Dive Brief:

• Starting this week, the University of California will pay out bonuses to new coaches and athletic directors based on student-athletes’ academic performance.
• Each of the nine undergraduate campuses in the university system must set minimum academic performance levels for teams to maintain before their coaches and athletic directors can receive any type of performance incentives — both academic and athletic.
• Before the change, the coaches’ pay was tied to athletic performance only, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Dive Insight:

Academic performance of players on UC teams became an issue in 2013 when a report showed UC-Berkeley’s football and men’s basketball teams with the lowest graduation rates in the country. The new policy applies to new and renewed contracts. The academic performance evaluation will come from the Academic Progress Rate of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, measuring student-athletes on their academic eligibility to play and whether they remain in school. Campuses can also add other measures into the contracts, such as graduation rates and grades.