With the House v. NCAA settlement, schools will be allowed to directly pay its athletes up to $20.5 million. These are direct payments and do not come from collectives, but instead from the school’s revenue.

For athletes to receive the NIL payments that fans had grown accustomed to, they will have to screen the deal through a Deloitte clearinghouse that has been titled, “NIL Go.” All NIL deals or endorsements greater than $600 must be processed through the clearinghouse.

While some fans are excited for the process to become more organized, not everybody is convinced that NIL Go will be a success story. This past week, ESPN’s Greg McElroy revealed some of his concerns for NIL Go.

“Here’s the unforeseen circumstance that surrounds the NIL Go platform: It welcomes the underbelly of college football back into the sport,” McElroy said. “Right now, it’s free. it’s fair. You’re allowed to give guys whatever you want to give them, and you do because you want them to play for your team and you want to win games. But now that every single NIL deal could potentially be scrutinized, it welcomes
bad actors back into the game, and if they don’t want this NIL deal to be scrutinized, then you’ll just pay someone under the table.

“That is a concern for me. The sport that we know and love for a long time, there was always an underbelly of college football, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there were things that were done in an opportunity to entice players to play at certain places for a very long time. That went away in the NIL era because it was all fair, it was all legal. Well, now it’s illegal. So does that now, welcome back some of the back alley payments that we once saw in the sport?”

The College Sports Commission will do everything it can to prevent McElroy’s nightmare scenario from becoming a reality. After all, the new rules were established to encourage order, not incentivize misbehavior. Even if the commission can catch people when they break the rules, how will they punish them?

“The only thing the CSC will be able to do, it’ll be able to penalize violations,” McElroy said. “Now, what will this look like? Will this result in players potentially being suspended for failing to report those NIL deals that they signed? Perhaps. Could it result in universities and football teams not being eligible for the postseason? Could it result in forfeiting games? Perhaps all these things, I think, are on the table.”

Dan Butterly sat inside a large conference room inside Orlando’s World Center Marriott Resort and listened as Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork and select members of the Settlement Implementation Committee explained how the newly-approved House v. NCAA settlement would change college athletics as we know it during the first panel of last week’s National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) convention.

Bjork is part of a 10-person working group made up of two ADs from each of the five defendant – known colloquially as the “Power” – conferences that have been developing ways to implement the terms of the House v. NCAA class-action settlement approved late June 6 by California district court judge Claudia Wilken.

And while the NACDA panel was certainly educational, especially for ADs and administrators from the more than 300 Division I schools that weren’t defendants in the groundbreaking House case, which combined three separate lawsuits against the NCAA, it left many in the room with more questions than answers.

“In some ways it felt like they were trying to educate us, but at the same time talking down in some ways,” Butterly, the Big West Conference commissioner, told On3 after emerging from that panel Tuesday morning, “just because of the lack of information that’s available to the rest of us in the room.”

A week after Wilken’s approval, the NCAA and defendant conferences jointly released a 36-page question-and-answer document late Friday that provided some clarity on an array of questions provided to the NCAA over the last year. But there still remain several key issues that have non-defendant Division I conferences and schools raising concerns about the expedited pace at which these groups are being asked to opt-in to the new world order, even after the original June 15 deadline was extended to June 30.

Butterly described it as creating “frustration and confusion” for schools from outside the defendant/Power conferences – i.e. the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC.

“Now we know where the goalposts stand, and rather than being in a defensive stance and not know which way the ball is going to go, now we know where the ball is going and you have to adjust to it,” Butterly said. “But we just don’t know the playing rules yet, and it’s really about trying to get clarification beyond the stuff we see posted (in the media).”

NEW WORLD ORDER

The new House settlement formally ends the NCAA’s long-standing “amateurism” model in favor of revenue-sharing that allows Division I schools to provide direct financial payments to student-athletes beginning July 1. At least for the 2025-26 academic year, Division I programs are able to share up to $20.5 million, or 22-percent of the Autonomy/Power conferences’ aggregate revenue from media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships.

There is also nearly $2.8 billion in back damages to be paid out over a 10-year period to former NCAA student-athletes who competed between 2016-24 that were either fully or partially unable to take advantage of NIL or rev-sharing. A significant portion – more than 85-percent – is expected to go toward athletes who participated in the highest revenue-generating sports: football and men’s basketball. Before Wednesday’s Title IX appeal was filed, putting back damages on pause during the appeal process, the first back payments were set to be paid within 45 days of the settlement’s finalization – July 21.

The House settlement also facilitated the creation of the College Sports Commission, a new enforcement entity that will implement the settlement’s rules around revenue-sharing, NIL and roster limits, as well as Deloitte’s “NIL Go” clearinghouse, which will regulate and approve third-party NIL deals above $600 between athletes and non-institutional entities based on an algorithm that determines an athlete’s fair-market-value within an established “range of compensation” based on similar NIL deals.

As NCAA president Charlie Baker explained at a May 20 panel set up by the Knight Commission, the College Sports Commission and NIL Go will serve as “the vehicle through which most of the so-called ‘money issues’ get addressed.”

But while all those new innovations are generally seen as welcomed changes across what had become an almost unchecked marketplace in college athletics, it’s the general lack of transparency about what the next stage will look like, including yet-to-be-finalized specifics – including legal contract language – about the College Sports Commission and NIL Go.

“It was very alarming and frankly discouraging that institutions that had a choice of whether to opt-in or not felt an urgency to make that decision, and there was a huge vacuum of information about how the terms will be implemented and what the impacts could be,” Knight Commission CEO Amy Perko told On3. “This plane is being built while it’s in the air.”

According to Butterly, the non-defendant conferences have yet to receive any indication whether they’ll be required to sign the same “participation agreements” the Power Five programs must sign with the College Sports Commission that not only codifies the settlement terms but binds all parties against taking legal action to settle disagreements.

Michael Cross, the Southern Conference commissioner, also raised similar concerns about a yet-to-be-revealed financial charge associated with joining the CSC – much like there’s a cost to be a part of the NCAA – or to utilize Deloitte’s NIL Go clearinghouse.

“None of those entities are doing their work for free, but there’s been no suggestion or clarity about where and how the costs and expenses to run these entities are going to be assigned,” Cross told On3.

And given the lack of transparency with those outside the defendant conferences, there is concern those legally-binding agreements could be forced on institutions just prior to the new June 30 deadline, not allowing time for each institution to best evaluate the full legal scope of the agreement.

“That’s the $20.5 million question,” Butterly said. “Once this information is released, … if they require as part of the opting in … that you have to agree to this contract as an opt-in institution, that takes some time. You can’t just as an AD or commissioner sign off on behalf of your membership or institution. That has to go through a legal process.”

Added Cross: “Nobody would run a business this way, nobody would say: ‘Oh yeah, we’ll write you a blank check and send me the bill later.’”

MONEY MATTERS

While most of the defendant/Power conference institutions are expected to take full advantage of the new rev-sharing cap, which allows programs to dish out up to the $20.5 million annually to student-athletes as they see fit, that figure is simply unreasonable for many institutions outside the Power Five conferences.

Not that it’s stopping them from opting in. All 11 Big West programs, which includes Hawaii for all non-football sports until the Rainbow Warriors officially join the Mountain West in 2026, already opted into the House settlement. But that doesn’t mean those Big West programs will be able to take full advantage of all the same financial benefits as their Power conference peers.

“We’re not going to be at the $20.5 million level, I’m just being blunt,” Butterly said of the Big West, a non-football conference. “One of my institution’s athletic directors said, ‘Our budget is $20.5 million and we’re not going to be able to double our budget to pay student athletes.”

Facing similar financial limitations, the Southern Conference (SoCon) is split 50-50, with five of its 10 schools opting in to the House settlement and five opting out for the first year while the dust settles, preferring to take a wait-and-see approach before reevaluating their options prior to the 2026-27 academic year.

“At our level, I don’t have anybody that’s going to go to $20.5 million, and that’s OK,” Cross said. “It doesn’t prevent us from meeting on the playing field, it doesn’t prevent us from meeting on the basketball court.”

Even at a Power program like Alabama, which produced an annual revenue of nearly $235 million but posted a roughly $28 million overall deficit in FY 2023-24, money remains a concern. Especially when, like most other Division I programs, its two revenue-generating sports – football and men’s basketball – often help to subsidize its 19 other non-revenue-generating sports.

“Our smallest net financial losers – from a financial standpoint, they’re all important programs – are men’s and women’s tennis, each lose about $1 million, and everybody else is more than that. … And from a financial standpoint, we’re in a pretty good position compared to most schools out there,” Byrne said on Tuesday’s episode of McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning with Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic. “But it’s still challenging the new model because now we have a $20.5 million line item from a rev-share standpoint, which I think is the right thing to do, we’re going to fully fund it, but we’ve got to have that money come from somewhere. So, it’s a bit of a tight rope you’re walking right now.”

In addition to rev-sharing restrictions, all 32 Division I conferences are responsible to sharing in the $2.8 billion in back damages paid out over the next decade. The Big West is responsible for approximately $31.5 million – “a significant impact,” Butterly said – with the NCAA expected to withhold more than $3 million annually from the conference’s annual revenue distribution figure.

“That’s a direct impact on what we can do for conference championships and what we can do for our student-athletes at an institutional level,” Butterly said.

While he declined to provide a specific number, Cross indicated the SoCon’s financial responsibility for back damages is “millions of dollars annually, and at our level, those are real dollars.” In an effort to better manage their finances, at least in this first year, the SoCon ruled it will not expand scholarship limits beyond the previous NCAA standards prior to the House settlement ruling, even though the settlement allows for increased scholarship opportunities.

“All of our schools want to be competitive, they want to be competitive at the highest level, and they all operate within budgets,” Cross said, “but the order of magnitude is different and understanding what those costs might be is a real factor in the decision-making.”

And while the Power conferences are pushing to expand the College Football Playoff even further to add additional games – and revenue opportunities – to help offset the cost associated with paying both back damages and future revenue-sharing, the non-defendant conferences don’t currently have that option to generate new revenue.

“Those dynamics haven’t changed (for non-defendant schools), the pie hasn’t grown, and we’re going to spend a lot more money for our slice of pie,” Cross said. “And it isn’t going to look a whole lot different in size.”

WHAT’S NEXT WITH COLLEGE SPORTS COMMISSION, NIL GO

While the College Sports Commission and NIL Go are effectively taking over enforcement and regulation of the monetary side of college athletics, the NCAA will continue to manage other aspects such as academic eligibility and performance, as well as working to continue to govern rules around recruiting, sports betting, and other fraud and safety violations.

Within that vein, the NCAA plans to overhaul its own governance model to better align with the terms and conditions of House settlement and College Sports Commission. That includes deleting more than 150 previous bylaws and rules, many of which restricted direct payment to student-athletes – which is now legal, of course.

But what’s more concerning to the non-defendant conferences is a move to grant the Power conferences as much as 65-percent weighted voting authority in future committees, thus giving the four most powerful leagues even greater influence to reshape collegiate sports as they see fit.

“The CFP (Power) Four will have 59 institutions (between) four conferences with potentially 65-percent of the weighted vote in Division I governance moving forward,” Butterly said, “and many of us may not even have a representative in the room where it’s going to happen.”

Of course, that’s not sitting well with the 28 other conferences and more than 300 Division I institutions that are not a part of the Autonomy/Power Four leagues.

“That’s just not a way we should be governing a 370-member Division I governance group moving forward,” Butterly said.

The Division I Board of Directors will vote on that proposal in their June 23 meeting, which is just a week before the newly extended June 30 opt-in deadline.

In the meantime, as non-Power conference programs continue to weigh their options on whether or not to fully embrace the new post-House world of college athletics, the majority simply want to be included in the conversation and then be afforded the necessary time to make informed decisions at an institutional and conference level.

“There are legitimate questions. Get us some answers, and then give us some time to digest it. Don’t say, hey, you’ve got two weeks,” Cross said. “I’m not saying we need six months, but geez, is 30 days with the Fourth of July intervening and everything else (going on) really that difficult? Is the world going to collapse if July 1 comes and goes and not everybody’s opted in yet? What’s the big deal? Nobody’s playing games until August.”

