With Scott Barnes on the state of D-I athletics: ‘We need to bring some order to this chaos’
Oregon State AD Scott Barnes says with all the changes in revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal, “we are legislating life lessons out of college athletics” (courtesy OSU athletics)
Updated 4/14/2025 12:50 AM
College athletics at the Division I level is changing at warp speed. It is almost impossible to keep up with everything that is happening, with all that is on the table and with what looms in the future.
I sought perspective from two important sources. This week, I had interviews with Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes and with Kyle Bjornstad, executive director of Dam Nation, OSU’s NIL collective. For nearly six years, Bjornstad worked as Barnes’ chief of staff. Both are tied into the world of college athletics and the inner circles of Beaver sports.
Biggest news this week was a federal judge’s ruling — actually, her non-ruling for now — on the proposed $2.8 billion settlement of three athlete-compensation anti-trust cases during a hearing in Oakland.
The settlement focuses on three main issues:
• $2.8 billion in back pay to athletes dating to 2016 over lost revenues, to be paid over 10 years ($280 million annually).
• A revenue-sharing formula that allows schools to pay athletes directly, with a $20.5 million annual cap.
• Creation of a clearinghouse, operated by the Deloitte auditing firm, to judge NIL deals worth more than $600 for “fair market value” rather than pay-for-play payments being passed off as brand deals.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken did not grant final approval of the proposed settlement, but sent the issue back to attorneys for both sides with instructions to make some minor adjustments and report to her in a week.
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“Nothing unexpected,” Barnes told me. “What we are all waiting for is the final decision. It is critically important that we get resolution on this, particularly given the upcoming portal windows, including football.”
Barnes is one of the 10 athletic directors (Washington State’s Anne McCoy is another) on the Settlement Implementation Committee that has been working on the infrastructure of the agreement for several months. The committee is broken into four sub-committees — 1) enforcement; 2) rules; 3) cap management and 4) clearinghouse. Barnes is a member of the enforcement sub-committee.
Through Zoom calls, members of each of the sub-committees have met “sometimes multiple times a week,” Barnes says. The main committee meets weekly.
With Wilkens’ final judgment expected on Monday, Barnes anticipates nine hours of full committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday.
“We are spending a lot of time right now, because we are so close to the finish line,” he says.
The pillars of the agreement, which is expected to come into effect on July 1, feature conveyance of $2.8 billion in damages by the NCAA and the conferences to current and former athletes. The proposed per-school cap is $20.5 million — a figure that represents 22 percent of revenue from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorship.
“I expect it to be approved, and for it to be operational not only by July 1, but also that new deals will be able to be made prior to that, and effective after that day,” Barnes says.
Between the NIL and the transfer portal, it has been the Wild West in player movement over the past two years, with many athletes transferring schools to the highest bidder for reportedly exorbitant NIL payouts. The proposed settlement should include at least the beginnings of guard rails that will set some rules and limits for what schools are allowed to do.
“The hope is that it brings some order to this chaos that is college athletics right now,” Barnes says. “We are in a place now where we have to find a way to get this train back on the tracks. Between executing the settlement, the enforcement arm, the cap management and other pieces, coupled with hopefully a federal bill, then we can tap down this nonsensical hyper-inflation we are seeing in the marketplace right now.”
Bjornstad is in agreement.
Dam Nation executive director Kyle Bjornstad believes the settlement’s NIL guidelines will enhance his collective’s position at Oregon State (courtesy Kyle Bjornstad)
“I think it is a good thing, because you can start looking at who is getting paid what for doing what,” he says. “You can’t have these outlandish numbers for a simple social media post. It will start the dominoes of putting arms around this thing and getting it into a box — somewhat — because right now, no box exists.”
The settlement calls for Deloitte to serve as clearinghouse to ensure that any NIL deal worth more than $600 is assessed at fair market value to avoid straight “pay-for-play” deals. But why $600? And won’t Deloitte officials be swamped with cases to judge?
“Deloitte is using certain factors to develop a threshold,” Barnes says. “The deals you read about in the paper or on-line are the big mega-deals, but the bulk of the deals are smaller, and a lot of them are under $600.
“(Handling judgments) is manageable, but our institutions are going to have to work with the student-athletes and their representatives to make sure the deals are registered. That is not going to be easy to do, but there are penalties involved if you don’t. Because of that, I think we will get it done.”
Bjornstad has some concerns.
“Deloitte’s valuation of NIL deals is maybe the hardest job in all of this,” he says. “First of all, I wonder why they identified $600 (as the threshold). That seems quite low. They might be spending 90 percent of their time looking at lower deals when there are other massive ones they should be looking at. Whatever they decide, there will be pushback on both sides.”
During Monday’s hearing, which included statements from several athletes, one of the issues that got much attention concerned roster limits. Under the proposed settlement, more scholarships will be awarded but rosters will be cut across the board in all sports. For instance, baseball’s roster size has been trimmed from 40 to 34 for the 2026 season, but the scholarship limit — previously at 11.7 — has been upped to 34.
