NCAA may give athletics $750K

WSU athletics could receive $750,000 from the NCAA to go toward student-athlete programs and initiatives.

WSU Athletics could receive about $750,000 from the NCAA for student-athlete benefit, which officials say could take the form of academic support, student diversity and inclusion initiatives, and career success programming, among other things.

The NCAA Executive Committee will be accepting plans for allocating $200 million among athletic departments nationwide until Friday. Matt Kleffner, WSU senior associate athletics director and chief athletic finance officer, said in an email that he believes there are two specific areas they will target.

“We have identified initiatives in the academic support and student health and well-being areas, which will provide enhanced programming into the future,” he said.

Associate Athletic Director Bill Stevens told The Spokesman-Review WSU hopes to use the money to help fund the school’s student-athlete academic center.

The money cannot be used to help reduce the department’s $13-million-per-year budget deficit, and it is not part of the university’s budget plan for an academic semester.

“Because it needs to be spent on new and enhanced initiatives (per NCAA rules), by definition it is not available to be applied to our current budget; we need to invest in new programming,” Kleffner said.

This funding can only be used for the direct benefit of the student-athletes and their academic success, life skills, career success, health and safety and student-athlete focused diversity and inclusion initiatives, according to The Spokesman-Review.

Though the amounts each athletic department might receive have already been decided based on the number of athletic scholarships doled out during the 2013-2014 academic year, athletic departments have to submit plans for what they will do with the money in order to receive the allotted fuding.

The NCAA Executive Committee will decide where to allocate the money based on these plans in April, according to The Spokesman-Review. The money is part of an annual allocation that the NCAA provides to colleges across the country, according to the NCAA document explaining such allocations.

The money is considered to be revenue from the NCAA.

“Often, where there is new revenue from the NCAA, there is also an expectation that the recipients will provide more services for students, which offsets the new funding,” Chief Financial Officer Joan King said in an email.

Kleffner said the NCAA will let WSU know in May if their plan is approved and they can start spending the money.

Gonzaga University could receive $287,156, Eastern Washington University could receive $478,901 and the University of Washington could receive $846,856 from the NCAA, according to the grant information document. Through this same initiative, six schools in the Big Ten conference including Ohio State, Wisconsin and Michigan, could receive over $1 million, according to the document.