The way it reads to me is almost everyone in D1 is stuck opting in because if you don't then you aren't going to be able to compete in any sport if you don't pay the 30,000. It will be a conference decision for the most part as to what sports receive the 30,000. FCS conferences have less sports and could elect to give it to 40 FB players but concentrate on basketball, hockey and baseball. If implemented its going to be the new scholarship.

Opt in allows the university to pay for the NIL through a trust fund. This is actually easier for 80% of D1 than to try to raise that kind of money privately. Without it a program is effectively low major in a sport. Think Akron men's soccer for example are they going to throw it under the bus by not opting in? Could Akron though say its time to drop football due to cost savings? Could the MAC opt-in but only offer 50 stipends and not 85 in football in-line with what FCS conferences are offering?

You're focus is opting out and killing football but there may be opting-in and killing football too or a deemphasis of it.

What is the proposed rule half of your athletic participants receive the 30k if you opt-in? Akron by dropping FB would save itself 5 million plus reduce their participants by 1/3rd. Then if down to 200 participants of which 100 need to be funded that is only 3 million all of which can be directly funded by the university.

Ohio with 350 participants to opt-in is looking at a minimum of 5.25 million a year added to the budget. It that budget is 29 million currently its an 18% increase. For the minimum standard. My guess is the MAC would try to get away with the minimum and make a decision sport by sport as to the minimums for each sport. Basketball could get a full 13 while football only 40 or 50. If all the conferences except the power ones go this direction there will be less transferring because of the limited 30k stipends available across D1.

Membership in FBS could require opting in. The MAC could move down to FCS but if so there goes the playoff TV money. Title IX however will hamstring offering a complete amount of 30k stipends for football. The power conferences will I imagine try to fund everything to the maximum.

There was a comment from national media types that this could potentially lead to some schools from the same conference opting in and some opting out. Now who do you think they're talking about? I don't see anyone in the MAC opting in. Where are the dollars coming from? My guess is they were talking the lower thirds of the major conferences: Vanderbilt, Cal, Illinois, South Carolina and probably newbies like Cincinnati and UCF.

Cal is dead broke hence why they joined the ACC to grab whatever dollars they could instead of staying in the dead PAC 12 (2). I can almost guarantee yesterday's news fell on deaf ears in Berkeley. They aren't gonna pony up anymore money than they already are, especially with the crippling stadium debt they find themselves in.

The high resource schools with the big NIL collectives aren't affected too much. Its the programs in the middle the G5 or the basketball conferences which through use of the "Trust Fund" could as proposed use direct institutional support to pay for the players. Title IX makes it more fair since men's sports in general attract more sponsorships.

A few MAC schools could weigh the cost benefits and consider going the non-FB route which could mean opting but with a lower burden at the D1 minimum and 14 sports. I don't see Ohio choosing that as they don't have a non-MAC sport in a power soccer or hockey conference to sacrifice for. Additionally the university has a large enough endowment and budget to opt-in. The institutional trust fund for an athletic program with Ohio's profile is actually an easier way to compete since the donor base isn't particularly strong.

Yeah the parents paying those tuitions are not gonna be too keen on that.