The College Athletic Protection or CAP Agreement is the first of its kind, as it is a legally binding document between college athletic recruits and universities regarding compensation beyond scholarships and financial aid. The intention of this contract is to allow student-athletes to negotiate terms of their college career with schools.
The agreement, created by the National College Players Association, includes benefits for the student-athlete such as guaranteed scholarship money, stipend money, reimbursement money, medical expenses, off-season and free time activities, and disability insurance. All of these benefits can potentially amount to $100,000 beyond the minimum scholarship value.
In theory, this is the first implementation of the new collegiate model where student-athletes can now have discussions with college coaches and athletic department personnel about a complete compensation package.
So what does this mean for college athletics?
Student-athletes could now negotiate contracts.
Every recruited student-athlete now has a basis to negotiate a “contract” deal with the university they are being recruited to attend to. Amateurism seems to be the way of the past with this newly created agreement that could lead to a more competitive market in college athletics.
Athletic Departments and Universities may need to budget differently.
Universities may now have to spend more money on student-athlete expenses. This is especially complicated if every student athlete does not receive the same package as others.
Different benefits in different programs.
There will be a challenge of making sure all student-athletes receive benefits that are fair. Do you provide benefits based on program revenue? Or do you have a set benefit package for each program for all student-athletes? Also, do you offer every student-athlete the same benefits package, or is giving out benefits going to be performance based?
More transfers
With the transfer release clause in the CAP agreement, student-athletes have the transfer freedom without college imposed conditions or restrictions on which schools can contact you and provide you with an athletic scholarship should you wish to transfer. This can become very handy if student-athletes are unhappy when they are one or two years into the program. Student-athletes will still have to sit out for a year, but could not be denied transfer by the university.
If implemented, this document will likely change the landscape of college athletics. The top talent will have a platform to negotiate what they want financially from a university as well as other benefits. Progress has been made in terms of evolving the NCAA model. Now, the question becomes if this kind of progress will make college athletics better or worse.