TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A landmark settlement, going into effect July 1st, will allow NCAA Schools to directly pay their student-athletes.
One part of the settlement allows each university that opts in to pay up to an estimated $20.5 million to student-athletes.
In a second part of the settlement, the NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to former Division I athletes.
Arizona Athletic Director, Desireé Reed-Francois, says this settlement is a pathway forward, and while appeals were made Wednesday morning that the settlement violates Title IX law, Reed-Francois plans to make sure all sports at Arizona will have a level playing field.
"When a student-athlete comes, you're coaching them and they're competing and you're graduating leaders, that does not change,” Reed-Francois said. “But everything else in between that it has completely changed."
In the early days of this settlement, Reed-Francois hit the ground running with what’s next for the Wildcats.
"Just because this is how we've always done it isn't going to work anymore,” Reed-Francois said. “There has to be a return on investment."
Bringing in the most money is football and men’s basketball, but Reed-Francois says those sports are not her only priority.
"Our Olympic sports are a source of pride, and one thing we're also going to be aggressive in doing is endowing our Olympic sports,” Reed-Francois said.
Reed-Francois also said there is no plan to cut any sports at Arizona.
"Every Olympic sport, we want to make sure they are set up for the future,” Reed-Francois said. “I want to always protect our Olympic sports, and we can do that by setting up endowments for each of them."
How the endowments will be set up isn’t clear, but Reed-Francois says every dollar spent is going to be looked at closely.
"College sports has been at a critical juncture and now we all have to dive in and make this work because the enterprise is too important,” Reed-Francois said.
