College athletes are going to get paid directly by their universities for the first time after a federal judge granted final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement on Friday.

The settlement, which resolves three antitrust cases, establishes a new revenue sharing model that acts as a salary cap. The model allows athletic departments to distribute up to $20.5 million in name, image and likeness (NIL) revenue to athletes over the 2025-26 season.

Previously, athletes could earn NIL only through outside parties, including school-affiliated donor collectives that were crucial in roster building and recruiting.

Athletes can still sign NIL deals with third parties without it counting toward a school’s revenue-sharing pool. But there will be constraints and oversight on those deals in an effort to eliminate “pay-for-play.”

The settlement also implements roster limits, which will replace sport-by-sport scholarship limits. Each sport will have its own maximum roster size while allowing for every roster spot to receive a scholarship. Schools will offer scholarship funds as they see fit.

So, how does this all impact Penn State? Let’s take a closer look.

Will Penn State commit the full $20.5 million to revenue sharing?

Yes. While the House v. NCAA settlement allows schools to spread up to $20.5 million to athletes how they see fit, athletic departments aren’t required to do that. Some schools won’t have that kind of money to dole out to their athletes. But Penn State will use every penny.

“Obviously, we’re going to invest the $20.5,” Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft said in February. “… We’re doing that.”

The Nittany Lions are positioned well for this revenue sharing model. Being a part of the Big Ten helps with the significant media rights payouts from FOX, CBS and NBC. Playing at Beaver Stadium with more than 100,000 in attendance for home games helps. Having a massive, passionate alumni base that spends and donates helps.

Penn State was one of five athletic departments in the country to spend $200+ million in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to Sportico, along with Ohio State, Texas, Michigan and Alabama. The money is there for the Nittany Lions to invest, and Penn State has prepared for this new system.

Last July, Penn State athletics released a video of Kraft addressing a broad plan to share revenue with athletes and issuing a fundraising call to help pay for it all.

“This is not the time to rest on our laurels,” Kraft said in the video. “This is the time to double down on our rich history and proven ability to be successful.”

How will Penn State allocate its revenue sharing funds?

We’re not 100% sure. Generally, power conference programs are expected to use 75% of their revenue sharing funds on football — roughly $15 million or so.

Kraft implied in February that football, men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling will get the bulk of the pot. But he also said every Penn State sport will stand to benefit.

“We’re trying to be able to manage the money so that if we need to move on someone, no matter what the sport is, we have the ability,” Kraft said. “There’s the No. 1 fencer in the world, and we need to go use rev-share to maybe tilt it our way? We’re going to be able to do that.”

What will non-revenue sharing NIL look like now?

With little to no oversight, NIL morphed rather quickly into pay-for-play. Over the last few years, donor-run collectives funneled money into football and men’s basketball programs, turning the transfer portal and high school recruiting into bidding wars and free agency.

As a point of reference, Ohio State’s national championship-winning football roster last year cost $20 million to assemble. The revenue sharing model is looking to eliminate that.

But even as schools are paying players, third-party companies and organizations will still have an opportunity to work with athletes. It’s just going to be more regulated.

A new enforcement structure outside the NCAA called the College Sports Commission will oversee NIL deals between athletes and third parties that don’t fall under revenue-sharing agreements. Deloitte has been contracted to assess fair-market value of those deals.

Kraft sees a fair-market NIL as an advantage for Penn State athletes.

“In this new system, you’re going to have to show fair-market value. This is where the power of Penn State is a huge asset,” Kraft said. “Because the fair-market value for the starting quarterback at Penn State is pretty good. And we have to lean into that with our business partners. That’s the new world of name, image and likeness.”

How will the roster limits affect Penn State football?

Previously, there was an 85-scholarship limit and a 120-player limit, including walk-ons, in college football. After the House v. NCAA settlement, college football’s new roster limit will be 105 players — and everyone can be on scholarship.

More scholarship opportunities will be available. That’s a good thing. But James Franklin has long been frustrated by the prospect of having to cut dozens of players.

