NCAA Division I Board of Directors releases new NIL guidelines regarding involvement of boosters

The NCAA's Division I Board of Directors published new guidelines Monday to clarify that boosters — including recently created companies designed to provide athletes at a particular school with endorsement deals — should not have any contact with prospective college athletes, their family members or their representatives.

The guidelines were crafted by a working group of athletic directors and conference commissioners who were tasked earlier this year with reviewing the evolving marketplace for college athletes. The NCAA updated its rules last summer to allow college athletes to make money by selling the rights to their names, images and likeness (NIL). The group's first public response comes amid growing concern that some boosters and NIL-focused companies, known as collectives, are offering money as incentives to attend a particular school.

Member schools received new guidelines Monday saying that boosters or collectives who contact recruits or who sign athletes to contracts that are contingent upon a player's attendance at a particular school are breaking the NCAA rules. The Division 1 Board of Directors said that the NCAA could pursue sanctions against anyone who has egregiously violated these rules in the past 10 months since NIL rules were changed, but they are likely to focus more on issues that come up in the future.

«While the NCAA may pursue the most outrageous violations that were clearly contrary to the interim policy adopted last summer, our focus is on the future,» board chair and University of Georgia President Jere Morehead said. «The new guidance establishes a common set of expectations for the Division I institutions moving forward, and the board expects all Division I institutions to follow our