Sports
The Bold Type, with Commissioner Dan Butterly – Aug. 11, 2025
What a week.
This week was a showcase of The Big West in action — we unveiled our Fall and Winter sport schedules along with championship dates and sites for the 2025-26 academic year. A huge thank you to our outstanding communications staff, and to all our campuses, for the collaboration and teamwork that made it happen.
The week also brought major national news — the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a new governance structure, effective September 1, 2025. I want to recognize and thank UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla for his strong representation during this pivotal meeting. Throughout the meeting, we communicated frequently, and he consistently championed representation over limitation. The Big West and our peer conferences had a strong voice at the table.
And in honor of the week’s developments, the song of the week is “Dagger One is Hit/Time to Let Go” from Top Gun: Maverick — a reminder that leadership sometimes means releasing what no longer serves us and charting a bold new course.
Let’s get to The Bold Type!
BIG WEST ACADEMIC AWARDS SHOW
The 2024-25 Big West Academic Awards Show is set to air live on Wednesday, August 13th at 1 p.m. PT on ESPN+. The show is hosted by Chloe Clark, The Big West Director of Multimedia Content, and will truly honor our amazing scholar-athletes.
If you miss the live show, it will be available on ESPN+ for 30 days after the first broadcast.
CONGRATULATIONS
- To Hawaii women’s soccer, who is predicted to repeat as regular season champions in 2025 Women’s Soccer Poll! Read more >>>
- ?To Long Beach State men’s golf student-athlete Jaden Huggins for winning the SCGA Amateur! Read more >>>
BIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIP DATES AND SITES
With the 2025-26 sports season set to embark next week, The Big West revealed its championship dates, sites and formats for all 21-conference sponsored sports. Read more >>> We hope to see many of you at the championships supporting your student-athletes. Mark your calendars, come out and join us, and please say hello. The Big West student-athletes would love to see you, as would our coaches and staff.
FALL AND WINTER SCHEDULE ANNOUNCEMENTS
This week, The Big West released schedules and highlighted some key matchups and storylines for our fall and winter sports. Read more about each:
Get ready for the upcoming basketball season too!
THE BIG WEST WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL ON ESPNU
ESPN announced on Thursday that the showdown at the Pyramid between Hawai’i and Long Beach State women’s volleyball on Friday, Oct. 17 has been selected for ESPNU. Read more >>>
Mark your calendar and help the ratings as we head into a winter where we will begin to negotiate our next broadcast agreements that will start in 2027-28.
SPEAKING OF ESPN
Forbes contributor Mark Burns tracks the growth of ESPN+ subscribers since its 2018 launch. The steamer started with 1M subs in September of 2018 before climbing to 3.5M by the end of 2019, 10.3M by the end of 2020, 17.1M by the end of 2021, 24.3M by the end of 2022, and 26M by the end of 2023. Since then, the subscriber count fell to 25.6M by the end of 2024 and sits at 24.1M today. (link)
OUTSTANDING RESEARCH BY THE KNIGHT COMMISSION AND ELON
I listened to the presentation on Wednesday, and the research is outstanding. (LINK)
A new national survey of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted by Elon and the Knight Commission reveals a “divided and often uncertain public about the path forward for college sports.” The survey found no public consensus on the organization or entity that should be primarily responsible for regulating the business of college sports. The NCAA remains the top choice, but with only 35% support. The next most popular option was “governing bodies that regulate specific sports” (25%), followed by athletics conferences (10%), state governments (9%) and the federal government (6%), while 15% chose none of these. Respondents were also skeptical or unsure that Congress should enact legislation to regulate college sports with just 36% supporting the creation of a federal law to supersede state laws and allow the NCAA to enact uniform, nationwide rules. On that front, 26% were opposed and 39% were unsure. Notably, support for new federal legislation was much higher among those respondents who identified as being interested in college sports, with 54% favoring national laws compared with 24% who opposed such legislation. Also from the survey: 81% said it was extremely or very important for college athletes to be enrolled as full-time students taking classes at their institution. 81% viewed athlete graduation as extremely or very important. 74% strongly supported the existing rule requiring teams to be on track to graduate at least half their athletes to remain eligible for postseason competition. Check the link for the full details.
