The House settlement approved in June will transform college sports immediately. Starting in 2025-26, schools will be permitted to directly pay athletes up to $20.5 million annually in revenue-sharing.
Not all schools, however, are jumping into the new landscape. On Tuesday, the College Sports Commission released a list of schools that opted in to sharing revenue with athletes. Division I schools had to decide by June 30, and although 310 athletic departments opted in, 54 chose not to.
To no surprise, all schools in power conferences—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC—are participating. Other leagues with complete participation: the American, Atlantic 10, Big East, C-USA, CAA, Horizon, MAC, Missouri Valley, Southwestern, Sun Belt, WAC and West Coast conferences. Every FBS school opted in aside from the service academies—Army, Navy and Air Force—which are prevented from compensating athletes due to military regulations.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Ivy League, which currently permits athletes to receive NIL deals but not athletic scholarships, stated in January that its eight schools would not participate in revenue-sharing. The Patriot League was the only other conference with zero members opting in.
Several recent March Madness Cinderellas opted out, including UMBC and Fairleigh Dickinson, the only two men’s No. 16 seeds to ever defeat a No. 1 seed; they accomplished the feat in 2018 and 2023, respectively. Saint Peter’s, which made an unprecedented run to the Elite Eight as a No. 15 seed in 2022, was also among the opt-outs.
Some schools zigged where their peers zagged, such as Long Island University, which was the only Northeast Conference program to opt in. On the flip side, North Carolina Central was the only MEAC team to opt out.
The University of Nebraska Omaha was the only member of the Summit League to not participate. In an online statement, the school explained that its operational and financial plans were already in place for the 2025-26, so opting into revenue-sharing “would simply introduce new and unresolved variables at a time when clarity is critical.” The athletic department plans to opt in some time in the future.
In addition to the direct financial cost of sharing revenue with athletes, another concern for participating schools is adhering to certain roster size limitations. Football teams, for instance, are capped at 105 players.
University of Central Arkansas athletic director Matt Whiting said in an interview on Wednesday that potential loss of tuition money influenced the school’s decision to opt out. “Opting in would require us to reduce by a significant amount [the number] of student-athletes in our program,” Whiting said. “That’s obviously lost revenue for the university during a time where enrollment across the country is declining.”
With a full-time undergraduate enrollment of 6,474, Central Arkansas is actually bigger than the majority of schools forgoing revenue-sharing. The average non-FBS opt-out has just shy of 6,000 students, whereas the average FCS or non-football D-I school that opted in has more than 7,800.
Six of the 10 D-I schools with the smallest student populations chose to opt out, including Presbyterian College and Chicago State University, which had just 856 and 981 full-time undergrads last year, respectively, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.
Another factor: Revenue-sharing will likely face Title IX lawsuits, given that participating schools are expected to share much more revenue with male athletes than female athletes. Schools declining to opt in avoid having to address these legal concerns.
Still, most D-I schools decided that the pros outweigh the cons. Florida Gulf Coast’s athletic director, for instance, cited the fact that it would lose only nine roster spots but gain flexibility for the program and opportunities for athletes.
Nine Division II or Division III schools that participate in Division I in one or two sports also opted in. Johns Hopkins, which has 29 Final Four appearances in D-I men’s lacrosse since 1970, will participate, along with Dallas Baptist (baseball) and Augusta (golf). The other six programs all boast D-I men’s ice hockey teams: Minnesota State, Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, and Colorado College.
(This story has been correct in the final paragraph and chart to note that Division II, as well as Division III, schools make up the nine which opted in to revenue sharing.)