Written By
Written By
NCAA bans Division I men's basketball and football staffs from attending other teams' games to curb transfer tampering, with exceptions.
Written By
Written By
Division I men's basketball and football staffs will no longer be allowed in the stands at other teams' games.
The NCAA Division I Cabinet approved a rule Wednesday that bars coaches and other team-specific staff in men's basketball and in football, both FBS and FCS, from attending preseason, regular-season and conference tournament games involving other teams.
The NABC highlighted the basketball part on X on Thursday, and Saturday Down South's Cory Nightingale reported it. Early coverage mostly framed it as a basketball rule, but it covers football too.
The oversight committees for both sports backed the change to cut down on in-person recruiting of potential transfers. The goal is to stop coaches and staff from tampering with players before those players enter the Transfer Portal during their sport's notification-of-transfer window.
The rule covers in-person attendance only. It doesn't address phone contact, agents or third parties.
Staff can still attend another team's game when:
There are also sport-specific carve-outs:
No effective date has been set publicly.
At the same meeting, the Cabinet set a single football notification-of-transfer window for FBS and FCS: 10 days, starting the first business day after Jan. 1. It also approved new windows for cross country and track and field and for women's gymnastics. It also adopted several recommendations from the Division I Infractions Process Task Force, including a neutral administrator who can settle investigative disputes before a processing document is submitted.
For FCS programs, the attendance ban and the January window combine into one message: recruit your transfers through the portal window, not from the bleachers in October.