“I don’t like it at all,” Franklin said after the Blue-White game. “I’m a D2 football player. I went to college on a $1,500 scholarship and a full Pell Grant. I know what the game of football and college athletics does in terms of helping build well-rounded individuals. I’m fighting and scratching and clawing to hold on to what I believe college athletics is all about.”

Fortunately, that 105-player limit will be loose for the next few years. The NCAA and power conferences agreed to revise settlement language to allow schools to grandfather-in athletes on existing teams, as well as recruits who enrolled on the promise of a roster spot.

Penn State football’s roster is currently listed at 126 members. Thanks to that revised language, Franklin doesn’t have to have too many tough conversations this offseason.

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

Good morning, BBN!

To no one’s surprise, College Athletics has had another monumental moment that will change its future. This time, it may actually provide real structure for the future.

A federal judge has officially approved the $2.8 billion settlement in House v. NCAA, paving the way for a seismic shift in college sports.

Starting in July 2025, Division I schools will be allowed to pay athletes directly, with an annual cap of $20.5 million per school. That number will gradually increase each year.

The money is expected to primarily benefit football and men’s basketball players, although all sports are included in the distribution formula.

The settlement also covers retroactive compensation. Nearly $2.8 billion will be paid out to former college athletes from 2016 to 2024, covering the period before the NIL rules were implemented. These payments will be funded in part by the NCAA and power conferences, including the Southeastern Conference (SEC).

A new oversight body, the College Sports Commission, will be created to monitor compliance. Additionally, a Deloitte-managed NIL clearinghouse called “NIL Go” will review all NIL deals worth over $600 to ensure they reflect fair market value. Non-compliant deals could jeopardize an athlete’s eligibility.

The agreement also introduces roster changes. Sports like baseball will face scholarship and roster reductions beginning in 2026. However, “Designated Student-Athletes” impacted by these cuts will be given the option to transfer without penalty or return to their original teams.

This signals a new era. The Cats will now compete in a landscape where direct athlete compensation is not only allowed but expected.

I believe this marks the official transition from College Athletics to a Professional League, primarily for College Football and College Men’s Basketball.

What do you think about this change?

Tweet of the Day

Baller!

Headlines

Judge OK’s $2.8B settlement, paving way for colleges to pay athletes – ESPN

More context on the ruling.

Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau over Jalen Brunson’s usage, schematic shortcomings during NBA playoffs, per report – CBS Sports

Don’t love it, but can understand it.

Shaquille O’Neal insists ‘Inside the NBA’ won’t change at ESPN: ‘Chuck’s not changing, I’m not changing’ – Yahoo Sports

We’ll see.

2025 USA Swimming Championships: Katie Ledecky golden again in 400m free – Olympics.com

What a GOAT.

Texas beats Texas Tech in WCWS Game 3 for 1st softball title – ESPN

Electric run for the Longhorns.

2025 RBC Canadian Open: Rory McIlroy admits he’s ‘concerned’ after missed cut in final start before U.S. Open – CBS Sports

It’s been quite the slide since the Master’s for Rory McIlroy.

California high school sprinter stripped of state title due to ‘unsportsmanlike’ fire-extinguisher celebration – Yahoo Sports

This seems ridiculous.

Sinner tops Djokovic, advances to French Open final – ESPN

The No. 1 player in the world showed why it’s his time against one of the greatest of all time.

College sports power conferences hire MLB exec to serve in CEO role after House v. NCAA settlement approval – CBS Sports

Love this move.

Ariarne Titmus: ‘I know that the LA Olympics will be my last’ – NBC Sports

Go out on top!

A federal judge has approved terms of a sprawling $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that will upend the way college sports have been run for more than a century. In short, schools can now directly pay players through licensing deals — a concept that goes against the foundation of amateurism that college sports was built upon.

Some questions and answers about this monumental change for college athletics:

Q: What is the House settlement and why does it matter?

A: Grant House is a former Arizona State swimmer who sued the defendants (the NCAA and the five biggest athletic conferences in the nation). His lawsuit and two others were combined and over several years the dispute wound up with the settlement that ends a decades-old prohibition on schools cutting checks directly to athletes. Now, each school will be able to make payments to athletes for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL). For reference, there are nearly 200,000 athletes and 350 schools in Division I alone and 500,000 and 1,100 schools across the entire NCAA.

