A new era of collegiate athletics will begin this summer after a landmark ruling on Friday. Following some significant changes in recent years with NIL, portal windows, unlimited transfers and conference expansion, the NCAA will now institute revenue sharing in July and phase in roster limits.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the deal between the NCAA, its major conferences and lawyers representing all Division I athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement ends three separate federal antitrust lawsuits and will pay $2.776 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed at any time from 2016 through present day.

Beginning July 1, schools will be able to share $20.5 million with student-athletes. Football is expected to receive 75%, followed by men’s basketball (15%), women’s basketball (5%) and the remainder of sports (5%). The amount shared in revenue will increase annually during the decade-long deal.

Florida Gators athletic director Scott Stricklin released a statement Saturday on the House v. NCAA ruling.

“The University of Florida Athletic Association welcomes the recent court ruling allowing schools to directly share revenue with student-athletes. This decision marks an important step forward for college athletics, and we remain committed to supporting Gator athletes on and off the field. Beyond financial opportunities, the UAA will continue to provide world-class training, academic support, and career development to help our Gators succeed during their time at UF and well beyond.”

Roster limits, NIL clearinghouse

Roster limits are also set to be introduced. According to On3’s Pete Nakos, Wilken recently pushed back on the limits automatically being put in place, stating that the House v. NCAA settlement would not move forward if roster spots were not grandfathered in. NCAA and power conference attorneys, along with plaintiffs’ attorneys, agreed on a plan to phase in roster limits.

Under the plan, athletes who were cut from rosters will be eligible for reinstatement at schools’ discretion. It also permits athletes who leave or are not retained by their current school to keep grandfather status at a new school. Proposed rosters include football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), men’s and women’s soccer (28), softball (25) and volleyball (18).

The settlement also imposes new restrictions on college sports. An NIL clearinghouse will be established, titled “NIL Go” and run through Deloitte. All third-party NIL deals of $600 or more must be approved by the clearinghouse. If not approved, the settlement says a new third-party arbiter could deem athletes ineligible or result in a school being fined. 

SEATTLE – Ali Aguilar, Jadelyn Allchin, Sis Bates, Victoria Hayward and Baylee Klingler are on opening day Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) rosters as the league begins its inaugural season today.
 
Aguilar and Hayward will compete for Talons, Bates with Volts and Klingler with Blaze. Allchin is a reserve player and will open the season on the Talons. Washington is one of five programs with five or more players on a roster joining UCLA (7), Florida (6), LSU (6) and Oklahoma (5).
 
The Talons open the season versus the Bandits at noon PT on MLB.com in Rosemont, Illinois. Volts and Blaze open their seasons at 4:30 p.m. PT on MLB Network in Wichita, Kansas.
 
Major League Baseball announced last week that they will be investing in AUSL. In addition, ESPN Networks will broadcast 16 games throughout the season on ESPN2 and ESPNU, five games will be featured on MLB Network and all remaining games can be streamed for free (no subscription required) on MLB.com, MLB.tv and the MLB App.
 
AUSL will make a stop in Seattle later this summer as Bates’ Volts takes on Klingler’s Blaze July 11-13 at Husky Softball Stadium. Tickets are on sale now for the three-game series.
 
Throughout the 2025 season, AUSL will visit 10 cities before the teams will move to a home base in 2026. The league runs from June 7 through July 23 with the Championship Series taking place July 26-28 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. To view the entire schedule, click here.
 
For more information on the UW softball team, follow @UWSoftball on X and Instagram.
 

OAKLAND, Calif. – June 6, 2025, will be a day to remember for college athletics. After months of anticipation and many pauses in The House v. NCAA lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, approved schools to begin paying their players directly, starting July 1.

Wilken finalized a revenue-back pay settlement case that challenged long-standing NCAA rules on player compensation. The decision will not only change how college athletes are paid moving forward, but will also provide $2.8 billion in back pay to those who missed out on earning opportunities between 2016 and September 15, 2024, before NIL rights were fully recognized.

With this new era, a few things are expected to change starting next month. So, what does it mean for schools being able to pay their players directly? Athletes will be paid for things like jersey sales, video game appearances, social media promotions, and more. Yes, athletes have been paid for these things, but through partnerships, sponsors, and NIL deals, not directly through their respective school due to them banning athletes from earning money this way.

