National declarations of intent disappear.
The NCAA announced Wednesday that players will no longer sign an NLI when committing to a school. For decades, players have signed letters of intent during signing ceremonies at high schools across the country on National Signing Day. The NLI had been standard since 1964 and was seen as the binding agreement between schools and players. If a player wanted to transfer to another school after signing an NLI, a school had to release him or her from the agreement.
Moving forward, players will sign a written athletics aid offer with their school of choice and other schools will be prohibited from recruiting players once the aid agreements are signed.
The move to eliminate the NLI comes at a time when college athletics is in the midst of major turmoil. The NCAA is close to a settlement in the House of Representatives antitrust lawsuit, saying member schools could pay nearly $3 billion to former athletes who were unable to retain their image rights during their college careers. For current and future athletes, the idea of schools sharing revenue with their players is becoming closer to reality. Currently, schools cannot pay players directly and players make money from their image rights through sponsorships and endorsements from donor collectives and other companies.
The transfer periods have become shorter
The transfer windows in the three major college sports are now 30 days instead of 45.
The NCAA also announced that transfer windows in football and both men’s and women’s basketball would be shortened by 15 days. This season, the transfer window for men’s basketball opens from March 24 to April 22, and a day later for women’s basketball.
There will still be two transfer windows in football. Players can transfer from December 9 through December 28 after the end of the regular season and again from April 16 through April 25 after spring training.
The winter transfer window has been a source of consternation in college football since its introduction, given the timing of bowl games. Many players who want to enroll at a new school in time for the second semester must enter the portal before their team’s bowl games. A season ago, Texas backup QB Maalik Murphy – now at Duke – entered the portal before the College Football Playoff due to the timing of the transfer window. Murphy started multiple games for the Longhorns during the 2023 regular season due to Quinn Ewers’ shoulder injury.
