Dept. of Education says Title IX applies to payments to athletes - ESPN

The plans that many major college athletic departments are making for how they will distribute new direct payments to their athletes would violate Title IX law, according to a memo published by the Department of Education on Thursday.

The memo provides some long-awaited guidance about how gender equity laws will apply to a new era of college sports that is on track to begin this summer. It's not clear if the U.S. Department of Education will interpret Title IX law the same way when incoming President Donald Trump's administration installs new officials in the near future.

The NCAA and its power conferences have agreed to allow each school to share up to $20.5 million in direct payments to their athletes via name, image and likeness deals as one of the terms of a pending antitrust settlement. Many schools from those power conferences have developed plans to distribute the majority of that money to athletes in sports that generate the most revenue — mostly football and men's basketball players.

In some cases, athletic directors have publicly shared that they intend to provide upwards of 75% of that money to their football players.

However, the Office For Civil Rights — the division of the Department of Education that enforces Title IX law — said in its memo Thursday that those future payments should be considered «athletic financial assistance» and therefore must be shared proportionally between men and women athletes.

«When a school provides athletic financial assistance in forms other than scholarships or grants, including compensation for the use of a student-athlete's NIL, such assistance also must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes,» the memo said.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits