NEW YORK -- NCAA President Mark Emmert is still determined to provide college athletes with 2,000 dollars for expenses not covered by scholarships.




The Board of Directors approved the rule in October 2011, but by late December 160 schools had signed onto override legislation. The change was suspended and the board reconsidered it at the January meeting.

On Wednesday, Emmert sounded a bit chastened by the backlash. Asked about the plan being stayed, he said: '''Stayed' is the polite word; it kind of got crushed.'

''We didn't anticipate the reaction it provoked,'' Emmert said at the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum.

Schools worried about how the stipends would affect Title IX compliance and whether they'd be able to afford them. Emmert said one possibility was making them need-based -- available to students who can't afford the various expenses that come with attending colleges, but less expensive for schools.


''This is a branding issue,'' Emmert said.


Emmert argues that money is not the issue. Money is pouring in from TV deals. The new college football playoff contract will be worth about 470 million dollars a year. That money, however, goes directly to conferences, not to the NCAA. It also benefits most of the schools that were already the wealthiest to begin with.

The current men's basketball tournament agreement -- worth an average of more than 770 million dollars per year -- is with the NCAA. The governing body could use some of that money to pay for stipends itself, though that would mean providing fewer funds to conferences. Stipends would dent schools' budgets one way or another.