Q: How much will the schools pay the athletes and where will the money come from?

A: In Year 1, each school can share up to about $20.5 million with their athletes, a number that represents 22% of their revenue from things like media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne famously told Congress “those are resources and revenues that don’t exist.” Some of the money will come via ever-growing TV rights packages, especially for the College Football Playoff. But some schools are increasing costs to fans through “talent fees,” concession price hikes and “athletic fees” added to tuition costs.

Q: What about scholarships? Wasn’t that like paying the athletes?

A: Scholarships and “cost of attendance” have always been part of the deal for many Division I athletes and there is certainly value to that, especially if athletes get their degree. The NCAA says its member schools hand out nearly $4 billion in athletic scholarships every year. But athletes have long argued that it was hardly enough to compensate them for the millions in revenue they helped produce for the schools, which went to a lot of places, including multimillion-dollar coaches’ salaries. They took those arguments to court and won.

Q: Haven’t players been getting paid for a while now?

A: Yes, since 2021. Facing losses in court and a growing number of state laws targeting its amateurism policies, the NCAA cleared the way for athletes to receive NIL money from third parties, including so-called donor-backed collectives that support various schools. Under House, the school can pay that money directly to athletes and the collectives are still in the game.

Q: But will $20.5 million cover all the costs for the athletes?

A: Probably not. But under terms of the settlement, third parties are still allowed to cut deals with the players. Some call it a workaround, but most simply view this as the new reality in college sports as schools fight to land top talent and then keep them on campus. Top quarterbacks are reportedly getting paid around $2 million a year, which would eat up about 10% of a typical school’s NIL budget for all its athletes.

Q: Are there any rules or is it a free-for-all?

A: The defendant conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12) are creating an enforcement arm that is essentially taking over for the NCAA, which used to police recruiting violations and the like. Among this new entity’s biggest functions is to analyze third-party deals worth $600 or more to make sure they are paying players an appropriate “market value” for the services being provided. The so-called College Sports Commission promises to be quicker and more efficient than the NCAA. Schools are being asked to sign a contract saying they will abide by the rules of this new structure, even if it means going against laws passed in their individual states.

The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant joined LX News to talk about LSU’s Angel Reese and the landscape of women’s college basketball.

Q: What about players who played before NIL was allowed?

A: A key component of the settlement is the $2.7 billion in back pay going to athletes who competed between 2016-24 and were either fully or partially shut out from those payments under previous NCAA rules. That money will come from the NCAA and its conferences (but really from the schools, who will receive lower-than-normal payouts from things like March Madness).

Q: Who will get most of the money?

A: Because football and men’s basketball are the primary revenue drivers at most schools, and that money helps fund all the other sports, it stands to reason that the football and basketball players will get most of the money. But that is one of the most difficult calculations for the schools to make. There could be Title IX equity concerns as well.

Q: What about all the swimmers, gymnasts and other Olympic sports athletes?

A: The settlement calls for roster limits that will reduce the number of players on all teams while making all of those players — not just a portion — eligible for full scholarships. This figures to have an outsize impact on Olympic-sport athletes, whose scholarships cost as much as that of a football player but whose sports don’t produce revenue. There are concerns that the pipeline of college talent for Team USA will take a hit.

Q: So, once this is finished, all of college sports’ problems are solved, right?

A: The new enforcement arm seems ripe for litigation. There are also the issues of collective bargaining and whether athletes should flat-out be considered employees, a notion the NCAA and schools are generally not interested in, despite Tennessee athletic director Danny White’s suggestion that collective bargaining is a potential solution to a lot of headaches. NCAA President Charlie Baker has been pushing Congress for a limited antitrust exemption that would protect college sports from another series of lawsuits, but so far nothing has emerged from Capitol Hill.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement late Friday, ending three federal lawsuits that alleged the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of student-athletes in college. CBS Sports’ John Talty has a nice piece on it. My favorite line is his last.

“There’s never been a better time to be a lawyer with an interest in college sports.”

Yeah, that’s where this is headed.

What happened Friday in California is significant, no doubt. But anybody describing it as a solution to the issues ailing college athletics simply lacks an understanding of the history of NCAA sports and exactly what will and won’t be allowed moving forward.

