athletic organization - beginning with imo the current "loser": (also posted on the Football and Subscribers' boards) The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and 1 in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Until the 1956–57 academic year, the NCAA was a single division for all schools. That year, the NCAA split into the University Division and the College Division. In August 1973, the current three-division system of Division I, Division II, and Division III was adopted by the NCAA membership in a special convention. Under NCAA rules, Division I and Division II schools can offer athletic scholarships to students. Division III schools may not offer any athletic scholarships. Generally, larger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in II and III. Division I football was further divided into I-A and I-AA in 1978, while Division I programs that did not have football teams were known as I-AAA. In 2006, Divisions I-A and I-AA were, respectively, renamed the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). In its 2022–23 fiscal year, the NCAA generated $1.28 billion in revenue, $945 million (74%) of which came from airing rights to the Division I men's basketball tournament. Controversially, the NCAA substantially restricts the kinds of benefits and compensation (including paid salary) that collegiate athletes could receive from their schools. The consensus among economists is these caps for men's basketball and football players benefit the athletes' schools (through rent-seeking) at the expense of the athletes. Economists have subsequently characterized the NCAA as a cartel. In 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that some of these NCAA restrictions on student athletes are in violation of US antitrust law. The NCAA settled a lawsuit in May 2024 allowing member institutions to pay Division I athletes who have played since 2016. The National Student Athlete Association (NSAA) is a membership-based network dedicated to connecting and empowering college athletes. The organization provides resources, career networking, mentoring, and exclusive partner discounts designed to help athletes transition successfully from their sports careers into life after sports. The organization operates an exclusive platform and digital community specifically tailored for current and former collegiate athletes: - Career Networking & Mentoring: The network provides platforms for athletes to connect with professionals, find mentors, and explore career opportunities post-graduation. - Exclusive Discounts: The organization partners with brands (such as Expertvoice) to offer verified college athletes special access to gear and discounts. - Support Resources: Training, nutrition guides, and mental health tools to manage stress, alongside academic strategies, scholarship guidance, and NCAA compliance advice for navigating scholar-athlete life. National College Players Association (NCPA): This is a prominent nonprofit advocacy group and player association that actively fights for the rights, health protections, and financial compensation of college athletes. The National College Players Association (NCPA) is a 501c3 nonprofit advocacy association made up of current and former college athletes, and has been leading the college athletes' rights movement since 2001. NCPA advocacy has made health and safety, Title IX enforcement, and fair compensation key areas of focus in Congressional hearings. Our organization has been pivotal to bringing forth essential reforms to the NCAA. Our Goals: 1. Establish mandatory health and safety standards to minimize college athletes’ risk of abuse, serious injury, and death from brain trauma, heat illness, and other conditions. The NCAA says it has no duty to protect college athletes and therefore does not enforce health and safety standards. … The NCPA has sponsored legislation to establish a commission to do what the NCAA refuses to do – adopt and enforce critical safety mandates. 2. Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses. The NCAA does not require schools to cover sports-related injuries – it's optional. College athletes injured during sports-related workouts should not have to pay for medical expenses out of their own pockets. 3. Increase graduation rates. The ultimate goal for a college athlete is not a scholarship, it's a degree. Federal graduation rates for Division I football and men's basketball players hover around 50%. The NCAA and its member colleges receive billions of dollars tax free because of their educational million. They should extend scholarship durations to ensure college athletes have adequate time to complete their degree. 4. Protect educational opportunities and scholarships for college-athletes in good standing. Due to high athletic time demands, many athletes reporting an ability to choose the courses and major of their choice, and low graduation rates in football and basketball, athletic scholarships should be guaranteed for 6 years instead of the 1-year NCAA minimum. Additionally, sports should not be cut to pay for lavish coaching salaries and facilities. 5. Prohibit universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship. Such actions reduce the chance for such college athletes to graduate. … It is immoral to allow a university to reduce or refuse to renew a college athlete's scholarship after sustaining an injury while playing for the university. 6. Eliminate unnecessary restrictions on players' ability to earn compensation from use of their name, image, and likeness and ability to secure legal and professional representation. We have won unprecedented freedoms and reforms in this area, but overbearing restrictions still remain. College athletes should have the same economic and legal rights and freedoms guaranteed to other students and US citizens. Players are people not property. 7. Ensure college athletes share in an equitable portion of the revenue that they generate. 8. Advance compliance with gender equity in college sports as required by federal law (Title IX). 9. Prohibit the punishment of college athletes that have not committed a violation. It is an injustice to punish college athletes for actions that they did not commit i.e. suspending a team's post-season eligibility for the inappropriate actions of boosters. Such punishments have significant negative impacts on the short college experience of many college athletes. Alternative forms of punishment are available and should be utilized to allow an adequate policing of the rules. NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) is a dedicated group of collegiate athletes designed to represent the voice of student-athletes in NCAA governance. SAAC operates at the institutional, conference, and national levels, ensuring that athletes can provide vital feedback on proposed legislation, rules, and student welfare policies. NCAA mandated on every NCAA campus and conference, SAAC serves as the official student-athlete voice for institutional and national rules, regulations, and policy discussions. Key Objectives and Responsibilities – - Advocacy & Policy: Offers direct insight into how policies, time commitments, and competition rules affect the lives and mental health of student-athletes. - Communication: Serves as a reliable two-way communication channel between student- athletes, athletic directors, and conference commissioners. - Community Outreach: Coordinates large-scale philanthropic initiatives, most notably the division-wide partnership with the Special Olympics. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to their student athletes. Around $1.3 billion in athletic scholarship financial aid is awarded to student athletes annually. For the 2025–26 season, it has 235 member institutions, of which three are in British Columbia, one in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the rest in the Contiguous United States, with over 83,000 student-athletes participating. The NAIA, whose headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri, sponsors 28 national championships. CBS Sports Network, formerly called CSTV, serves as the national media outlet for the NAIA. In 2014, ESPNU began carrying the NAIA Football National Championship. Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has more than 900,000 members nationwide, including more than 100,000 volunteers. The philosophy of the AAU is "Sports for All, Forever." In the 1960s and 1970s, the NCAA engaged in a bitter power struggle with the AAU. After the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 broke up the AAU's responsibility as the national Olympic sports governing body, the AAU focused on providing sports programs for all participants of all ages beginning at the local and regional levels. The AAU is divided into 55 distinct district associations, which annually sanction 45 sports programs, 250 national championships, and over 30,000 age division events. The AAU events have over 900,000 participants and over 100,000 volunteers ** Edited by HtownHokie at 6/30/2026, 12:05:53 AM