Things are moving quickly when it comes to the House settlement.
Schools must inform the NCAA by March 1 if they will opt in for the 2025-26 season. By opting in, schools can directly pay players for the NIL rights. However, schools are not required to pay players. How much revenue is shared with athletes is left up to the schools; opting in merely allows them the option to share revenue.
There are some drawbacks, though. Schools that opt in will be subject to new roster limits. In men’s hockey, that would be 26 players, and in men’s basketball, it would be 15 players.
Here is a very basic breakdown of the differences.
Schools that opt-in:
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Can directly pay players for their NIL rights
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Teams will be subject to roster caps
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Scholarship limits are removed (every player on the roster, up to the cap, is allowed to be on scholarship)
Schools that do not opt-in:
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Cannot directly pay players for their NIL rights
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Teams will not be subject to roster caps, but will still be subject to existing scholarship limits
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Schools can still directly pay players full cost of attendance, as well as Alston money (up to $5,980 per player).
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Players can still receive NIL deals. They just have to come from third parties (i.e. collectives) and any deal worth more than $600 has to be reported to the NCAA.
According to several sources, the MAAC is split. I’ve been told “about half” of the schools will opt-in and the other half will opt out for the 2025-26 season.
According to multiple sources, only five Hockey East schools are guaranteed to opt-in:
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Boston College (mandated as a Power 4 school)
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Providence (mainly for basketball purposes)
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UConn (mainly for basketball and football purposes)
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UMass (AD Ryan Bamford confirmed)
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Northeastern (the CAA is opting in as a league)
