NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker is expected to testify in front of a Senate committee next week during the 10th hearing on Capitol Hill over the last three years on college sports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced it has scheduled a hearing on Name, Image and Likeness, and the Future of College Sports for next Tuesday.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, took over as NCAA president in March and has been spending a lot of time in Washington lobbying lawmakers to help college sports with a federal law to regulate how athletes can be compensated for their fame.

Several bills have been introduced by federal lawmakers lately, including two bipartisan efforts from the Senate, but still there has been little movement toward serious action on an issue that has been a topic of conversation since the summer of 2020.

“I do get worried about Congress micromanaging the rules of endorsement deals or transfer portals or compensation,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told members of the athletic directors’ association LEAD1 last month at a gathering in Washington.

Baker is expected to be joined next week by Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti.

While college sports leaders have repeatedly said federal intervention that prevents college athletes from being deemed employees is the best solution for NIL, the NCAA is working on finally passing its own detailed rules.

The NCAA Division I Council last week introduced several proposals to bring transparency to NIL transactions and oversight of those who want to work with students. They could be voted on as soon as January and a working group is still discussing more ways to regulate NIL payments to athletes.

The NCAA Division I Council on Wednesday approved a smaller window during which football and basketball players can enter their names into the transfer portal and still be eligible to play at a new school the following season.

The decision shaves the timeframe from 60 days to 45. The council also voted to eliminate caps on how many players Division I football teams can sign in a year, though overall scholarship limits will remain in place.

The council tackled several items over two busy days of meetings in Indianapolis, during which it approved a package of proposals that would regulate name, image and likeness compensation for athletes and another that recommends stricter penalties for individuals who commit rules violations.

The council also directed committees responsible for athlete reinstatement and eligibility issues to re-examine penalties for those who bet on sporting events, but not on their own teams.

Changes could go into effect as soon as late October and be applied retroactively, which could impact athletes such as Iowa defensive lineman Noah Shannon, who has already been suspended for the season for gambling.

Recommendations for revisions include:

— On a first offense, eliminate potential game suspensions, regardless of the amount of money wagered and including bets placed on other sports at the athlete’s school. Athletes would be required to go through an education program.

— On a second offense, potentially involve game suspensions, depending on the value of the wager.

— On a third or subsequent offense could mean the loss of one full season of eligibility.

The NCAA also announced it would begin advocating for changes to state gambling laws and regulations to provide more protections for athletes from harassment or coercive behavior.

“Some states have great policies on the books to protect student-athletes from harassment and coercion and to protect the integrity of the games, but as more states pass or amend laws, more needs to be done,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

The association is calling for mandatory hotlines to report inappropriate behavior to law enforcement, increased penalties for bettors who harass college athletes and mandatory education for operators to help identify harassment. The NCAA also is advocating for states to allow sports wagering only for those 21 and older.

Transfer windows for undergraduate athletes were first implemented last year, and the timing of the transfer period is determined on a sport-by-sport basis.

In football, there were two options: a 45-day window starting in December, after the regular season, and a second in the spring.

The dates of the windows will be the same but the first will shrink to 30 days. There will be an additional five-day window for athletes whose teams compete in the College Football Playoff.

The second window will remain at the end of April. The NCAA said that according to its data, 61% of athletes who transfer entered the portal within the first 30 days.

Football coaches had called for shorter windows, and it became apparent that most players were acting quickly so they could switch schools and join their new teams in time for the winter/spring semester.

The basketball window opens after the season. Coaches in that sport were hoping to shorten the window to 30 days, but athletes advocated for 45 and their position was supported by Baker. The windows will open for 45 days, starting the Monday after Selection Sunday in March for both men’s and women’s basketball players.

“Moving forward, we will continue to evaluate the impact of transfer windows on student-athletes, coaches and athletics programs,” said Lynda Tealer, chairwoman of the council and deputy athletic director at Florida.

The transfer windows allow undergraduates to transfer and retain immediate eligibility once; they can transfer outside the windows but would need to wait a year to play. Graduate transfers have more flexibility, with a deadline to enter the portal by May 1 for fall sports and July 1 for spring semester sports.

The initial caps limited Bowl Subdivision teams from signing more than 25 players to scholarships in a given year. The number was 30 in the Championship Subdivision.

Those caps were waived in 2021 after the implementation of the one-time transfer exception and with many players taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted to those who played during the disrupted 2020 pandemic season.

Now the caps have been removed for good, but FBS schools will still be limited to 85 scholarship players on the roster and FCS schools to 63.

Finally, the council voted to eliminate or change some requirements for FBS membership, including raising the application fee for FBS membership from $5,000 to $5 million, effective immediately. There are currently 133 schools competing in FBS, the highest tier of Division I football.

When one of college football’s top coaches makes a point of letting the world know he believes his players should essentially be paid, it gets a lot of attention.

“When student-athletes call it a game, corporate-types call it a business,” Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh said not long after the season began. “When the student-athletes call it a business, the corporate-types call it a game.”

Overhauling the collegiate sports model to allow athletes playing at the highest levels of college football to share in the billions television networks are paying conferences for the media rights to their games is an idea gaining traction. Especially in the court of public opinion.

