WSU’s Anne McCoy details House settlement’s impact at WSU, plus other nuggets

PULLMAN – As the athletics ecosystem department at Washington State changes, most notably cutting field events from its track and field program three weeks ago, more clarity is also beginning to surface about the impact of the House v. NCAA settlement at WSU.

In a Thursday news conference on Zoom, most of which she spent discussing the track and field cuts, WSU Athletics Director Anne McCoy confirmed that in the wake of House settlement, which paves the way for universities to begin directly paying athletes and went into effect on Tuesday, the Cougars are allotting $4.5 million this year for the football program.

That includes scholarships, stipends and NIL, she said. McCoy did not provide a number for WSU’s basketball programs, saying she didn’t know it off hand, but offered to let media know later on.

That means that while WSU’s football program may be getting what McCoy called a $4.5 million “benefits pool,” only some of that will be dedicated to institutional NIL payments – and she declined to detail those numbers, citing competitive advantage reasons. It’s unclear how the figure stacks up nationally, but it figures to be competitive in the new Pac-12.

Other nuggets from McCoy’s roughly 30-minute news conference are as follows:

• WSU’s apparel contract with Nike, worth about $2.3M annually, expired last week. Asked whether it stands to get renewed, McCoy said, “Stay tuned on that. I think there will be official news shortly.”

• On a similar Zoom news conference in April, McCoy said the school was about two to three weeks away from announcing new lodging availabilities in Pullman, potentially alleviating the issue of pricey hotels for football game weekends. But on Thursday, McCoy said she still wasn’t ready to provide more details, saying, “I think we’re close to rolling out a lot of that and a lot of other amenity updates, but not quite there yet.”

• As LSU prepares to sell advertisement patches on its football uniforms this fall, McCoy said WSU had not explored such a path, but she didn’t rule it out entirely: “To say we would or we wouldn’t do that, I don’t know, but we have to consider it,” she said. “I think we have to consider everything or we do ourselves a disservice.”

• Only one game on WSU’s 2025 football schedule, a Nov. 22 road contest against James Madison, doesn’t have a kickoff time. Because the game is at JMU, the ball is in the court of the Dukes and the Sun Belt Conference. McCoy said she has no update on a start time for that game.

• Over the weekend, the rebuilt Pac-12 officially welcomed Texas State as its crucial eighth all-sports members, meeting NCAA requirements for FBS conferences. As the conference looks to partner with more TV networks (on top of its foundational agreement with CBS), it’s possible commissioner Teresa Gould could look to add more schools than the minimum of eight all-sports members.

“I think the Pac-12 has done a good job of really looking at a phased approach on that,” McCoy said, referencing media rights packages and conference additions. “I think that they continue to evaluate, as we will collectively as a conference, what any future membership potential looks like, but also really finalizing the remaining pieces and getting those announced for the media partnership.”