House vs. NCAA | Swamp Gas Forums

Here are my thoughts about how this settlement (which went into effect on July 1, 2025) might affect college basketball in general and Gator basketball in particular. As of right now, each division one college that opted into the settlement will have about $21 million to pay its players for the 2026-27 season (not counting the cost of scholarships). Most of the power 4 football teams are going to spend the bulk of that money on football players. So, my guess is that no more than $5 million will be spent by UF and other power 4 colleges on men’s basketball teams. On a different thread, I estimated that UF would be spending about $12 million on its men’s basketball roster for the upcoming 2025-26 season. So there is a big gap to make up. That’s where the NIL comes in. NIL money can still be paid by outside parties to college athletes. However, the amount paid by an outside party to an athlete must be limited to the fair market value of the arrangement between the outside party and the athlete. Any of these arrangements with a payment in excess of $600 will be reviewed by an outside enforcement agency that has been hired by the NCAA. That outside agency will be using the Deloitte accounting firm to determine fair market value. In most situations involving UF athletes, it is hard to envision an arrangement being worth even as much as 6 figures for a season. So, it appears to me that the gap I mentioned above cannot be made up in almost every case. To my knowledge, there has been no word from the NCAA regarding what the consequences will be of overpaying NIL money to an athlete.

As to non-power 4 colleges, in many, but not all, cases, most of the money paid by colleges to its athletes will go to men’s college basketball players. That will not be the case with the non-power 4 colleges whose primary sport is college football, or to a school like UConn which will be paying its football players and women’s basketball players. However, that will be the case with most Big East schools and the schools and the schools in several other conferences. In other words, St. John’s, Gonzaga and similarly situated schools should be able to spend more money than they ever have before on their men’s basketball teams. There is a caveat to the foregoing, however, and that is whether these schools will have the money to pay their players. Many of these schools will have nowhere near $21 million to pay their players, although, in a case like St. John’s, I would expect that donors who were, directly or indirectly, paying NIL money to players could instead donate the money to the school to be paid to the players. It should also be noted that the idiots in Congress have been drawing up legislation regarding college sports, and one proposal on the table is to prohibit student fees to be used to fund college sports programs. This proposal could result in many colleges eliminating some of their sports programs.

Much still needs to be determined, but it looks like the impact on college basketball described above could be dramatic.