The Ivy League is continuing to uphold its “Ancient Eight” nickname by continuing to fight directly against the current era of college sports.
On Monday, Bloomberg first reported that the eight Ivy athletic departments will begin signing attestations of independence for payments to athletes over $2,000 for an athlete’s name, image, and likeness. An attestation of independence, in this context, is a signed document that claims that a NIL deal with an outside donor was not brokered by the signing institution’s athletic department in any way.
All Division-I athletes are already required to report all deals over $600 to a clearinghouse, so the conference’s decision is an addition to the existing NCAA requirement.
“We attest as athletic directors that we are not in any way, directly or indirectly, asking a donor or alum to give money to somebody as a recruit inducement, or if they want to go into the transfer portal as a retention inducement,” Dartmouth athletics director Mike Harrity told Bloomberg.
A request for comment has been left with Penn Athletics.
The move by the Ivy League to distance itself further from “pay for play” comes after the conference’s decision to opt out of the House v. NCAA settlement. The $2.8 billion settlement paved the way for athletic programs to pay former and current athletes directly. The decision was another in a long line of maintaining tradition for the conference, including the banning of athletic scholarships.
“The Ivy League’s decision doesn’t surprise me much, but I still don’t understand it,” Penn football’s then-senior quarterback Aidan Sayin wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian in January. “Opting into ‘House’ as a league could provide an easier pathway for its schools to compensate their players. … With no current athletic scholarships, it would be a radical change for the Ivy League, much more than any other league.”
