(Bloomberg) — The University of California, Los Angeles has already paid out $4.8 million to players under a new revenue-sharing rules, its athletic director said Thursday.
“A lot of checks are being signed,” Martin Jarmond said at Bloomberg Power Players New York. “And more to come.”
The school has been signing checks since last month as part of its compliance with a new economic model brought by a court settlement earlier this year on how to compensate college athletes. Schools can spend as much as $20.5 million.
UCLA is a member of the Big 10 Conference, which announced a multi-year agreement with PayPal Holdings Inc. to distribute payments from universities to student athletes.
Since mid-June, over 8,000 name, image, and likeness deals, totaling nearly $80 million, have already been approved, the College Sports Commission announced Thursday.
During the same period, 332 deals were submitted and subsequently rejected. Notably, over 3,000 approvals were granted in the last 11 days of August alone, as stated in the report.
Universities are in a new era, working out how to pay their athletes and balance their books.
“I personally do wrestle with the fact that I have to cut sports budgets,” said Nina King, Director of Athletics at Duke University. “Then on the other hand, I have this $20.5 million that I am giving to the players. And it is it is tough to find that balance.”
The annual cap will increase to around $32 million over the next ten years, but for some it’s not enough.
“We had $18 million of cash to then distribute,” said Ross Bjork, Ohio State athletic director. “We chose four sports women’s volleyball, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, and of course, football. So is $18 million or $20.5 million enough? No, the answer is no.”
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(Updated with more context throughout)
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University of California, UCLA, college athletes, revenue-sharing, PayPal Holdings
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