a database where college athletes interested in transferring schools are listed, and coaches from other colleges are allowed to reach out to offer tours of their university or scholarships.“About a third of all the kids who go into the transfer portal don’t land anywhere,” he said. “They literally give up a scholarship, go into the transfer portal, and don’t land anywhere. So question number one is, why? Why would they do that? And the answer is, because there are a lot of grown-ups out there making false promises to them. That’s the polite word. The impolite word for a false promise is a lie.”Baker said the system, which was only launched in 2018, is under-regulated and discussed his work within the NCAA to try to reform it.“There’s no regulatory structure in place for this,” he said. “So part of what we put in place a registry of trusted agents, and as much data as we could gather about how to make these decisions, and a ton of videos and other sort of assist mechanisms to help kids not end up being misled by the adult.”Baker made news earlier this year saying he wasn’t interested in proposed federal intervention from Congress to add more restrictions to the transfer portal.“Do they transfer more than they did ten years ago? Yes. Do they transfer more than their peers who aren’t student-athletes? No,” he told ESPN’s Dan Murphy. “...They actually transfer less than students who aren’t student-athletes do, and kids just transfer more because they have more information, more data, and they’re more impatient about a lot of things.”He added during the interview with Murphy that coaches at D1 schools often leave teams for better opportunities.“One of the things I hear from kids when I talk to them about this issue is, 'Coaches walk out on their contracts. What about us?’” he said.On Thursday, Baker said reforming the portal would help ensure that students who change schools keep all their credits and are able to stay on track for graduation.“One of the things we want to do is make sure we have a mechanism in place to rigorously track how kids are doing and their progress to graduation, which we know as we collect data on every single year and every single student athlete. And then have the ability with transfers to track how much of their credits transfer, how much of their credits don’t,” he said.Sen. Barry Finegold filed a bill ( S 825) this session to ensure college athletes are compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness — something the Andover Democrat said Thursday is now somewhat of a moot point with the NCAA settlement.“I don’t envy the position former Gov. Charlie Baker is in. I think it’s a Herculean task the former governor has to tackle to find that balance about what is fair compensation for a student athlete and for the school,” Finegold said.Finegold referenced former basketball star Chris Webber, who played for University of Michigan in the 1990s as part of the “Fab Five,” the first team in NCAA history to compete in a championship game with all freshman starters.“Every young kid was wearing his jersey and he didn’t have enough money to buy lunch,” Finegold said. “I want to see that fairness. That’s the only thing you only want to see if people’s name and likeness are being used. That’s really what it comes down to.”The senator said he had seen Baker steer Massachusetts through rocky waters during his time as governor, and that “the NCAA couldn’t have a better person to try to handle conflicting interests.”“My money’s on Charlie,” he said.</div></body>

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NCAA’s Baker opens up on athlete pay

BOSTON, OCT. 10, 2024.....After a $2.78 billion settlement that will allow colleges to pay their athletes got preliminary approval earlier this week, NCAA president and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was in Boston on Thursday touting the deal as “[solving] one of the biggest questions” in college sports.

NCAA’s Baker opens up on athlete pay

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