RALEIGH, N.C.– Saturday night marked the first opportunity for Wolfpack fans to get an up-close look at the new era of NC State basketball under head coach Will Wade. Hosted by the One Pack NIL collective, the event gave fans an early glimpse of what to expect when the Pack takes the court this November.

Coach Wade addressed the crowd at the Tobacco Road Sports Cafe in Raleigh, introducing his inaugural roster as the Pack kickoff summer workouts and begin laying the foundation for the upcoming season.

Here’s everything Coach Wade had to say:

“We appreciate everybody coming out tonight. We appreciate everybody’s support, our players are working hard. Sorry my voice is a little messed up. I’ve been encouraging everybody all week. So my voice is a little getting back into into coaching shape. I have a lot of our coaching staff here tonight. We have most of our players who are in town here tonight. Matt Able, one of our freshmen, he left this morning for USA Basketball. He’s in Colorado Springs, USA basketball, and hopefully he’ll make the under-19 team, and then he’ll go to Switzerland to compete there. We’re excited for Matt.”

“I’ll introduce the guys first. You’ll need to get a program for the first game, because you’ll not know who anybody is. I have found out you guys are pretty passionate though. You guys follow this stuff pretty closely, so we tried to sneak a few things in there, and you guys catch us every time.”

“Trey Holloman transferred from Michigan State. Tre really helped get everything going. He was one of the first guys that committed to us. For somebody that wants to be a lead guard to step out and commit first and help other guys come along was huge.”

“Quadir Copeland transferred from Syracuse.  I didn’t realize there’s a bit of history until everything happened. Q’s a lot like me. You like him if he’s with him, you hate him if he’s on the other team. That’s why Q and I get a long been a long very well. Q’s somebody that had a couple years at Syracuse. he was really good for us at McNeese [State].”

“Alyn Breed is another transfer from McNeese [State].  We’re we’re excited about him. He got cleared in another two weeks to start working out and practicing for us, and so we’re excited to get him off the injured reserve and get him going.”

“Ven-Allen Lubin. I don’t know where we got him from, we found him on the side of the road. Ven is somebody, the other school was to dumb to play him. When he plays 28 plus minutes, he’s done that in 23 games. He averages 15 and eight. I don’t know why the h*ll they didn’t play him but, we’re gonna play him so, he’s gonna average 15 and eight. We’re excited about Ven.”

“Terrence Arceneaux, transfer from Houston. he has that ‘eaux’ on the end, you should’ve seen the hotel workers face when she handed him the card trying to figure out where he was from and everything. Terrence is a great kid, somebody i’ve known since he was a sophomore in high school from Beaumont, Texas. He’s the 12th best defender in Big 12 history, not just this year but in the history of the Big 12. We’re gonna add a little offense. We’re trying to add a little offense Terrence, and keep the defense the same.”

“Jordan Snell. Snell needs no introduction. Jordan, somebody’s who has been tremendous since the first team meeting. He’s been all on board, very, very excited about things. Jordan’s done a great job.”

“Colt Langdon. It’s important for us to have kids from North Carolina, have folks that are very, very excited about playing for NC State. I don’t know who’s more excited, Cole or his dad, that he’s playing for NC State, but we love the passion and we’re really excited about Colt.”

“Darrion Williams. Transfer from Texas tech. Tremendous player, number one player in the portal. We had to wait through the draft process but the wait is it’s going to be well worth it. He was D5 but he’s going to be number one for us so I guees its D1.”

“Jerry Deng, transfer from Florida State. Tremendous shooter, very good offensive player, trying to teach him a little bit about defense, but he can, he can really, really shoot the ball, so we’re excited about him.”

“Last, but certainly not least, Paul McNeil. Paul was one of the best players in the ACC the last 10 games. He’s had a tremendous start to this summer. He’s getting stronger. He’s really, really doing worked hard in the weight room. Very, very excited, excited about Paul.”

