The House v. NCAA settlement, granted final approval Friday, has been touted as a means of restoring order to this Big Money Era of college sports. Starting this summer, Power 4 and other Division I schools can begin directly paying their athletes via an annual revenue sharing pool capped at roughly $20.5 million per school in year one.

But because schools have been preparing to navigate this new world order — and how to gain a competitive edge under it — many in the industry expect the budding NIL arms race to continue at the top of the sport, and at a price point much higher than the cap.

“The top (football) teams are going to cost $40-50 million a year,” said one power conference personnel director. “That’s where this is going. Anyone who thinks different is nuts.”

That projected “budget” includes additional NIL (name, image and likeness) payments from collectives and outside organizations to athletes on top of the capped revenue sharing from the school. It would be a steep increase from the market-setting $20 million in NIL money Ohio State funded its roster with last season on the way to a national championship. But most significantly, a number of industry sources believe that $40 million-$50 million rate will continue beyond this upcoming season, where a number of top-end rosters have been uniquely built with front-loaded, pre-settlement NIL deals.

This cuts directly against the intent of the settlement, which is designed to stamp out the unspoken pay-for-play deals that have hijacked the NIL marketplace and keep ballooning roster budgets in check.

“No chance,” the personnel director said.

It’s one of the many changes, intended and unintended, coming to college sports under the House settlement.

Schools opting in have spent the past year bracing for the financial reckoning this settlement will bring, including where the revenue share money will come from and how it will be distributed. College athletics have been trending in this direction, and to the benefit of most athletes, particularly those in revenue sports who will receive a bigger cut of the billions in television, sponsorship and ticket revenues that pour into power conference athletic departments.

Many of those same departments, however, are already struggling with the challenges of this transition.

“We’re all just trying to figure it out as we go through it,” said one power conference head football coach. “The whole deal is to make it a level playing field, but I don’t think that will ever be realistic.”

The Athletic spoke with more than a dozen sources across each of the Power 4 conferences about how they plan to approach this new revenue sharing model and all that will come with it — including in-fighting between coaches at the same school, why “tanking” could factor into college sports and how programs will continue to bend rules and find competitive advantages in a post-settlement era.

The sources include athletic directors and administrators; coaches, general managers and personnel staffers in football and men’s basketball; and others involved in NIL and collectives. All were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor.

‘F— Deloitte. This is going to get even crazier’

The $20.5 million revenue sharing cap goes into effect July 1 and covers every sport under a school’s athletic department. The most prominent football programs expect to have about $15 million of that pool at their disposal, with top programs supplementing that budget with third-party, “over-the-cap” NIL deals.

But not so fast, my friends. The settlement includes a new oversight and enforcement arm — named the College Sports Commission — that requires outside deals from collectives and other associated companies and organizations to reflect a valid business purpose and fall within an approved range of compensation. The settlement establishes a clearinghouse, dubbed NIL Go and managed by the accounting firm Deloitte, which instructs athletes to self-report any third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more for review. The idea is that any of those deals that fail to meet a valid business purpose and/or fall within an approved range will be flagged, and must be adjusted or taken to arbitration.

From the perspective of the NCAA and power conference leadership, this new enforcement is meant to bring competitive balance and transparency to a lawless, untenable NIL marketplace. But among those who have witnessed the NCAA’s inability to police that marketplace in the past, there’s a lot of skepticism that the settlement will change things.

“It all sounds great in theory, but how will it actually work?” asked one power conference athletic director.

Industry sources familiar with the clearinghouse and enforcement plan insist it will have more (and swifter) latitude and punitive power than the NCAA wielded in the NIL era. Until it actually drops that hammer, it’s done little to scare off coaches and recruiting staffs with passionate, deep-pocketed donors.

A number of sources questioned whether athletes will even report their third-party deals, or do so accurately. Others suggested that deals getting challenged by the clearinghouse — or the fact that they have to be disclosed at all — could spark more antitrust legal action from collectives. Other sources were outright dismissive.

“If you tell a booster or business owner they can’t give a star player $2 million, there will be lawsuits,” said the personnel director. “There’s no enforcing this. Fair market value? F— Deloitte. This is going to get even crazier.”

