Cast against their brown and beige office backdrops, the four horsemen of the settlement spoke as one.

Tony Petitti, Jim Phillips, Greg Sankey and Brett Yormark — commissioners of the conferences that control major college sports — conducted a remote news conference Monday morning to share their views on the momentous House v. NCAA settlement and what’s next for the industry.

They were joined on the Zoom call by Teresa Gould, commissioner of the Pac-12, which was a named defendant in the lawsuit (along with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and NCAA) and therefore a participant in constructing the post-settlement world order.

Together, the quintet reiterated the need for congressional help to codify rules and provide antitrust protection in order to end the barrage of legal challenges to the NCAA.

They explained that the distribution of $20.5 million to athletes starting July 1 won’t be determined at the conference level. How much to allocate to football, men’s basketball and the Olympic sports will be a campus decision.

And they acknowledged the post-settlement world is evolving. They don’t have all the systems and personnel in place to immediately clean up what Phillips (ACC) called “an unregulated environment with no rules and no enforcement.” They believe answers, and solutions, will come with time.

But is there any reason to believe cheating will disappear? That pay-for-play, which has taken so many forms over the decades, will be expunged from the system? That “bad actors,” as Sankey (SEC) described them, will be banished forever?

If effort and determination count, the clean-up effort could succeed.

“It’s progress over perfection,” Yormark (Big 12) explained. “There will be challenges. But we’re very confident.

“Our schools want rules. We’re providing rules, and we will be governed by those rules. And if you break those rules, the ramifications will be punitive.”

As part of the settlement, the power conferences created the College Sports Commission, with a chief executive, Bryan Seeley, a former lead investigator for Major League Baseball, and a singular mission: Ensure NIL deals are legitimate.

For the past four years, they have been anything but.

Remember the old-fashioned cheating, when bags o’ cash were given to recruits and their handlers in exchange for signatures on letters of intent? The moment NIL became the law of the land in the summer of 2021, a new, legal form of pay-for-play emerged, courtesy of booster collectives.

High school recruits and transfers alike were lured to schools by collectives offering six- and seven-figure deals. Those deals did not require players to participate in the promotional and endorsement opportunities at the heart of what the NCAA described as legitimate NIL.

The fake NIL was under-the-table cheating out in the open — unregulated but entirely legal.

Which brings us to the College Sports Commission (CSC) and the industry’s latest attempt to clean up the player procurement process.

In addition to the $20.5 million they will receive directly from the schools as part of the House settlement, athletes retain the ability to strike NIL deals with third-party entities. The difference: Now, they must report any contract of at least $600 to NIL Go, a technology platform designed by Deloitte that will determine if deals fall within a reasonable range of compensation. (That’s code for fair market value.)

If NIL Go rejects the deal, athletes have the option to adjust the terms and resubmit.

Or they could seek arbitration.

In theory, they could ignore NIL Go, agree to the contract and take the field (or court). But there’s a risk to competing with an invalid NIL deal, because the schools are arming the CSC with enforcement authority.

How will Seeley, a former assistant U.S. attorney, gather evidence? He won’t have subpoena power.

Also, who will design the penalty matrix?

“We’re in the process of developing some of those rules and structure and overall implementation,” Phillips said.

The industry is watching, and skeptics are everywhere.

Even if NIL Go successfully filters out the illegitimate business deals — the financial arrangements that are outside a reasonable range of compensation — the specter of pay-for-play remains.

And it could very well take a familiar form. That’s right, folks: Get ready for the return of bags o’ cash.

The CSC is designed to eliminate the donor collectives that paid players (legally) without demanding anything in return except a signature and their best effort on gameday.

But if deep-pocketed fans of School X want to help the team secure vital commitments from coveted transfers or blue-chip prospects, is the CSC really going to stop them?

Pay-for-play could simply return to its former location — under the table — and proceed with limited hesitation.

How can the CSC police the actions of thousands of donors representing hundreds of schools across 10 major college conferences?

How could it investigate and punish private citizens?

Will the schools report suspicious activity, invite Seeley to town and hand over whatever evidence helps expose transgressions committed by a million-dollar donor who is also helping to fund the new engineering building?

The commissioners know far more about the CSC than we do.

They have discussed the clean-up project extensively with campus officials desperate for law and order.

They made a shrewd move hiring a former assistant U.S. attorney and not a college sports lifer.

But it’s difficult to ignore the leap-of-faith component built into their new world order. College sports has too many athletes with financial needs, too many sources of cash and too many fans who care about winning above all else.

The result is a revamped system that’s rooted in best intentions but dependent on a leap of faith.

“Ultimately,” Sankey said, “it’s incumbent upon everyone, presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, head coaches, assistant coaches and staff and, yes, commissioners, to make the terms of this settlement work.”

