NCAA ratifies new constitution, paving way to restructuring

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — NCAA member schools voted to ratify a new, streamlined constitution Thursday, paving the way for a decentralized approach to governing college sports that will hand more power to schools and conferences.

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, 801-195, and was the main order of business at the NCAA's annual convention.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said in his state of college sports address — delivered via video conference to a convention ballroom because he is currently in COVID-19 protocols — the new constitution was more of a “declaration of independence.”

Now each of the association's three divisions will be empowered to govern itself.

The new constitution is 18 1/2 pages, down from 43, and mostly lays out guiding principles and core values for the NCAA, the largest governing body for college sports in the United States with more than 1,200 member schools and some 460,000 athletes.

The move is just part of a sea change for the NCAA and the first major shift in its governance model since 1996. It comes with the hope that it will reduce college sports' exposure to legal challenges after a resounding rebuke from the Supreme Court last spring.

“We had to be able to demonstrate that we have the capacity to take this thing and prove we can govern ourselves,” Georgetown President and NCAA Board of Governors chairman Jack DeGioia told The Associated Press. “This is fundamentally a question of self-governance.”

For Divisions II and III, where athletics is treated more like other on-campus extracurricular activities, little will change. Still, most of the dissenting voices during the NCAA's open forum that preceded the full membership vote came from those ranks.

“Why are we still trying to stick together?” asked Betsy Mitchell, athletic director at Cal...