A legit enforcement arm with some teeth — perhaps in the form of suspensions or ineligibility — might change that sentiment, and multiple athletic directors suggest that if the clearinghouse merely serves as a minor deterrent to egregious pay-for-play payments, it will be better than pre-settlement circumstances. But others think the undertow of NIL and collectives is too strong to turn back now.

“There are a lot of rich people that can’t buy a professional sports franchise, but they can give a ton of money to their alma mater,” said a power conference administrator. “And if you’re telling millionaires and billionaires what they can and can’t do with their money, you’re probably going to lose that battle.”

Finding the money

The over-the-cap arms race is for high rollers only. It will attract the premier programs that expect to win national championships, but for most schools, even in the power conferences, their focus is on how they will fund a new $20 million budget item.

Power conference athletic departments operate as self-sustaining organizations with $100 million budgets, where expenses more or less line up with revenues. Operating this way, even as millions upon millions in annual television revenue flowed in, is how the conferences and NCAA became ensnared in so much legal trouble to begin with. Untangling those norms is an admittedly first-class problem, but will require significant budgetary adjustments, including new revenue growth and cost cutting.

Most schools are leaning on fundraising and seeking new or increased assistance from campus subsidies or student fees. Virginia Tech, for example, recently announced it will increase student fees and direct a larger portion to athletics to help fund revenue sharing, a path plenty of other schools are considering. Iowa State athletic director Jaime Pollard referenced as much in a recent interview, while noting that Cyclones athletics receive no financial subsidies from the university.

“Iowa State does not have that (additional) $20 million, but if we don’t pay it for this coming year, we have big problems, right? So we’re going to pay it,” said Pollard. “Would you pay a bigger fee (as a student) … to go to school here so that a member of our men’s basketball team could get paid $1.5 million in addition to their scholarship, their room and board, and all the services they get for being a student on campus? That’s the fundamental question we’re going to have to ask ourselves. Because if we don’t do that, then what we’re saying is that we’re not going to have the athletics program that we’re having.”

Even with increased fees and fundraising, there will also be widespread belt-tightening on things like administrative staffing and athlete benefits within athletic departments, such as eliminating Alston payments and reevaluating meal offerings in the facility.

“If a player is making $500,000 a year, why am I still paying for three meals a day?” said another power conference administrator.

There could be new revenue streams from things like on-field logos or naming rights. Long term, departments might get creative, whether that’s an in-stadium restaurant that’s open year-round, purchasing its own housing complexes for athletes or inviting private equity. Last December, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy and Florida State coach Mike Norvell each restructured lucrative contracts, returning a portion of their salary to the school after disappointing seasons. Kentucky recently announced it is transitioning its athletic department to a nonprofit LLC.

Fans will feel it too. Schools such as Tennessee and Arkansas have already increased ticket or concession prices to fund revenue sharing. Some may pass processing fees onto customers, or explore local restaurant and hotel taxes. And the fundraising calls won’t stop.

Fully eliminating non-revenue varsity sports is another last-resort option for most athletic directors, but it’s already begun, at least outside the power conferences. UTEP discontinued women’s tennis. Cal Poly did the same with men’s and women’s swimming and diving. Saint Francis (Pa.) announced plans to reclassify all athletics from Division I to Division III, just one week after its men’s basketball team played in the NCAA Tournament. Utah shuttered its women’s beach volleyball program, though it did not mention the House settlement and rather cited conference realignment.

“I know for a fact schools are definitely talking about it,” said an administrator.

By any route, the ability for schools to spend the full amount of that annual revenue sharing cap — which will be essential to staying competitive, particularly at the highest levels — is a significant financial undertaking, and one few athletic departments can cobble together without upending their standard operating procedure.

“Right now it feels like Monopoly. We’re planning to spend to the cap, but we have to figure out how we’re getting there,” said the power conference athletic director. “If you cut a million somewhere, sure that helps, but if you cut $5 (million) or $10 million, you’re really hurting your department.”