“Although there is some opposition, I believe this will go through, and that will allow us to maintain an understanding of how many student-athletes can be involved,” Barnes says. “The (number of) scholarships can be up to the roster limit, and that is all-permissive. Any school can do what it wants in that regard.”
But won’t that limit opportunities for walk-ons?
“Yes,” Barnes says. “It will limit a lot of things — also, the number of high school student-athletes coming through the system.”
Bjornstad feels it personally. He was a walk-on guard who lettered in basketball at OSU from 2007-09.
“I understand the benefits of the scholarship changes,” he says, “but I think squad limits raise real questions about how fair that is to kids who want to walk on in any sport.”
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There are also questions about the $20.5-million annual revenue-sharing cap and how Title IX figures in. Women’s sports needs a piece of the pie, but football — which produces most of the revenue — seems destined to receive the majority of funding.
“The stance of the new federal administration (under President Trump) on Title IX is different than the old regime’s, but it will be up to each institution to interpret that,” Barnes says. “The market is suggesting that football will get the lion’s share. It is up to each institution to determine whether they will follow the market or do something differently.”
As it is, Oregon State won’t be near the proposed $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap.
“And we aren’t alone there,” Barnes says. “Many of our sister institutions will be doing far less than the $20.5 million.”
A year ago, to help cover lost revenue from the breakup of the Pac-12, the Oregon legislature through Senate Bill 5701 gave Oregon State a one-time funding boost of $10 million to help cover athletic scholarships for 2024-25.
“We have asked for $10 million (a year) ongoing,” Barnes says. “We will continue to need help from the legislature.”
For several years, Barnes was a member of the Division I Men’s Basketball Selection Committee. He is appalled at the transfer activity in both genders of the sport, with 2,000 men and 1,200 women in the portal.
“That is absolutely absurd,” Barnes says.
After the 2023-24 season, OSU women’s coach Scott Rueck lost seven of his top eight players to the portal. After the current campaign, men’s coach Wayne Tinkle has seen six of his top eight hit the portal.
“It is a statement of what is going on in the marketplace,” says Barnes, who hopes to see federal government involvement with a bill that will regulate activity. “There are things in the works to tamp down this nonsense — the outrageous 10X, 20X payments to student-athletes through NIL — but for now there are no guard rails to help level the playing field. “That is why the implementation committee’s work and a federal bill are so important. The current state (of affairs) is ruining college athletics.”
There is no such thing as an “amateur” athlete in Division I sports anymore. Basically, they are professionals. Shouldn’t the athlete be required to sign a contract with the school? If it were stipulated that they had to be multi-year deals, that would at least cut down on the frequency of transfers.
“One of the things the NCAA is trying to do is put together a standardized agreement that all schools have to use,” Bjornstad says. “Right now, there are a lot of places just giving their word and then not paying kids, but nothing was documented.”
The transfer portal windows must be changed and abbreviated. In football, the windows for 2024-25 are Dec. 9-28 and April 16-25. As is, players throughout the country transfer after the regular season and don’t participate in their team’s bowl games — except the CFP playoffs, or if a school has enough money to pay him to play. The fall/winter window should be moved back until after the bowl games.
“The timing needs to be revisited,” says Barnes, who serves on the FBS football oversight committee, which recommended that the spring window be eliminated.
“It got turned down,” Barnes says. “We will be back at the table to discuss that again. I am absolutely in favor of one window for football. It has to happen. It is nonsense to have two. The spring window is coming up and coaches are trying to put their rosters together for fall. To have this disruption again is ludicrous.”
The current men’s basketball window is March 24 to April 22. I think a two-week window beginning April 8 — after the NCAA championship game — should suffice.
“That would be a consideration, but there are some reasons for (the earlier start of the window),” Barnes says. “But re-evaluating that is on the list.”
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The structure of NIL payments has changed. Formerly, they had to be made outside the university by the school’s collective.
“With the new settlement comes the ability to compensate student-athletes from inside,” Barnes says. “In that regard, a collective isn’t needed. It can still be used, but there can be direct payments from our university to the student-athlete. And yes, we will be doing that.”
That doesn’t mean outside collectives will disappear.
“Not at this point, anyway,” Barnes says. “And certainly not in our case. Everything is so fluid, but the value of Dam Nation is very important to us. We will continue to review and look at Dam Nation as a partner and what we are doing internally on a year-to-year basis, depending on where this goes. But it has been instrumental in our NIL program, and we expect it will continue to be.”
Bjornstad believes the new rules will enhance Dam Nation’s position at Oregon State.
“Dam Nation will still be the official collective of Oregon State, but the athletic department will be able to be more involved on the NIL front,” he says. “They are going to be able to go out and work with sponsors to create NIL opportunities. That is a value add to the collective. “The more NIL the better. I don’t care where it comes from. The collective will do its thing, and if the school can add some deals on their own, that is complementary.”
Bjornstad says it hasn’t been determined if schools will be able to facilitate NIL deals or pass them off to the collectives.
