July 1st is not only makes history with revenue sharing—but also making history with the new plethora of compliance busywork mandated by the House Settlement.

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Today, Dropback is excited to announce our Day 1 support of college sports’ new cap compliance software: CAPS (College Athlete Payment System). Created by LBi, and co-owned with the Defendant Conferences of the House Settlement—CAPS is the new mandated Athlete Management System (AMS) of the revenue sharing era.

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And, starting July 1, teams using Dropback for cap optimization (scenario planning, roster strategy, financial modeling) will be able to one-way manual import their roster scenarios & transaction data for over 20 sports—directly into CAPS—saving hours, reducing errors, and heightening the value of Dropback’s software offering.

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This blog will discuss:

• CAPS functionality & product overview
• Dropback’s import capabilities with CAPS
• How elite teams will use both Dropback and CAPS to compete in the rev-share era

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Understanding CAPS: The Settlement Compliance Platform for Institutions

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As institutions prepare for the start of revenue sharing and new reporting obligations under the recent settlement, a system called CAPS (Centralized Athlete Platform System) has been introduced by LBi Software.

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CAPS is explicitly designed as a compliance and audit infrastructure —a centralized platform where all required data will ultimately reside and be reviewed for adherence to policy.

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LBi’s history building cap compliance software runs deep, as also the builders for MLB’s (eBiz) and NBA (PCMS). They’re taking the same experience and mandate from the pros—cap audit & compliance software—to college sports.

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What CAPS Is

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CAPS is best understood as the formal, institutional system for submitting, certifying, and maintaining student-athlete compensation records. It is the official system of record for settlement compliance, and is structured to ensure institutions follow all mandated workflows, approval chains, and reporting requirements.

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“Going forward, we’d expect institutions to manage their rosters in CAPS, instead of something like [Teamworks] ARMS,” said Nick McKeon, LBI Software’s representative at NACDA (June 10, 2025).

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Key Characteristics

• Centralized Record-Keeping: All roster data, contracts, and financial transactions are submitted into CAPS, where they can be tracked and audited.
• Approval Chains: Submissions (e.g. athlete agreements or payment data) require multi-step approval processes, preventing unilateral changes.
• Transaction-Based Logging: Every action — from adding a student to a roster to submitting a contract — is treated as a formal transaction within the system. This includes most clicks & login activity from users of CAPS.
• Audit-Ready Architecture: CAPS logs historical actions and metadata (who submitted, who approved, timestamps), ensuring enforcement bodies have full visibility.
• Access Control: Institutions designate a single “Change Champion” who manages all internal user permissions; CAPS is tightly permissioned and credentials are tracked.
• Market Data Share: Fair Market Value (FMV) data across the entire league will be shared back to programs on a monthly cadence, broken down by (i) sport (ii) conference (iii) position.

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Source: CAPS NACDA Presentation, presented by Nick McKeon, on June 10, 2025.

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Key Product Screenshots

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Source: CAPS NACDA Presentation, presented by Nick McKeon, on June 10, 2025.

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Where CAPS Sits in the Workflow

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CAPS serves a clear purpose: ensuring that institutions comply with the terms of the student-athlete settlement.

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• It is tightly governed, rules-based, and focused on enforcement.
• It is not designed for early-stage experimentation, planning, or creative deal structuring.
• Rather, it is a formal destination system — the final place data must land for review, audit, and compliance certification.

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Understanding Dropback: The Cap Optimization Playground for Elite Programs

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An all-knowing regulatory ledger, while seemingly overreaching, isn’t new territory. These systems have existed in pro sports for decades (NFL = Football Information System, FIS. NBA = Player Contract Management System, PCMS). And these pro teams have similarly building systems & technology for decades for their pre-regulatory workflows.

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As systems like FIS & PCMS track every click, pro teams have built internal ‘front office software’ for their staffs to strategize, construct, and theorize their most competitive roster before formal compliance submission.

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This is where Dropback comes in, to support the pre-CAPS workflows of the revenue sharing era: the workshopping, modeling, and negotiation phases that precede formal submission.

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How? Let’s dive in…

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What Dropback Is

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While CAPS is structured to enforce correctness and compliance—Dropback was built for General Managers to explore, iterate, and collaborate on roster strategy before data is locked into a regulatory pipeline.

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Dropback is cap optimization software for elite collegiate teams, to maximize and implement revenue sharing strategies in their new front office. Trusted by teams in the SEC, Big Ten, and PAC 12—use Dropback to create and monitor budgets, build data-driven cap strategies, and manage contract negotiations.

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Modeled after pro (NFL, MLB, NBA) front office software, Dropback brings the same technological firepower of pro-team software teams (software engineers, data analysts, quant researchers) into your collegiate front office.

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Key Characteristics

• Custom Valuation Modeling: Build-your-own athlete valuation models using custom metrics, baselines, and weights, allowing for defensible and data-driven contract values.
• Play Moneyball: Apply these custom models to over 100,000+ athletes in Dropback’s extensive roster database of high school, DI/DII/DII, JUCO/NAIA, and international prospects across 7+ sports.
• Robust Data Integrations: Dropback’s 10+ pre-integrations (from PFF to ARMS) streamlines workflows by integrating data across the tools GMs use every day.
• Roster Construction Playground: A dynamic, drag-and-drop interface to facilitate real-time adjustments and scenario planning with deep version control, undo/redo, and real-time collaboration capabilities.
• Cash Flow Modeling: Offers tools to strategize, project, and monitor allocations and spending in real time across teams and departments, aiding in financial planning and compliance.

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Key Product Demos

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Dropback 🤝 CAPS

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Dropback’s Day 1 support of CAPS is an industry first. Here’s how it will works:

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• One-Click Export — Dropback’s robust export capabilities will auto-magically transpose your Dropback data into the CAPS-mandated data formats, for one-click error-free imports into CAPS for (i) rosters and (i) signed contract history & documentation
• One-Way Manual Import — CAPS never automatically “syncs” with Dropback. For heightened security on your data, GMs and Admins are always in full control of (i) selecting the subset of athletes & data they want to import/export and (ii) creating explicit admin approval workflows to click-to-share data with CAPS.
• Market Data Sync — CAPS-provided market compensation ranges will sync in realtime to scenario planning in Dropback, allowing coaches to understand how their offers compare
• Roster Data Sync — Leveraging the NCAA ID system, Dropback & CAPS ‘roster profiles’ remain in sync for error-free imports

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All Dropback team clients who are (i) active or (ii) sign up by July 1, will be automatically enrolled to the Integration Beta.

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Dropback users can opt in our out of all sync capabilities. Data is never shared to CAPS without explicit approval by team admins.

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Summary

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While July 1 is the official launch of CAPS’s compliance mandates, Dropback has building for months for this new era to make the transition for teams and GMs as smooth as possible.

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For elite teams looking to model, simulate, and iterate on student-athlete deals prior to formal compliance submission, Dropback continues to lead the industry in tooling focused on flexibility, experimentation, and collaboration — prior to CAPS submissions.

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Want to learn more about our integration, and Dropback’s pro-grade front office software? Reach out at hello@dropback.com