Everyone wants their share

Generating the money is the first hurdle. Then schools have to decide how to distribute it among their sports. Most FBS athletic departments plan to use the settlement’s backpay formula as a blueprint, with roughly 75 percent earmarked to football ($15 million), 15-20 percent to men’s basketball, 5-10 percent to women’s basketball and whatever is left to the non-revenue sports.

Certain universities, like Texas Tech, have been transparent with the percentage of funds going to each sport and how those are calculated. But because there are no stipulations for how the pool must be allocated, it will vary between schools. And could create some dicey internal dynamics.

“There is absolutely in-fighting (between coaches),” said an administrator.

Head coaches at the same school are essentially vying with one another for a bigger chunk of revenue share. One power conference administrator said their school plans to direct as much as 25 percent to men’s basketball, which means less for football. There have also been rumblings about how this could benefit the best-resourced basketball programs in the Big East or WCC that don’t have to share with football.

“There are going to be some challenging and difficult conversations,” said another power conference AD. “Coaches will be paying more attention to the revenue figures of their program than ever before. Everybody wants to make a case why their rev share should increase.”

Agreements and innovative approaches

Once a school allocates its revenue share dollars, it’s up to teams to build out the roster accordingly. “Rev cap management,” as one AD phrased it.

Many schools have already signed athletes to preliminary revenue share agreements — whether through collectives or the actual university — specifying that payments will transfer to the athletic department on July 1. In addition to the wave of frontloaded NIL deals in recent months, as collectives emptied the coffers ahead of the settlement, schools are inserting notable caveats into these agreements. Some have buyout clauses, where athletes would have to pay money back to a school if they leave before the end of the agreement, similar to coaching contracts. Some suggest that because compensation is based on NIL, it can be adjusted up or down based on performance and/or playing time. Others have strict injury clauses.

“With some negotiations, we were very direct that if you’re not healthy, you’re not getting the money,” said another power conference personnel director.

Whether any of these stipulations hold up in a legal sense remains to be seen, but it’s clear that after years of schools and coaches feeling they were on the short end of the NIL power dynamic, they are attempting to wrest back that control. Still, numerous people consulted for this story said the vast majority of initial revenue share agreements will be for one season until there’s clarity on how legally binding these agreements truly are. Repeats of the Nico Iamaleava holdout saga might be less likely for the time being, but there could be standoffs over payment disputes.

Unlike in the NFL, where there is a rookie salary scale and fairly transparent free agency, college football teams are still navigating best roster-building practices. How much money do you set aside for high school recruits? For transfers? Which positions do you value most in your particular system? How should you structure a player’s payments? This could lead to more GM hires in the mold of Andrew Luck or pro-style executives who have administrative power over head coaches and can maintain philosophies across coaching changes.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the settlement and revenue share calendars operate on the academic fiscal calendar, which runs July to June. This means each football season is split across two separate rev share budgets.

“If you spend all $15 million on players for the 2025 season, then you aren’t going to be able to pay anyone for the 2026 season until July 1, 2026,” explained the personnel director.

This will require thoughtful budgeting, and could spark some innovative approaches — some more palatable than others. “Tanking” has been an issue unique to professional sports, but revenue sharing could usher it into the college ranks. If a team has glaring roster holes at quarterback or other key positions, it could elect to save its revenue share money and go all-in on the transfer portal when the season ends, with a bigger war chest than most of its competitors.

“I do think you will see teams try to manipulate the cap in different ways,” said another power conference personnel director.

Ongoing issues

From a legal perspective, the lawsuits and court battles won’t stop in the wake of the House settlement. A number of states already have NIL laws that contradict the settlement, and the Johnson v. NCAA case regarding athlete employment is still ongoing.

From a competitive perspective, the dollars going up means the competitive imbalance will too. This isn’t a new problem in college sports, but a settlement negotiated with heavy input from the power conferences isn’t going to change that, regardless of how well the clearinghouse works.

“It’s going to separate, even more, the haves and the have-nots,” said an administrator.

Big picture, athletic departments will be forced to adapt, financially and operationally, as college sports lean further away from amateurism and toward a more professional model.

