Over the course of the first week of October, the NCAA Division I Council began discussions on the time demands of college athletics. Member schools will discuss the demands among themselves, and they will also consider student-athlete input.
Currently, while in-season, D-I college sport teams are subject to a 20-hour-per-week limit on the athletes’ combined game and practice time. During the off-season, programs are limited to 8 hours per week.
The Council discussions come following the September 30, 2015 U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in O’Bannon v. NCAA—the litigation over whether collegiate athletes should receive compensation. While the NCAA praised the part of that decision overruling the lower court’s $5,000 cash payment cap to athletes, the Council has also chosen to take another look at the time demands of D-I sports.
Bob Scalise, chair of the Student-Athlete Experience Committee and the Harvard University Athletic Director, stated the following in reference to the time-demand discussions: “[t]his is something that is really pertinent to the student-athlete experience, and we should be looking into it.” Scalise additionally stated that the Council “looked at [the issue] from the various perspectives of all the stakeholders … [and it] realize[s] how complex and complicated the issues are.”