On June 6th, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved the House V. NCAA settlement, a 2.8 billion-dollar agreement to provide back pay over the last ten years to over 400,000 student-atheltes who competed from 2016 to the present. Moving forward, the settlement allows schools to pay upwards of 20.5 million annually in revenue directly to athletes, essentially ending amateurism in college sports.

The Big Ten, already one of the two richest conferences in college sports, will benefit even further with this agreement. The conference brought in 928 million in 2024, with its twelve longest-standing schools receiving 63.2 million each, with Rutgers receiving slightly less at 61.5 million.

Yes, Rutgers runs an overall operating deficit and paying athletes up to 20.5 million dollars from a revenue-sharing pot certainly doesn’t help offset the department’s net losses. Softening the losses from high operating expenses and facilities upgrades is a problem for incoming President William F. Tate IV and the soon-to-be hired new athletic director to figure out.

For the Big Ten and Rutgers, this is clearly a win and serves to make the conference more competitive moving forward.

“We look forward to implementing this historic settlement designed to bring stability, integrity, and competitive balance to college athletics while increasing both scholarship and revenue opportunities for student-athletes in all sports,” said Tony Petitti, Big Ten Comissioner, in a statement.

The settlement also establishes the new College Sports Commission to implement the settlement and oversee Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals and roster limits. The committee will be charged with investigating any violations of the rules.

Of course, Rutgers and the Big Ten aren’t the only winners. Athletes in football and basketball stand to benefit the most financially, but even those competing in non-revenue sports have opportunities, particularly at schools who don’t invest significant money in football – like Cornell in men’s lacrosse or Vermont in men’s soccer.

With winners, also comes the losers. In theory, having a clearinghouse in place should eliminate multi-million dollar, pay-to-play bidding wars for the top available defensive end in the transfer portal but time will tell how this all plays out practically.

To nobody’s surprise, the biggest losers are the Group of Five schools from the AAC, CUSA, MAC, MWC, and Sun Belt. These schools will be more challenged than ever to compete at the highest level with the Goliaths and it makes one wonder if they don’t split off into their own football entity in the near future.

At the end of the day, for Rutgers head cocahes Greg Schiano of football and Steve Pikiell for men’s basketball, revenue sharing with athletes only helps their case as they attempt to recruit at a high level in the modern lanscape of college athletics.

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The ever-changing era of NIL in college sports was just changed again, and in a big way.

In a report from Pete Nakos of On3 sports, Judge Claudia Wilken approved Friday evening the House vs. NCAA settlement on Friday in the U.S. Northern District of California, marking a landmark decision in the history of college sports.

As a result of the settlement, college institutions can now directly pay student-athletes as a new revenue-sharing era of college sports begins on July 1. The settlement allows for a starting salary cap of $20.5 million that will be paid to athletes with the cap increasing annually.

Additionally, the settlement includes $2.8 billion in back payments to current and former college athletes dating back to 2016. 

The settlement also includes proposed roster limits in college football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), softball (25), men’s and women’s soccer (28) and volleyball (18).

So, how does the settlement impact Vanderbilt?

As Nakos also points out in his report, football is expected to receive 75% of the $20.5 million salary cap followed by men’s basketball getting 15%, women’s basketball getting 5% and the remainder of sports getting the final 5%.

Considering college football will be getting the vast majority of the revenue share, it stands to reason that power conference schools in conferences such as the SEC and Big Ten will have the ability to pay athletes far more than any other conference, whether it be highly-rated players from the transfer portal and high school recruits.

Within these power conferences, the result of this new revenue-sharing era in college football and basketball more specifically will likely favor the powerhouse schools. While Vanderbilt could benefit from being in a power conference that will do what it can to compete with the top dogs in the conference, the settlement ultimately has the potential to likely hurt the Commodores.

Schools in the SEC that put more money and revenue-sharing into their football programs will likely stay at the top of the conference and thus create a separation between the schools that have more success and more money and the schools who do not.

Vanderbilt may also have trouble recruiting players from both high school and the transfer portal in football and basketball as a result of the settlement.

In the new era of college sports, student-athletes are won over by how much money they can get paid. As a result of this, the top-rated recruits and transfer portal players will end up going to the schools who offer the most money. Just as the schools who had the bigger NIL collectives were able to sway recruits, the same will be done in this revenue-sharing era. Because of this, it will likely make things more difficult for Vanderbilt to fill their football and basketball rosters with highly-rated players.

Though the settlement can allow Vanderbilt to build a roster of depth for football and possibly basketball as well, it faces a tall task in competing with the top SEC football and basketball programs in building a largely successful roster.