Paul Finebaum gave a stern warning about the implications that the recently approved House vs. NCAA settlement will have on college athletics. It is set to bring a wave of changes to the sport, most notably allowing universities to directly pay athletes for the first time ever.

But according to Finebaum, it might not have the desired impact save for the two most powerful conferences in the sport already, the SEC and Big Ten. He believes those schools will see bigger benefits as well as bigger pay days as a result of the new changes while the remaining conferences will be left picking up the scraps. He also worried how it might affect sports outside of football and men’s basketball.

“It means very little, really,” Finebaum said on the Dan Patrick Show. “This is all very complicated. A lot of legal mumbo jumbo. What I think it will really mean, though, if you’re a fan of a Group of 5 school, if you’re a fan of a school somewhere in the middle, get ready for hard times.

“This is only going to help the rich. The big leagues, the Big Ten, the SEC will more than likely profit because they have so much money. Women’s sports, in my opinion, will be hurt. Olympic sports will be crushed. Football wins. Basketball, other than maybe the Big East, takes a slight backseat.”

Direct payments to players isn’t the only change coming as a result of the new settlement. There will also be set roster limits for each sport as well as an NIL clearinghouse for deals greater than $600.

Ultimately, Paul Finebaum sees this possibly being the final nail in the coffin for the NCAA. The organization has already been losing power due to all the recent changes and Sankey revealed at the SEC Spring Meetings that people within the SEC have brought up the possibility of separating from the NCAA entirely.

This settlement only makes that an even stronger possibility. However, as Finebaum mentioned, one has to wonder what that could mean for a vast majority of other schools left in the wake.

“The NCAA is essentially dead and I know a lot of people are celebrating,” he said. “But the damage that has been done by this organization is incalculable and it’s really about time. What did we grow up thinking about when we thought of the NCAA? The enforcement part of it. The big, bad NCAA is coming to your town. They don’t even have any jurisdiction for that any more.

“By the way, not that they have in about the last five years. They’ve been completely ineffective. So if you’re the NCAA president, who happens to be Charlie Baker, you get to fly around on a luxury plane, you’re welcomed at Taj Mahal, you stay at five-star resorts. But essentially, you have absolutely nothing to do but try to look busy.”

MERCER ISLAND, Wash. — Charlotte Softball third baseman, Jenna Lord, named to Softball America Postseason Top 100 Player Rankings list at No. 70 after historic 2025 season. 

Lord, who was named American Conference Player of the Year, clocked in at number 70 in the nation on Softball America’s postseason top 100 players list after one of the greatest single seasons in Charlotte Softball history. 

Lord’s 2025 season included batting .410 in 178 at-bats, a slugging percentage of .865%, 21 home runs, and 65 RBI. Lord is now the single-season record holder in Charlotte Softball history for both RBI and Slugging Percentage. Her 2025 season also ranks in the top three in Charlotte history in homers, batting average, total bases, hits, and runs. 

Not only did Lord make a splash in the Charlotte record books, but she also led the American Conference in nearly every batting stat, including slugging, home runs, hits, OPS, runs scored, and RBI, earning her title of 2025 American Conference Player of the Year. 

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Stay up to date with everything Charlotte Softball by following the team on X (Formerly Twitter) @CharlotteSB and Instagram and Facebook @CharlotteSoftball.

The House v. NCAA settlement was approved Friday, but SEC commissioner Greg Sankey believes there is still plenty more that needs to be done. He joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday to speak about the need for congress to continue to aid in helping to create a “national standard” for college athletics.

Although the newly approved settlement is certainly a step in the right direction, it didn’t address everything when it comes to NIL. Currently, the laws are different in every state, creating a massively uneven playing field, and Sankey wants congress to help create federal legislation.

“College sports doesn’t work well with 50 different standards,” he said. “If we’re left with just states legislating, then the nation of College World Series, and we just saw the highlights, for one. The NCAA’s Division I track and field championships are this weekend. Then the College World Series in baseball. Those don’t work very well if everybody’s playing by their own rules. So that’s one reason for national standards. I could go on as to other reasons.

