A seven-member steering committee with the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors is working to provide wealthier conferences with "a range" of autonomy -- namely the freedom to provide athletes the full cost of scholarships -- and hopes to have a new structure in place by August, said the board's chair, Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch.
"We're not talking about full autonomy," Hatch told ESPN.com. "We're talking about a range of issues."
Hatch said he is confident change is imminent.
"It definitely will" change, he said. "Membership can vote it down, but this has been a huge process. ... The board last fall had a whole day of hearings. We've talked to coaches, students, athletic directors, big schools, small schools, the Knight Commission, faculty-athletic representatives, and I think we can craft a compromise that makes the board more nimble, more strategic, in some ways more like a confederation that allows big schools certain ways to expend some of their new revenue on behalf of student-athletes."
Hatch said another prominent focus has been making athletic directors more directly and heavily involved in the NCAA's rule-making. Over time, many of those responsibilities have been delegated to university presidents and chancellors. Hatch said that the 18-member board, which meets four times a year, will recommend that it be smaller and more strategic, and that there be a council comprised mainly of athletic directors "that does the nuts and bolts of business in the NCAA."