“Our guys have been working hard. Our guys have been putting a lot of time in, its really coming together. We’re in the process of  coming together. We got another couple of guys that will hopefully be here as the summer moves on, so we’re excited about that.”

“Did have a couple of folks ask me about recruiting stories and that sort of thing. So I’ll share one thing. I’ll share one thing with the crowd. This is something I talk a lot about in recruiting. We have kids on visits, when we have folks in. We tell them, they look it’s going to be tough. We’re going to have to work hard. Like this is what we’re about, we’re blue collar, the standards are going to be the standards.”

“I always tell there’s this guy who’s in the gates to heaven with Saint Peter. Saint Peter asked him, he said, Do you want to go to heaven or do you want to go to h*ll? The guy said, Well, I don’t know. I think I want to visit both. I’ll let you know when I get back. So Saint Peter said, do you want to go to heaven first, or hell first for your visit. He says, I’ll go to h*ll first. Saint Peter says, Alright, off to h*ll. Goes to hell. It’s incredible. Beaches, Tiki bars, great look. It’s incredible. Incredible. Comes back to Saint Peter and says, man that wasn’t anything like how I thought it was, it was pretty cool. St Peter says, wanna go to heaven? yea, i’ll go try it out, I can’t imagine what heaven is if h*ll was that cool. So he goes to heaven. Heaven. Very nice, orderly, middle America, nothing over the top. Really, really nice.”

“Comes back to Saint Peter, and Saint Peter says, well, it’s time to make the decision. The guy thinks about it for a little bit. He says, I think I’m going to go to hell. Saint Peter said, are you sure this is for eternity? Guy said, yeah, I want to go to h*ll. Saint Peter says alright, off to h*ll. Goes to hell for eternity, fire, brimstone, the worst nwhen he gets down there. Guy says, man, this is what I signed up for. Guy goes to the next guy and says, Hey, I need to go see the devil. Where’s the devil? He’s around the corner to the right, you’ll see the Devil.”

“Man walks around the corner to the right, sees the Devil and says what in the world’s going on. He said, Hey, man, recruitment season’s over. This is the real sh*t.”

“So to that point, we try to tell them how it’s really going to be when it’s recruitment.We don’t try to trick them, we let them know exactly, exactly how it’s how it’s going to be. We’re really pleased with the guys we got. We appreciate everybody’s support, most of our folks from the collective are here tonight. This collective is unbelievable.”

“You guys are tired of listening to me talk. I appreciate everybody being here. We’re gonna have a great year, we’re going to kick the ACC’s a**. Go Pack”

HOUSE SETTLEMENT STABILIZES NCAA, APPEAL DELAYS BACK PAYMENTS TO ATHLETES AND CHALLENGES TITLE IX COMPLIANCE

Following the landmark House Settlement announcement more than a week ago, paving the way for schools to provide directly compensation to athletes via revenue sharing and triggering the NCAA to award $2.8 billion in back damages to former athletes, NCAA president Charlie Baker offered thoughts on the case outcome earlier this week. 

Baker was at a wedding when he heard the news and while the NCAA is an organization constantly laughed at by many for its incompetence and lack of any foresight whatsoever across numerous on-field and off-field fronts, Baker was relieved the settlement, ending three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, reached conclusion. 

Speaking at the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics convention on Tuesday, Baker told the group, “no one in this room needs to hear me say that this is one of the biggest changes ever in college sports. I hope you also understand that it’s a far better future than virtually every other alternative that could have been in front of us.”

“Blame whoever you wish to blame. But the simple truth is clear: College sports’ collective inability or unwillingness to change years ago put the entire enterprise at risk. Is the settlement disruptive? Very much so. But it is an opportunity for the D-I community to pay for back damages over 10 years, instead [of] triple that amount all at once. And it creates a future that comes with choices, instead of bankruptcy.”

While the July 1 date to begin revenue sharing is full-go, an appeal filed the day after Baker’s remarks will delay the disbursement of the $2.8 billon worth of back damages to former athletes and could even alter who receives those back payments. It’s believed up to 90% of those funds would go to former football and men’s basketball players under the current plan and the appeal suggests that violates Title IX. 