NCAA DIVISION I GOVERNANCE OVERHAUL
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors adopted the Division I Decision-Making Working Group package of recommendations. The recommendations streamline decision-making, increase student-athlete representation, maintain the tie between athletics and academics and decentralize certain regulatory areas.
Specifically, the Board of Directors adopted the following proposals as expedited legislation:
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NCAA Division I Proposal No. 2025-21, to establish a new Division I governance structure and;
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Division I Proposal No. 2025-22, to federate the NCAA playing rules committee and eliminate the associated legislation for Division I.
The board also adopted a resolution (Attachment A) codifying the following commitments for a period of at least five years:
1. Current Division I institutions and conferences that remain in compliance with the membership standards in place at the time of the adoption of the Decision-Making Working Group’s recommendations by the Board of Directors will retain their active Division I membership status.
2. There shall be no additional changes to subdivisional representation or voting weights in the revised governance structure.
Lastly, the board approved a series of referrals to the new governance structure, including determination of the future infractions process and a systematic review of the legislation to decentralize rules that will not remain as national standards. The board added a referral to the Administrative Committee to determine whether to codify a policy to preclude conference representative duplication on sports oversight committees and championships subcommittees.
Update from the NCAA Division I Board of Directors Finance Committee.
The Board of Directors introduced legislation for a 2026 Convention vote of the Division I membership to adjust the revenue distribution formula to add units to the men’s and women’s basketball performance funds for the semifinals and finals of their respective championships.
House Injunction Implementation.
The Board of Directors adopted Division I Proposal No. 2025-23 as emergency legislation. The proposal identifies additional areas in which other rules and further clarification related to the House injunction are necessary. Proposed rules in 2025-23 include information on benefits cap accounting and roster limitations. In addition, the board previously gave NCAA staff the authority to make editorial changes to injunction-related proposals. A compilation of editorial revisions made to date is included in Attachment B.
The board reviewed Proposal No. 2025-24, which is subject to a 30-days’ notice requirement pursuant to the Tennessee injunction before it can be considered for adoption. If no objections are made after the notice requirement expires, the board will be asked to consider adopting the proposal via electronic votes.
Moratorium on New Applications for Reclassification.
The Board of Directors approved a moratorium on new applications for reclassification from Division II and Division III to Division I. The moratorium will extend until February 2027 and does not apply to institutions that received a written invitation or letter of interest from a conference or submitted a written letter of interest to join a conference before August 5, 2025.
The Decision-Making Working Group recommended and the Board of Directors referred a review of the reclassification process requirements to the new Division I Membership Committee, acknowledging the shifting landscape and its impact on current Division I members.
It is anticipated that the Membership Committee will be asked to finalize its review of the membership reclassification standards by January 2027, prior to the opening of the application window in February 2027 for schools applying for DI membership beginning in June 2027.
Congressional Engagement Update.
The Board received an update on recent congressional engagement including the executive order “Saving College Sports” and a summary of the SCORE Act. More information regarding the Saving College Sports Executive Order and the SCORE Act can be found in Attachment C.