The end of chaos?

Nah.

It’ll just be a different kind of chaos that leads to more legal threats and billable hours than you can wrap your mind around. Plus, high-level cheating will return. Oh, we’re back baby! Illegal cash-deals are on tap.

The biggest winners and losers from House v. NCAA settlement: Amateurism is dead and the class divide grows

John Talty

Before I explain why, let’s go over the basics.

This settlement will allow schools to start directly paying athletes — for the first time ever — next month with an expected salary cap of roughly $20.5 million. That’s $20.5 million for all sports to be distributed however each school sees fit. Additionally, all future NIL deals between boosters/collectives and athletes will be vetted by a new entity designed to ensure they’re for valid business purposes and not merely the kind of recruiting incentives that have been flying around the country in recent years.

That paragraph is littered with problems.

Let’s start with the salary cap. Simply put, it won’t work as intended.

As Matt Norlander and I have discussed many times on the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, the most obvious problem with a salary cap for entire athletic departments is that all athletic departments don’t have football rosters to purchase. In other words, at a place like Alabama, the school is expected to devote the majority of that $20.5 million to football, leaving relatively little for other sports, most notably men’s basketball. Meantime, at a place like St. John’s, where there is no football, most of that $20.5 million could be spent however Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino sees fit.

Now, let’s be real.

Do you actually think a SEC school with millions tied up in football is going to concede a recruiting battle in basketball to a Big East program sans football because, you know, the money just isn’t in the budget, according to the rules? LOL. When it comes to that, not all basketball staffs, but certainly lots, will simply do what they’ve always done, i.e., find a way to get the player even if it requires circumventing the rules.

Again, this weekend, cheating returned to college sports.

It’s inevitable.

Every Power Four conference features a coach who has violated one recruiting rule or another. If you think they won’t do it again, if required, you’re silly. And now every time a player picks a school with little known-money left in the budget over a school that’s reportedly offering much more, fans on the wrong end of the commitment will assume something happened in violation of the rules and scream for an investigation.

We lived that life for decades. Who really wanted that again?

And don’t even get me started on the document Power Four conferences are circulating that’s intended to force schools to play by the rules or face serious consequences. Among other things, schools are being asked to forfeit their right to legally challenge the new enforcement entity on any and all decisions. Reportedly, schools that refuse to sign the document could face expulsion from their conferences.

Please.

All it will take for this goofy idea to fail is one powerful school — like, say, Texas or Ohio State — declining to sign it, at which point other schools will say, “If they’re not signing it, we’re not signing it.”

Then what?

Do you really think the SEC is going to expel Texas? Do you really think the Big Ten is going to expel Ohio State? Do you really think the television networks paying billions to those conferences would allow it?

Please.

Now, to NIL.

According to the settlement, a new thing called the NIL Go clearinghouse will be charged with approving future NIL deals to ensure they are within a “reasonable range of compensation based on multiple factors.”

I look forward to the word “reasonable” appearing in court.

Don’t ever forget how we got here — specifically by the NCAA being sued repeatedly for illegally limiting the earning power of student-athletes. So what do you think is going to happen when a school with serious softball ambitions like Texas Tech offers a NIL deal worth more than a million dollars to the next NiJaree Canaday? Let me tell you. NIL Go will likely deem the deal “unreasonable” for obvious reasons and void it. Then everybody will be back in court based on the idea that, once again, a student-athlete’s earning power is being illegally limited.

Rinse and repeat.

Last month, NIL Go officials told ACC administrators that more than 70% of current NIL deals with booster collectives would have been denied according to the new rules. That suggests NIL Go will frequently be in the business of telling student-athletes they cannot take what somebody is willing to give them, and not every student-athlete will accept that decision without pursuing legal action.

The end of chaos?

Hahaha. No way!

Trust me when I tell you, this is only the beginning. Because when a solution to a problem just creates more problems, you’re not really fixing anything as much as you’re simply trading in one set of issues for a new set of issues that will have to be addressed again, sooner or later. Like Talty wrote, congrats to the attorneys. They’re the real winners here, as always.

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.