Additionally, each school can pay up to $20.5 million per year to its athletes. That figure is capped at 22% of certain sports revenue and is expected to increase annually over the time of the 10-year agreement.

Even though a yearly pay will be given to schools to distribute among their athletes, this does not mean athletes will no longer be able to make money from their name, image, and likeness through third parties. Should athletes choose to make additional earnings from a third-party entity, like a business, brand, booster or collective, they must submit to the new Deloitte-run NIL clearinghouse for legitimacy.

With this revenue-sharing plan, scholarships will also change. Previously, the NCAA set scholarship limits for each sport. Now, those limits are being replaced by roster caps, meaning schools will decide how many players are on a team rather than how many scholarships can be given.

This change could allow schools to offer more scholarships overall, with a predicted estimate of 115,000 additional scholarships being given across Division I programs. However, there’s concern that some teams might shrink their rosters, affecting walk-ons or high school recruits.

To help ease the transition, the settlement allows schools to protect certain athletes already on the roster or those who were promised a spot. These athletes are called “Designated Student-Athletes,” and schools have the option to exempt them from the new limits – though it’s not mandatory.

To ensure this new system is under control, the Power Five conferences announced the creation of the College Sports Commission, a new organization responsible for making sure schools follow the rules. The commission will investigate violations, mange penalties, and handle disputes. Bryan Seeley, has been named the commission’s first CEO. Seeley was previously a Major League Baseball executive and federal prosecutor.

For now, all decisions have been made final, but there is major pushback, and some groups who objected to the ruling could file appeals, but they only have 30 days to do so.

Want to know more about the recent approval? Read this article!

Greg Byrne Announces Tide will Fund Revenue Sharing 

Late on Friday night, a landmark change for collegiate athletics happened.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House V. NCAA settlement, which outlines plans for colleges to pay their current and former athletes directly for their name, image and likeness (NIL), as well as to implement new roster limits for each sport.

To enforce the settlement, the College Sports Commission (CSC) was established, which will ensure there’s compliance for revenue sharing, third-party NIL deals and the roster limits. It is a separate entity from the NCAA.

This settlement will bring college football into a new era, including Penn State. Here’s more on how it will affect Nittany Lions football.

New revenue sharing

Starting July 1, colleges will have the ability to pay their players directly from the revenue it receives. Each college opting into the settlement will have an estimated $20 million salary cap to spend for all of its athletic teams, but it’s unclear exactly how much the Nittany Lions will allocate to its football program.

It is clear, though, based on current estimates by NIL-NCAA and trends that the Nittany Lions will be using most of its available money on its football squad.

New roster limit

Within the settlement, football teams of colleges opting in will have a roster limit of 105 players with no limit on scholarships. The requirement will be grandfathered in, meaning any player who would lose a roster spot because of cuts, also known as “designated student-athletes,” don’t apply towards the roster limit for the same remainder of their Division I careers as long as their school allows.

As of now, Penn State has 126 players on its roster. It remains to be seen who could receive a scholarship and who could depart the program once the Nittany Lions have to get below the limit, but regardless, James Franklin has voiced his displeasure with the new rule long before it got approved.

“I don’t want to lose any of them,” Franklin said after the Blue-White Game in April. “I’d like for these guys to stay a part of the program until they graduate. A lot of these young men chose Penn State to get their degree from Penn State and play football.”

In prior years, football teams had a scholarship limit of 85, but they could have multiple walk-on players as well. Now, the entire roster is limited to 105 players.

If Penn State ends up using all 105 scholarships that it can use under the new ruling, stories such as linebacker Dom DeLuca going from being a walk-on to a significant on-field contributor will no longer be an aspect for the team.

The new roster limit will go into effect at the start of this season, but with current walk-ons eligible to stay under the new rules, there might not be many players departing the program.

Payouts to former athletes

In addition to the revenue sharing with current athletes, the settlement also calls for former players to receive payouts for lost NIL during their careers.

As for ex-Nittany Lions, it remains to be seen who exactly will get these payments, but any player who held a scholarship from June 15, 2016, through September 15, 2024, is eligible to receive these payments.

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