MEDIA UPDATES ON NCAA AND LEGAL MATTERS
- College tennis facing threats of cuts at same time many of its alums are starring in pro ranks (LINK)
- Cal Poly is elevating STUNT from a club sport to varsity status beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year, according to outgoing Mustangs AD Don Oberhelman, who notes Cal Poly is also pursuing the addition of women’s flag football as early as 2027. Oberhelman: “Both of these additions are part of the university’s long-term planning to increase opportunities for female student-athletes. This is particularly important as Cal Poly’s female student population has increased over the last 12 years from 42% of enrollment to 51%. … Similar to our early investment in beach volleyball, which continues to pay dividends, being quick to build a women’s flag football program as the sport is rapidly emerging will allow Cal Poly to establish its program and embark on a legacy of success. We continue to be in communication and collaboration with the NFL, NCAA, and peer institutions to shape the future of flag football at the collegiate level. A campus club team at Cal Poly was recently launched and will receive ongoing university support as part of the build-out process.” (link)
- Hawaii AD Matt Elliott has now spent a month on the job and tells Hawaii News Now that “before I even get to long-term, I would say our focus is on creating an amazing student athletic experience and be successful this fall and then carry that into the winter and the spring. To me this is a story about momentum, this is going to be a story about growth.” (link)
- Athletes.org met with 24 GMs from power conference schools across the country to “evolve a formal collective bargaining agreement that AO has built with input from member athletes. This CBA has been informed by multiple athletic directors, conference commissioners, legislators and now general managers.” Some highlights from the meeting: 100% of these GMs believe college sports is currently operating on top of a broken foundation that needs restructuring, including a reimagining of a revenue share payment structure between schools and athletes that consolidates the multiple pools of money a school can utilize to compensate an athlete (i.e.. Alston payments); 100% felt that transparency around payment amounts would be appropriate and helpful in a future with collective bargaining to stabilize the market; a majority of these stakeholders are in favor of a minimum spend/rev share floor to promote parity and competitive balance within college football; and 100% want to see performance based incentives that would reward play time, particularly for those who outperform their existing contract. More. (link)
- U.S. Congresswoman Lori Trahan (D-MA) joins Tulane Sports Law Director Gabe Feldman’s SportsWise podcast to break down the SCORE Act and says the “initial draft was incredibly broad. It went far beyond NIL or fair play and eligibility rules. And even with some negotiated improvements, it’s still too broad. The lack of a sunset clause creates the grounds for the NCAA to do largely whatever they want into perpetuity. … If you sunset an antitrust exemption, it shapes the behavior of the NCAA, because they know they’ll have to come back to Congress. Without that, you risk handing them a blank check forever.” Trahan also contends that the “best way to characterize the SCORE Act is to say very clearly that the bill started out as fulfilling the wish list of the NCAA, the Power 4 conference commissioners, and by and large, it stayed that way. Everything that the NCAA has asked Congress to codify, designating college athletes as non-employees, shielding the NCAA from antitrust liability and preempting stronger state level protections – that was baked into the SCORE Act from the get-go.” On the topic of student-athlete employment, Trahan explains that “I’ve heard directly from athletes who don’t want to be classified as employees. And I’ve heard from others who do. I’ve also heard from some who don’t want that door just completely closed to them and not having any leverage down the road. But I think the throughline in all those conversations is I haven’t heard a single athlete say that they feel like they have enough of a seat at the table in college sports and would turn down the opportunity afforded to them through a collective bargaining agreement, even if it’s a novel form that doesn’t include compensation. And I think the SCORE Act, it just ends that discussion entirely. I think that’s a mistake.” Lots more in the full podcast. (link)
- Sportico’s Daniel Libit explores North Carolina-based immigration lawyer Benjamin Snyder’s contention that rev-share income is passive income and therefore does not violate the terms of international student-athletes’ F-1 visas. Snyder says he’s advised roughly a dozen schools across the ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 but concedes that without clear case law or administrative guidance, institutions are largely navigating in the dark. Regardless, he maintains that his legal theory would stand up well in court. More. (link)
- SBJ’s Ben Portnoy observes that as the economics of college athletics change, “roles atop athletic departments have taken on new meaning – and the candidate pools are shifting with it.” Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione: “It’s not as if someone can just drop several things one was doing in a previous model and trade them for what we might have to be doing in the new model. It’s both – that’s where the difference is. … There isn’t a ‘how-to’ manual that is being distributed to the member institutions. It’s many of us having to lean into this, be innovative, not be afraid to try new things and probably have to go through a little bit of trial and error, which is uncomfortable.” More. (link)
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat.” — Credited to Steve Jobs
“At various points in your careers, you will be called to take a risk. And I think you will find, as I have found, those will be the times of your greatest opportunities.” — Credited to Raymond V. Gilmartin
“Every moment wasted looking back, keeps us from moving forward.” — Credited to Hillary Clinton
Enjoy your week, and please be sure to check-in on our athletic trainers, game managers and communications staff, and see how they enjoyed their summer.
Be Bold! Go Big West!
Dan