“That will depend on the settlement and what additional steps are implemented by the NCAA,” he says. “I would think they could go out and help facilitate deals in partnership with the collective, and the collective will run the deals.”
Bjornstad predicts a big reduction in the number of collectives.
“I think you are going to see a lot of schools’ collectives go away,” he says. “Many of them are not built for sustainability. When revenue-sharing kicks in, a lot of donors will start giving to the university because they can get a tax deduction. That should happen, and I will push our donors to do that.
“But Dam Nation is not going to go anywhere. We are built to bring in dollars through sponsorships and memberships. We have built something that will continue through all the changes that are about to happen.”
Some believe the free market should have no limitations. A proposal in the Oregon House of Representatives — HB 3694 — would erase any cap that would be instituted for NIL funding. It would supersede any federal legislation imposing limits.
“There are no limits on NIL as it exists,” Bjornstad says. “So (the bill) is like a preemptive strike in case they put limits on it. We will see what happens. I don’t see anything changing now, but at some point the NCAA or some other body will probably come in and cap NIL funding.”
Not surprisingly, the University of Oregon and Nike — with perhaps the deepest pockets in college athletics — fully endorse the HB 3694. Not surprisingly, Barnes and Oregon State are strongly against it. Barnes believes there needs to be a cap to NIL spending.
“We need to bring some common sense to the marketplace,” he says. “We should implement as many measures as we can to control the expenses in a way that makes sense.”
Over the past year, the NCAA has eased its restrictions for NIL funding for foreign players.
“International athletes are able to be compensated through NIL, though they have to jump through different hoops to get the payment,” Bjornstad says. “If the athlete is off U.S. soil and back home, they can do (activities for NIL funding). Additionally, there is what is called ‘passive income,’ where they are not necessarily working but you can pay an athlete for the use of their name and image.
“I could pay an international player a sum of money to use a photo of them and their name in an ad, but I can’t pay them to post about it or do anything that would be considered work for a payment. You could have them on a billboard for your business, but couldn’t post on social media about it or do a photo shoot.”
This past week, a state-of-Washington legislator introduced a bill that would replace the NCAA while shaking up the college athletics landscape, including the transfer portal and conference realignment. The bill would create the “American College Sports Association,”which would oversee and regulate college sports. It calls for “NIL funds and revenue directly shared with the schools to be distributed equally among all student-athletes.”
Conferences would be required to have schools within the same time zone. The bill takes aim at coach’s salaries, putting a cap of “10 times the full cost of attendance at the institution.”
“I don’t know the nut and bolts, but the spirit of the bill is spot-on,” Barnes says. “The problem is with anti-trust issues, but the spirit of the legislator’s intent is spot-on.”
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Barnes is limited in what he can say about the situation with the Pac-12 vs. Mountain West lawsuit, which is still in mediation. I asked if the judgment is favorable to the Pac-12, did he think UNLV might reconsider and back out of its commitment to the Mountain West? Barnes declined to speculate.
He believes the Pac-12 is close to a media rights package agreement.
“We are making great progress on that front,” Barnes says. “I am encouraged by our progress and feel like we’ll be at the finish line soon.”
As for when additional schools will be added to the conference roster before the start of the revamped Pac-12 schedule in 2026? A similar answer.
“In some ways, it is running parallel to the media deal,” he says. “As we get that finalized, we will be very close on membership expansion as well.”
The seven schools committed to the new Pac-12 are all located on the West Coast. Does Barnes prefer a regional conference, or does he believe adding schools from different regions increases visibility and viability?
“Geography makes sense, from the experience of the student-athlete as well as financially,” he says. “But you take a lot of things into consideration when you are looking at expansion — the quality of the institution, eyeballs on television, both academic and on-field success, market size. All those things come into play, including geography. None of those items by itself inform the final decision.”
Is Barnes confident that when the Pac-12 reconvenes in 2026 it will emerge at the Power Four (or Five) level?
“Our goal is to be in that fifth spot,” he says. “I believe if you look at the collection of our schools and use metrics, such as (television ratings), strength of schedule, CFP ranking over a period of time and men’s basketball rankings, we are in that fifth spot. We feel good about that quality. We need to continue to be successful on the field of play to keep that momentum going.”
Barnes, 62, has been in college athletics administration for nearly three decades. The mess that Division I sports is currently in is not what he signed up for.
“I said this at our Student-Athlete Advisory Committee meeting the other night,” he says. “I am from the system. I was a student-athlete, but so were my wife, my son and my daughter. They were all student-athletes. The experience has shifted. It used to be privilege. Now it almost feels like it is a right. It is not a right; it is a privilege. Treating this as a privilege means all sorts of things.
“What has happened — and it is on all of us in coaching and administration, from presidents to ADs to commissioners to coaches — we are legislating life lessons out of college athletics. The values and the things that stay with me and are in my back pocket have help me (achieve) whatever success I have had in my career.
“That experience as a student-athlete is who I am. When you are creating legislation that allows complete control and student-athletes to go anywhere at any time, and to not face adversity, overcome it and meet the challenge, you are losing some of the value that collegiate athletics has brought for decades.”
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