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Elevate announced Monday morning a $500 million private capital fund to help college sports’ athletic departments navigate the revenue-sharing era. Dubbed the College Investment Initiative, Penn State and UCLA are the first two clients, signing eight-figure private capital deals with Elevate, sources confirmed to On3. Elevate touted two signings when it announced the multi-million dollar capital fund on Monday.

It’s only the starting point for the investment fund. Elevate’s other university clients include Alabama, Notre Dame and Florida. Penn State and UCLA are making college sports history by being the first two athletic departments to take on private capital. Sportico first reported the news on Monday afternoon.

In a statement to On3 on Monday, Elevate said it isn’t “announcing any clients associated with this investment initiative, those two schools are Elevate ticket operations clients.” UCLA stated in an email to On3 that it is exploring expanding its partnership with Elevate, and is not part of the College Investment Initiative.

“Elevate serves as our partner in ticketing strategy and operations,” Penn State athletic director Pat Craft said in a statement. “To clarify, our relationship is strictly limited to these services, and we have no affiliation or involvement with any private equity firm or fund.”

Elevate, a global sports and marketing agency, has partnered with private equity firm Velocity Capital Management and Texas Permanent School Fund Corporation to provide schools with money and resources to develop revenue-generating projects. The College Investment Initiative provides a new funding source for athletics programs pursuing projects, such as facility upgrades and renovations.

It’s an unprecedented moment in college sports. Private equity has circled in on college sports in recent years. Weatherford Capital and RedBird Capital Partners combined their powers (and billions in cash) last spring to create Collegiate Athletics Solutions.

“It’s upfront capital, as we do have a multi-year agreement for Elevate services and from a payback perspective as well, on that capital investment,” Elevate’s chief business officer for college, Jonathan Marks, told On3 in an interview on Monday. “We believe that the $500 million is just a starting point. With the discussions that we’ve had before the announcement, to what we’re having now, we firmly believe we’re going to be able to increase that significantly, and expect to have another three to five or six deals done by football season. We expect that number to continue to grow from there.”

The news comes on the heels of the House v. NCAA settlement, which was approved on Friday. Since the NCAA was founded in 1906, institutions have never directly paid athletes. That will now change with the settlement ushering in the revenue-sharing era of college sports.

Beginning July 1, schools will be able to share $20.5 million with athletes, with football 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.

Marks told the Sports Business Journal on Monday that Elevate is considering conference-level funding opportunities through league-controlled assets, such as jersey patches, field logos and tickets. The company has relationships with the ACC and Big East.

Velocity, the sports-focused private equity firm launched by David Abrams and Arne Rees in 2021, is an existing investor in Elevate. The Texas Permanent School Fund is Velocity’s majority backer, having committed $200M late in 2024, and holds an ownership stake in the firm.

Now that the House settlement has been approved, there’s a renewed focus on what various political bodies can do to help ease the transition for college athletics programs. And whether President Trump can swoop in and make things much easier remains a topic of conversation.

Some have outright called for the president’s aid. But ESPN analyst Pete Thamel doesn’t necessarily see Trump as a fix-all for college sports.

Thamel outlined the backdrop of the situation on The Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday. He began:

“President Trump is interested in college athletics. I’ve heard that from myriad sources,” Thamel said. “You know, Paul, because I think you’ve been there in DC, the SEC and other leagues have kind of paraded themselves through to ask for Congressional help over the years. There’s been a handful of trips from the major conferences. The commissioners have been there a bunch. There has been a plea to Washington D.C.”

So far, that plea has mostly fallen on deaf ears. Not necessarily because the people, like President Trump, who are being called on aren’t interested. But moreso because the issues are so complex.

It’s been hard to get the various major parties at play all on the same page. How might that happen?

“President Trump has mentioned a potential executive order,” Thamel said. “That isn’t really what’s needed here. There needs to be Congressional help. I think what we can say with certainty is that President Trump is intrigued and wants to help and has talked about helping. How that manifests itself is still a ways away, and I don’t think his involvement right now is a magic bullet, by any ways.”

Thamel summed up where things are at right now when it comes to the president’s potential involvement and solutions. Bottom line: He’s not convinced presidential involvement is the answer.

“I think Trump is like genuinely interested in college sports,” Thamel said. “I think a lot of his base is in a lot of the states where college sports really matter. So politically it’s probably a wise thing for him to be intrigued by. But his interest level translating to Congressional result, there’s still a giant disconnect.”

The pivotal House v. NCAA settlement was approved Friday and will usher in a new era of NIL (name, image, and likeness) and collegiate athletics at large. FOS college sports reporter Amanda Christovich joins Baker Machado and Renee Washington to explain the ruling’s effect on schools and athletes.

Plus, tennis writer Giri Nathan joins to discuss the instant-classic French Open final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, why it signifies the official change of eras for tennis, and how Sinner’s doping scandal affects his status and the sport at large.

We also talk about the Stanley Cup Final with Kathryn Tappen of NHL Network, and a Michael Jordan rookie card is selling for more than $2 million.