Even 10 years ago, suggesting players get a cut of the massive TV deals that fuel athletic departments would have been met with incredulity by those who work and follow college sports. Now, Harbaugh is not even the only high-profile coach in the Big Ten to advocate publicly for revenue sharing with players. Penn State’s James Franklin took a similar position in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year.

The four biggest conferences have media rights deal of various lengths worth more than $20 billion, with football driving most of that value. The Pac-12 is in the final year of a $3 billion deal that was record-setting when it was signed in 2011, but soon surpassed by other leagues.

Skyrocketing coaches’ salaries, an arms race of spending on athletic facilities and, most recently, drastic, revenue-driven conference realignment have made it harder to defend not giving college athletes a bigger piece of the pie.

“It can harm or eliminate some of the arguments that have been made in the past as to why college athletes shouldn’t be paid,” said Mit Winter, a Kansas City-based sports attorney.

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics last week released the results of analysis that projected through 2032 the expenses of 54 public schools currently in Power Five conferences. It found those schools will collectively will be spending only $11 million more on scholarships and medical expenses for 30,000 athletes than they will on compensation and benefits for 594 football coaches.

While many in and around college sports believe revenue sharing with major college football players is inevitable, those in position to affect change are more cautious. The importance of gender equity, best encapsulated by the federal Title IX law, is a potential factor.

“We’ve had coaches share (ideas) and then we’ve had conversations … Did you really think about the rest of that, like, what’s on the other side of that observation?” Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey said.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said: “I’m open to anything that expands the value for students. But I don’t hear a lot of ideas that have Title IX at the forefront. They need to. That’s important.”

If college sports leaders — who have been pleading for Congress to regulate the way athletes can be compensated for name, image and likeness endorsement deals — don’t come up with a plan to have more revenue flowing directly to athletes one could be forced upon them.

A bill in California that would have forced some schools in the state to share revenue with athletes in money-making sports was introduced earlier this year, but has stalled. An antitrust lawsuit in Pennsylvania filed against the NCAA and major conferences could lead to college athletes being given employee status. A complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board also threatens to lead to college athletes being deemed employees.

Jim Cavale is the founder and former CEO of INFLCR, a company that works with dozens of schools on activities related to NIL compensation for athletes. He started INFLCR four years before the NCAA lifted its ban on athletes cashing in on their fame, anticipating that eventually it would happen.

Cavale recently launched Athletes.org, a free membership organization for college athletes that provides support with NIL activities, legal representation and help with other challenges that have emerged in a radically changed landscape. It is not an effort to unionize athletes, Cavale said, but instead looks toward a future where the relationship between athletes and their athletic programs is more similar to a professional sports league.

Cavale said the NCAA’s transformation committee recommendations last year were a good step to ensure schools and conferences were investing in things such as long-term medical care, mental health services, and financial and legal guidance for college athletes.

“Now, with that I felt strongly that the report was missing media-revenue sharing, and other ways that the pie of gross revenue could be allocated in a format and a fairer manner for college athletes,” Cavale said.

But how?

A group of entrepreneurs who run NIL collectives, the donor-funded and managed organizations that have become a common way of paying college athletes without schools being directly involved, have banded together and proposed a revenue-sharing plan to the NCAA and SEC. Each school would allocate a portion of the media-rights distribution from a conference to the collective that supports the athletic program. The collective would then pay the athletes, which in theory would get around players being employees of the school.

“We don’t want the players to be employees either,” said James Clawson, co-founder of Spyre Sports Group, the collective that works with Tennessee athletes. “But we think they should be sharing in the revenue that they help they generate.”

The Big Ten has cleared the way for Oregon and Washington to apply for membership and join the conference, four people with familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Friday.

The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the conference and schools were finalizing an official agreement and announcement.

The Ducks and Huskies from the Pac-12 still must officially apply for membership and the Big Ten presidents, who met Friday morning to discuss expansion, need to officially approve any moves.

Two of the people familiar with the negotiations said the schools’ applications are expected to be unanimously approved.

When that’s done, they will become the 17th and 18th members of the Big Ten, and the third and fourth on the West Coast, joining USC and UCLA.

The Big Ten announced June 30, 2022, University of Southern California (USC) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) would also be joining the Big Ten.

 Gophers volleyball head coach Keegan Cook said on Wednesday at a press conference that USC and UCLA will not only grow as programs but will also strengthen the Big Ten’s volleyball program. Cook served as head coach for the Washington Huskies women’s volleyball team for eight seasons and has experience working with all three programs.

“I think they’re [USC & UCLA volleyball] a little bit of sleeping giants,” Cook said. “I think it’s going to elevate them when they see what’s going on in the Big Ten.”

The latest departure from the Pac-12 pushed the storied West Coast college sports conference to the brink of extinction.

Arizona has been in serious talks to leave for the Big 12 and join Colorado, which announced last week its exit from the Pac-12 after this year. It is unclear if in-state rival Arizona State will join the Wildcats. The Arizona Board of Regents held a special meeting Thursday night to try to get the schools on the same page.

The Big 12 also has been targeting Utah.

Pac-12 leaders met early Friday to determine if the nine remaining schools, which at the time included Oregon and Washington, would accept a potential media rights deal with Apple, according to a person familiar with that meeting.

With Oregon and Washington positioned to jump, the Pac-12 is in danger of soon being down to four members: Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington.

Minnesota Daily sports writer Alex Karwowski contributed to this report.