COLLEGE FOOTBALL POWER BROKERS ZEROING IN ON HAVING JUST ONE TRANSFER PORTAL WINDOW

With the House Settlement approved, the folks running big time college football will soon try to finalize another hotly debated topic – the transfer portal. Nearly all of the sport’s big time power brokers – from coaches to athletic directors to college administrators to conference commissioners – seem aligned in the thought of dropping from two portal windows (currently in December and April) to just one. The real conversation to be had is when that single portal window should take place. 

According to The Athletic’s Chris Vannini, in a meeting next Monday, the Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee is expected to discuss the issue and hopefully emerge with a recommendation. 

Informally polling those involved in the process, Vannini suggests most opinions support an early January portal window, with nearly 80% in favor. 

Of course, some voices within the upper crust of college football note the difficulty of trying to navigate the portal while their programs are still neck deep in the College Football Playoff. At Ohio State, for example, both AD Ross Bjork and head coach Ryan Day have stumped for a spring transfer portal window.  

“If we ever say that we care about academics and we want to live by that, then I think the transfer portal window should be in the spring. And then now that you have a revenue sharing contract, where you will have an MOU with an athlete, from a fiscal management standpoint, it’s better to put it in the spring,” Bjork said earlier this week. 

Day told Joel Klatt back in February, “for us, if we didn’t have the second transfer portal window (in the spring), that is very, very difficult, because we’re trying to make decisions about next year yet our year isn’t even done yet. That affects your current roster, and it’s just messy. So I think you got to have two portals, unless you’re going to finish the season sooner. But if you’re finishing the season on January 20th, you can’t have just one portal window (in the winter).”

LEE CORSO’S FINAL COLLEGE GAMEDAY HEADGEAR PICK WILL TAKE PLACE IN COLUMBUS WHEN TEXAS VISITS OHIO STATE 

It wasn’t a well-kept secret but in any event, ESPN made it official earlier this week: Lee Corso’s final College GameDay appearance will come on August 30 ahead of Ohio State welcoming Texas to the Shoe to kick off the 2025 schedule. 

Corso, who will be 90 years old in August, returns to where he first launched his schtick of picking a winner for that site’s game via donning the team or mascot’s headgear. 

The lovable Corso began his headgear tradition back in 1996, sporting a Brutus head as he correctly picked Ohio State to beat Penn State. 

The Buckeyes are 19-6 when College GameDay comes to town. 

Since Fox has TV rights for the clash, you already know the game itself will kick off at noon as part of Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff and it’s pregame show will also be broadcast from Columbus ahead of what should be an electric matchup.  

ICYMI

OHIO STATE ATHLETICS BRINGS NIL UNDER ONE ROOF WITH FORMATION OF BUCKEYES SPORTS GROUP

With the NCAA’s $2.78B House Settlement complete, which enacted new provisions for athletic departments and conferences to oversee their student-athletes’ NIL earnings, the OSU athletic department and Learfield announced the formation of Buckeye Sports Group (BSG). The BSG will consolidate existing OSU-focused collectives, the 1870 Society and The Foundation, into one NIL management team under the Ohio State athletics department umbrella. 

OHIO STATE’S REVENUE SHARING WILL START WITH FOOTBALL, MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL AND WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

After the House Settlement set a revenue sharing cap of $20.5 million for the 2025-26 athletic calendar, Bjork clarified that OSU’s cap for year one will be $18 million after the requirement to count any added scholarships – 91 in OSU’s case, across 36 varsity sports – and those dollars will focused exclusively on football, men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball. 

OHIO STATE BASKETBALL UNVEILED A NEW SCARLET AND GRAY COURT FOR THE 2025-26 SEASON

For the first time, Ohio State’s basketball teams will play on a predominantly gray court with scarlet accents when the programs hit the hardwood later this year. An interchangeable midcourt logo – either a scarlet block “O” like what you see at midfield in The Shoe or a super slick scarlet script “Buckeyes” – will greet fans and players on game days. 

WHAT’S NEXT

• 76 Days: Buckeye football season-opener vs. Texas
• 139 Days: Jim Knowles returns to Columbus
• 167 Days: The Game