The House v. NCAA settlement has fundamentally changed the way college sports will function. College sports have left amateurism behind for good, and right now, questions seem to outnumber answers.

How does the House v. NCAA settlement change college sports?

The House settlement, which began as a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA and five collegiate conferences profiting from a former Arizona State swimmer, a TCU basketball player and others, sets up direct payments from schools to athletes for the first time. People across the country are actively debating how this new paradigm will affect universities and their athletic programs. Officials have introduced some new rules, with more on the way, but they have not yet been fully tested. Some suggest that the same issues college athletics faced before the settlement may have simply shifted focus.

Each school participating will now have a $20.5 million yearly cap to spend on its athletic programs. Football and basketball will see the vast majority of that money. NIL payments will also continue to exist in addition to the direct payments. During an interview with Panther Insider, Pitt Athletic Director Allen Greene said this is just the first step in reforming what was a broken “amateur” system.

“I think student-athlete employment is still a topic of conversation that’s going to occur,” Greene said. “I think rule setting is going to occur still, in just how we are applying all the various rules in our industry that govern what we do. And I think there’s still going to be conversations around congressional engagement, congressional involvement.”

What if schools don’t have the pool of money to pay players?

Many schools will continue to depend on wealthy alumni for support as their athletic budgets remain under pressure. Adding another $20.5 million in expenses means schools will have to make tough choices. Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard was blunt in a recent interview. 

“Iowa State does not have that $20 million,” Pollard said. “But if we don’t pay it for this coming year, we have big problems, right? So we’re going to pay it.”

It’s also bigger than college athletics. Towns like Ames, Iowa, depend on college athletic programs and the tourism dollars they generate.

“Iowa State University will be faced with an athletics program with a huge annual deficit if it wants to stay in the Big 12 and if it wants to have a P4 (Power 4) athletics program,” Pollard said. “Now, we can decide we just want to have an athletics program like Northern Iowa, but that’s going to have a huge economic impact on the state, on central Iowa, on the city of Ames and on this institution.”

What will happen to NIL payments?

Those issues also don’t account for NIL payments. That money will still be available to athletes in addition to the $20.5 million pool. Just hours after the settlement received approval, leaders formed a new College Sports Commission. Brian Seeley is the man in charge. The former MLB executive and his team will review each NIL transaction to ensure it serves a legitimate business purpose and is not merely “Pay for Play.”

There will be a lot of gray areas to sift through because, up to this point, there were no rules for why a business or collective could pay a player. Conference athletic directors say it will be incumbent upon everyone to follow the rules when they are set up. Penn State head coach James Franklin said this does nothing to address the moral issue surrounding football programs, where it’s all about the dollars.

“I worry a little bit now that because of how the sport has changed,” Franklin said. “There’s people being attracted to the sport for the wrong reasons and the way the sport has changed from a transfer portal perspective and from an NIL perspective. I think there’s also young people and families that are making decisions based on a transactional experience rather than a transformational experience.”  

There’s also nothing stopping a Penn State, an Ohio State or an Alabama from using the majority of their $20.5 million on their football program in addition to another $20-30 million in NIL payments. That could create an arms race that the whole settlement intended to curb. Without stronger guardrails, the gap between well-funded programs and those with fewer resources may continue to grow.

“You watch Ohio State in the men’s football game, national championship game, you don’t hear any announcers talking about NIL,” Texas Tech softball coach Gerry Glasco said. “They just don’t talk about it. And yet, Ohio State had one of the highest two or three NIL payrolls last year in college football.”

Glasco, whose school’s collective announced a second million-dollar payment to star pitcher NiJaree Canady one day before they lost in the championship of the Women’s College World Series, knows his “non-revenue” program will have to continue raising money outside of the $20.5 million. Paying a player like Canady through NIL is worth it if they want to remain relevant.

“I think it was three days after she signed, somebody told me there was over 700,000 Associated Press type articles where they said Stanford, Texas Tech and NiJa Canady and softball all in one,” Glasco said. “Seven hundred thousand times you got mentioned. Then you look at the exposure she brought to us. I think we now played 10 or 11 games on national TV.”

What will happen to “non-revenue” sports?

Whether non-revenue sports are left behind in this new college landscape is one of the many questions left unanswered in the aftermath of the settlement. It will depend on how each school divides the $20.5 million in payments and how schools chase the NIL opportunities.

Schools without football, like Gonzaga University and many others in the Big East Conference, will be flush with cash to spend on their 12- to 15-member basketball teams and their non-revenue sports teams. That could open the door to another gap between “haves and have-nots” in their respective situations. The catch is not having a football team makes it a bit harder to find that $20.5 million in a school budget.

There may also be more litigation in the near future as challenges to upcoming NIL payments make their way through the College Sports Commission. What comes next will largely depend on what rules are put in place and how they’re enforced.