“I think the interest has always been there. I think the attention has increased, the understanding of the changes we’ve made. I think even in the last fews days there’s been a number of members of the House and Senate quoted in a positive way about this new economic relationship. But to continue forward, I think this kind of congressional help and engagement and introduction of a meaningful bill to support college athletics remains a real priority for us.”

The recently approved settlement will now allow universities to pay players directly, as well as introducing roster limits. Additionally, a third-party NIL clearinghouse will now have to approve deals greater than $600.

The changes are set to take place on July 1 as Power Four programs will have between roughly $13 million-$16 million to spend on their rosters. These changes are definitely a step in the right direction, but Greg Sankey urged congressional leaders not to stop here.

“From my perspective there is a sense of urgency,” Greg Sankey explained. “I can’t speak for 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 senators. …I’ll go back to last year’s media days where I painted a picture of how sports brings people together. In a time where there are plenty of divisions, we reconvene for volleyball and soccer and football in the fall. You’ll have every demographic, every ethnicity, every political party, different wordlviews come together to rally around their team. My hope, my representation to members of congress, is that’s a really healthy model to explore.

“Not that you don’t have to negotiate differences, but the reality is we should be able to come together in a nonpartisan way to look at some of the new problems we’re facing and pursue meaningful solutions across the aisle and together. I do think that one of the realities that we have that has certainly been a learning experience for me is the election cycle does alter the pace of consideration. I don’t know that there’s any panic button here. We have to control that which we can control. I think from a philsophical standpoint, that’s reality. So we have a settlement. We have a level of control over that decision making. The judge had to make a final decision.”

Maryland basketball’s former NIL director disagrees with claims by a former player’s parents that he wasn’t paid what he was owed by the school’s NIL management company, Blueprint Sports. Turtle NIL founder Harry Geller, who negotiated Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s contract on Maryland’s behalf, said Gillespie isn’t owed the roughly $100,000 his father claims he’s owed.

The Gillespies are pursuing legal action to recoup the money.

“Here are the facts as I remember them. I was actively involved in the whole process. Foreseeing that the NIL money would reach a peak this offseason due to the House Settlement, I put a clause in every player’s contract that said, to paraphrase, ‘If you enter the transfer portal and transfer, all payments will cease.’ This was done mainly because the players were compensated to do charitable works, and a lot of the events took place in the offseason. So it was a year-round commitment,” Geller told InsideMDSports.

 “It was always explained to the Gillispie family that if they transferred, the payments would stop, as it’s a year-round commitment.”

“When BluePrint (BPS) took over, all contracts were transferred to them and rewritten. The clause about transferring was not in Jakobi’s contract, but was in all the other 12 contracts. It has not been explained to me why one was omitted. Regardless, there is strong language in the BPS contract referring to the consequences of transferring that Ja’Kobi agreed to.”

What I’m Hearing: Early reviews of new-look Maryland basketball and the deal with Zion Elee

Earlier Monday, Gillespie’s father was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article saying Maryland still owed his son for two months’ worth of payments, framing it s proof Maryland was NIL-poor like former coach Kevin Willard said.

“When Willard left, they pretty much quit paying all the players … We’re fighting that right now. There were players that did get their money and players that didn’t and are still fighting for it. It kinda makes it look like Willard was right. Maybe they don’t have the money,” Byron Gillespie said.

Gillespie’s one season at Maryland was a valuable springboard for his career. He was one of Maryland’s best players, earning second-team all-Big Ten honors after averaging 14.7 points and 4.8 assists per game on 45.3 percent shooting overall and 40.7 percent from three. Along with raising his profile nationally and earning about $500,000, he played it into a return trip to his native Tennessee to play for the Volunteers for what’s been said to be in the $2 million range.

“Why he is even pursuing this is beyond me. He was given a great opportunity to shine by Kevin, made the most of it with his talent and hard work, and leveraged that into what has been reported as a four-to-five-times payday from the previous year,” Geller said.

“Ja’Kobi signed the Turtle NIL contract with this clause in it … We executed scores of contracts during the Turtle NIL era with no complaints from anyone.”

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