“For the longest time, these athletic departments acted like nonprofits,” said another administrator. “Now they have to act like businesses.”

In the meantime, power and non-power programs alike are hoping for some degree of stability in an industry that has had very little in recent years.

“At some point,” said a personnel director, “maybe we’ll get two years in a row where we know what’s going on.”

 (Photo of Ohio State football: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)

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:

What is the House settlement and why does it matter?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 battle 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.

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

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.

What about players who played before NIL was allowed?

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).

Who will get most of the money?

Since 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.

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

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.

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

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.

Popeye Jones was an NBA rookie with the Mavericks the same season that Dallas debuted its new NHL team, and he decided to go to a Stars game after meeting future Hall of Fame player Mike Modano.

“I couldn’t figure out hockey. They were jumping over and off the ice … I’m like, ‘what’s going on with this sport?'” Jones said. “The puck flew up, I remember it hit somebody in the nose, blood was all over the ice and they kept playing.”

Back during that 1993-94 season, before he became a hockey dad, the 6-foot-8 Tennessee native who had grown up playing basketball, football and baseball was like many people in the South: He knew nothing about hockey even as the NHL was making a push into non-traditional markets.

Those days are long gone. NHL teams in the South are playing for and winning the Stanley Cup in packed arenas and there is steady growth when it comes to youth participation. Football may still be king in many Sun Belt locales, but hockey has been welcomed from Las Vegas to Texas to Nashville to North Carolina — and certainly in Florida.

Jones has two sons who are now NHL players. Seth Jones, a defenseman for the Florida Panthers, is playing in the Stanley Cup Final after the 12-season veteran, the fourth overall pick by Nashville in the 2013 draft, was traded from Chicago to the defending champions in March. Caleb Jones played for the Los Angeles Kings, his fourth team the past seven years.

The expansion Panthers came into the league with Anaheim in 1993-94, at the same time the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators were expansion teams the previous season, and the Hartford Whalers moved to Carolina and became the Hurricanes in 1997.

Shane Willis remembers playing with the Hurricanes following the NHL’s arrival in North Carolina — a process featuring a two-year transition to Greensboro before moving to Raleigh — and sometimes noticing a sparse home crowd during warmups.

“I’m like, ‘Is anybody coming?’” said Willis, now Carolina’s manager of youth and amateur hockey after five seasons as an NHL player.

That isn’t the case now, with Carolina having won a Stanley Cup in 2006 and currently on a seven-year run of winning at least one postseason series, including this year’s run to the East final.

Southern success

This is the sixth season in a row a team from Florida has reached the Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers are there for the third year in a row, this time in a rematch against Edmonton. Tampa Bay also made it to the final three straight seasons, winning the Cup the first two.

The Lightning’s run began by beating Dallas in 2020 in what is still the the “southernmost” Stanley Cup Final — except that entire postseason was played in Canada after the regular season was shortened because of the pandemic.

Dallas made its third West final in a row this year, coming up short of another Cup chance. But they were the first Sun Belt team to hoist the Stanley Cup in 1999, followed by Tampa Bay in 2004.

Every game in the conference finals in 2023 was played in the Sun Belt, a first. The Panthers beat Carolina in the East like they did this year, and Dallas lost to Vegas in the West.

Popeye, Mo and Sakic

Popeye Jones met Modano after getting invited to do an appearance during a Dallas Cowboys game.

“Not being a hockey fan, I really didn’t know who he was and he didn’t who I was. But we just struck up a conversation and started talking,” Jones said. “Just general talk about sports and whatever, and he was such a nice guy and I enjoyed sitting there and talking to him.”

That helped Jones become a Stars fan. They both played home games at the since-demolished Reunion Arena before Jones was traded to Toronto and later Boston, homes of two of the NHL’s Original Six teams. His only season playing in Denver was 1999-2000, when the Avalanche lost to the Stars in consecutive West finals before winning the Cup in 2001. It was there that he got to know Avs star Joe Sakic, another future Hall of Fame hockey player and now the team’s president of hockey operations.

