Bylaw 16 – Monitoring Vehicles

Reasonable Standards Review

The NCAA has bylaws mandating regulations for coaches, administrators and student-athletes. The National Association of Athletics Compliance (NAAC) has established a set of reasonable standards for the purpose of providing guidance to NCAA member institutions. In this blog series, Spry Compliance Director Todd Hairston will review these standards and provide insight on how Spry can help institutions stay compliant and mitigate risk.

Bylaw 16- Monitoring Vehicles

As we approach the end of the first full year of NIL, athletic departments have had to reassess their monitoring priorities in the wake of NIL in order to adjust to the ever changing landscape.

Given the heightened concerns that have emerged around booster activities, collectives and impermissible inducements, the monitoring of these potential benefits has taken on even more significance than in years past. As such, the reasonable standards recommended by NAAC as it relates to the monitoring of student-athlete vehicles are extremely timely and relevant. 

While NIL has created new pathways by which student-athletes can permissibly acquire items of value such as cars, it has also opened the door for perhaps even more impermissible transactions to occur. Therefore, the athletic department’s active monitoring of this space is more critical than ever. 

Below, we’ll highlight some of NAAC’s recommended standards associated with the monitoring of student-athlete vehicles, and also touch on how Spry can assist athletic departments in meeting them.

Standard 

• Student-athletes whom, in the judgment of the institution, are considered high profile or high risk, will submit vehicle information to Compliance Office for review. Recommended information to collect during a vehicle review: 
  1. Year, Make, Model, Color,Customization 
  2. License plate number and State 
  3. Name of Title Holder(s) 
  4. Student-athlete’s relationship to TitleHolder(s) 
  5. Date of purchase (Month/Year) 
  6. Status of the vehicle loan and name of loan holder 
  7. Dealership or individual from which vehicle was purchased 
  8. Who (if anyone) helped the student-athlete select and purchase the vehicle Person 
• Educate student-athletes, parents, appropriate athletics department staff members, and university personnel regarding extra benefit rules that pertain to the use or acquisition of vehicles. 
• Educate local car dealers with whom the institution has a relationship and any other dealerships with whom the institution has reason to believe that student-athletes are doing business with regarding applicable NCAA rules including extra benefits and preferential treatment pertaining to free or reduced cost access to vehicles.
• Retain the institutional vehicle information completed by the student-athletes as well as any other documentation that the institution has elected to gather.
• Maintain a record of the education provided to student-athletes, parents, institutional staff members and others regarding preferential treatment/extra benefits for use or purchase of a vehicle. 

Platform Support

• From a monitoring perspective, SpryNIL’s disclosure function will allow for easy identification of all NIL transactions, the nature of the transaction, as well as the amount and type of compensation.  Any transaction involving a booster, or booster collective can easily be flagged by the compliance office for review and approval.
• Operationally, SpryConnect’s customizable workflows can optimize the data collection process. Once a workflow is released to a student-athlete, they can input all necessary vehicle information (make, model, title holder, etc.) and then submit to compliance for final review.  Once the workflow is reviewed and finalized, the department will have a paperless record keeping system that is easily accessible, and also allows the department to demonstrate that it has met its obligations for monitoring and documentation.
• Lastly, Spry’s robust educational platform offers digestible content designed to inform student-athletes, parents, boosters and local businesses about the NCAA’s rules regarding extra benefits. 

Relevant Bylaws

16.11.2.1 General Rule– The student-athlete shall not receive any extra benefit. The term “extra benefit” refers to any special arrangement by an institutional employee or representative of the institution’s athletics interests to provide the student-athlete or the student-athlete’s family members or friends with a benefit not expressly authorized by NCAA legislation.  

16.11.2.2 Other Prohibited Benefits– An institutional employee or representative of the institution’s athletics interests may not provide a student-athlete with extra benefits or services, including, but not limited to:

(a) A loan of money; 

(b) A guarantee of bond; 

(c) An automobile or the use of an automobile; 

(d) Transportation (e.g., a ride home with a coach), except as permitted in Bylaw 16.9.1, even if the student-athlete reimburses the institution or the staff member for the appropriate amount of the gas or expense; or 

(e) Signing or co-signing a note with an outside agency to arrange a loan.

Yes or No

• Question: Is it permissible for a student-athlete to be provided an automobile as the result of an NIL deal with a car dealership owned by an institutional booster?
• Answer: YES, provided the car is received as a result of a legitimate business arrangement, is commensurate with the value of the task being executed by the student-athlete, and was not a condition of the student-athlete’s initial or continued enrollment at his/her institution.

Learn about ways that Spry can help you navigate other NCAA bylaws by clicking here.