Jones’ oldest son, Justin, came home from school one day in the Denver area and said he wanted to play hockey, which had a significant influence on Seth, who was 5 or 6 at the time. With his sons interested in playing an unfamiliar sport , Jones sought advice from Sakic, who said the boys needed to take skating lessons.

Seth Jones started playing hockey in Colorado, but was born in Texas and was on some Stars-affiliated youth teams after his dad later returned to the Mavericks.

“When I was there, you could see more and more kids starting to play in Texas,” the 30-year-old Panthers defenseman said. “And then really the past eight to 10 years, you see kids actually moving from the northern cities down to Texas because the hockey has really grown. Where before, all the good kids out of the southern cities would move up north to Chicago and Michigan and New York and these places.”

More and more players

The number of players registered with USA Hockey has grown significantly in Southern states over the past 20 seasons.

USA Hockey said 4,793 players registered in North Carolina for the 2005-06 season, with roughly 2,400 of those being 18 or younger. That overall number of players jumped 19.5% (to 5,728) for the season following their 2006 Cup run.

By the 2024-25 season, the state had 8,698 players (up 81.5% from 2005-06) with 5,608 being 18 or younger (up 135.5%), though Willis noted the actual number is likely higher since not all players register with USA Hockey.

The total number of registrations have increased even more in Florida and Texas over the past two decades.

In Florida, the total number of players has gone from 9,363 in 2005-06 to 22,888 (a 144.5% increase), with the number in the 18 or younger age groups nearly doubling to 10,277. Texas went from 7,017 to 17,346 total registrations (147.2%) in that same span, with those 18 and under going from 5,457 to 7,199 (31.9%).

Pete DeBoer, the Stars coach the past three seasons, had his first NHL head coaching job with Florida from 2008-11. He recalls the Lightning and Panthers then playing before sparse crowds with questions about whether those teams would even stay in those markets.

“To see where they’re at now is really impressive,” DeBoer said before the team fired him this past week. “Dallas for me is a perfect example of coming into a place and, you know, getting a foothold at the grassroots level, and that the amount of rinks, ice surfaces and facilities and kids playing minor hockey here in Dallas is way bigger than I ever anticipated.”

Much of that came as a result of the 1999 Stanley Cup for the Stars.

“They won, they captured the city’s attention and all this stuff got done. Rinks got built,” DeBoer said. “I think Florida didn’t get that done early, but is doing it now and they’re going to reap the benefits of that. I think when you get a team that wins and it’s in a non-traditional market, I think the benefits roll out for decades.”

Introducing the game

For the Hurricanes, early outreach included going to area schools and essentially running PE classes as an introduction to the sport. The team, aided by grant money from the NHL, has more recently purchased equipment such as balls, sticks and Hurricanes-logo apparel to donate to more than 100 schools. The team this year partnered with Raleigh suburb Apex to open two public street hockey rinks.

Carolina, Dallas and Florida all have tie-ins to to the “Learn to Play” umbrella program created by the NHL and NHL Players’ Association to introduce boys and girls, and even adults, to the sport. Those programs include variations of providing hockey equipment and instruction, and on-ice workouts at multiple rinks in their areas.

“What you have to do is not only introduce the game of hockey to people, you have to introduce your brand. You have to make both things very attractive to parents to want to get involved,” Willis said. “I see so many parents now, they come to games and we talk about it: if you can create a hockey player, whether it’s street hockey or ice hockey, you’re creating three fans. Because that kid is going to come to a game with Dad, Dad and Mom, maybe a sibling. So then you’re in the range of three to four fans you’re creating.”

Popeye Jones knows how that can go, recalling a time when Seth Jones was 11 or 12 and the family wanted him to find something else to do in the summertime.

“A kid called and said hey they had some ice, you want to come and, you know, play some pickup hockey. At first I didn’t want him to, but I saw he was moping around the house,” the elder Jones said. “I told him to get his stuff. I’ll never forget it, he got this bag together so fast and got in that car and I was driving him to the rink and I looked at him and I saw this big grin and I said, ‘Well, I guess I got a hockey player.’”

AP Sports Writers Aaron Beard, Pat Graham and Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl