The House settlement has been finalized and quite honestly, while we understand the basic idea, we haven’t fully grasped the implications.

As best we understand it, schools can now pay players directly from their athletic budget. This is in addition to NIL income and of course a scholarship (although that means less and less with players now transferring up to five times in some cases).

Schools can use up to $20.5 million, coming from various sources, to pay athletes. This will continue to go up over time.

There is going to be a lot of pressure at different schools about how to manage all of this. Obviously the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 are going to have to put the emphasis on football (and that’s true for much of the ACC too).

The settlement will also increase scholarships from 85 to 105.

Basketball is the only other revenue program at most schools and those go up from 13 to 15 now.

That’s up to 120 scholarships between those two programs and that’s before you get to Title IX requirements. Some schools, like Iowa, Iowa State and Penn, are going to want to make sure to take care of wrestling, while others (Syracuse, Maryland and Virginia, for three examples) take lacrosse very seriously.

And then when you get into the Big East, it’s probably going to be much easier since they don’t play football (we think only UConn has aspirations there) and that money can stretch further. We’re not advocating for this, but someone soon will make a logical argument for Duke joining the Big East.

What we’re going to quickly find out is that football schools will be under immense pressure to funnel money to football. The settlement is done and that suit is over, but there will be others, and a lot will be about how that money is distributed. Prediction: Olympic sports are going to get cut left and right. And the nasty knock-on problem from conferences going coast-to-coast is going to be travel expenses for Olympic teams. It’s one thing to pay to fly UCLA football out to Rutgers; those teams make bank.

UCLA softball flying out to Rutgers is quite another.

For Duke, the focus will continue to be basketball, but football can’t be ignored and Duke made big waves for how much incoming QB Darian Mensah will get ($8 million over two years).

As far as we can guess, this is what will happen: the direct payments will be a floor and schools will push hard to make up ground with NIL.

And that’s where the cheating will move. Will Wade! Your entrepreneurial skills are about to be resurrected.

Actually, if you want to make an early guess on where corruption will turn up, a reasonable guess is accounting. Players are now required to report NIL deals worth more than $600 to their schools. You could easily imagine a coach just sort of facilitating cash transfers between interested parties and players and keeping it off the books. Where there’s a Will there’s a way, you know?

In a related note, MLB exec Bryan Seeley has been hired as CEO of the College Sports Commission, which will handle enforcement issues (the NCAA is out of that now).

However, the law of unintended consequences will also kick in and none of us not many of us know how that will unfold. Suffice it to say there will be more lawsuits and soon, new types of investigations and, no doubt, forensic accountants will be hired. Off shore crypto! Dark Web payments!

The mind boggles.

Seeley is getting a seven-figure salary. It may not be enough for what he’s about to deal with.

• Louisville and Miami will play Game 3 of their super regional on Sunday at noon for a chance to reach the College World Series.
• Eddie King, Jr. was 3-for-4 with two runs scored and three RBIs against Miami on Saturday.

Louisville had been a dominant force throughout its first four games of the NCAA baseball tournament.

Now that the House v. NCAA settlement has been approved, college football enters a new era where schools will pay players directly for their NIL.

The Tulane Green Wave is one of the most competitive Group of Five teams in the nation in contention for the College Football Playoff spot.

As head coach Jon Sumrall makes a push in his second season, fans can now chip in to retain star talent through NIL in a unique way.

More News: Tulane Football Receives High Ranking from Popular Preview Magazine

The release of EA College Football 26 will have innovative changes that allow schools to profit off fan play.

Green Wave Fans Can Help by Playing EA Sports College Football 26

As reported by cllctmedia’s Matt Liberman, schools will now be paid for the use of name, image, and likeness in the newest version of the game.

Crucially, the frequency with which the teams appear in gameplay will determine their royalties.

The video game will now compensate all 136 FBS schools, including the Green Wave, for their fan popularity.

More News: What to Expect for Tulane Football’s First AAC Test Against Tulsa Golden Hurricane

College Football 26 is set to be released July 10, and the highly anticipated new version will look to capitalize on last year’s, which was the most played sports video game ever with over 1.7 billion streams.

Liberman obtained documents outlining the new royalties structure through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“For each CFB product released by EA SPORTS, we (CLC Learfield) will provide a percentage for each institution based on the games played for that institution as a percentage of the total games played across all institutions,” a document obtained by Liberman stated. “This percentage of games played will become the final allocation percentage for each school that will be applied to the total gross royalties for all institutions received.”

In the sample scenario presented, let’s say the total royalties reported in the university pool are $5 million, and the total number of games played is seven hundred million.

More News: Tulane Track and Field’s Record-Breaking Freshman Fuels Nationals Momentum

If a school’s game was played seven million times within that total number, that would allocate 1% of the total $5 million to come out to $500,000 in royalties.

This groundbreaking change should transform the ability to retain star talent, as breakout players are used more often in games and would therefore garner increased NIL funds to be paid.

The royalty allocations were previously broken into four tiers based on real-world success, or actual games played on the field.

The last 10 years’ final AP Poll results determined the tier for teams that opted in last year. Teams received one point for each year they finished in the Top 25.

This situation is certainly challenging for Tulane football, as their appearance in the 2022 AP Top 25 marked their first ranking since 1998. That was the only season they ended the year ranked, with a No. 9 finish.

That makes them one of 26 schools in Tier 3 with a $39,950 payout.

With Tulane’s recent success, that all stands to change with the new royalties structure and will better match their play on the field with a comparable payout.

For more Tulane Athletics Coverage, Head to Tulane Green Wave On SI

Last Updated on June 8, 2025

One of the seismic shifts taking place as a result of the House v. NCAA settlement is the abolishment of scholarship limits and implementation of new roster limits in Division I for those who participate in the settlement.

If a school chooses to opt into the settlement for revenue sharing, then it must also abide by new roster limits. As you can see below, many of the new roster limits are lower than the average roster these sports carried previously. Although schools can now offer new scholarships up to the roster limit, many athletes have been (or will be) cut in order to get rosters under the new limits.

Designated Student Athletes

Ahead of the final settlement being approved, many schools began cutting athletes to get under the roster limits. However, the judge required an amendment to the settlement before it was approved in an attempt to protect those athletes.

As a result, any current college athletes cut from teams because of roster limits, in addition to any recruits with offers pulled, will be labeled as a “Designated Student Athlete.” DSAs will not count against roster limits at their original institution or any institution where they transfer. They will remain DSAs for the remainder of their collegiate eligibility.

Division I Rosters Will Shrink

Although DSAs may have some protection in the coming years, eventually rosters will shrink down to the new sizes, meaning a loss in opportunities available to athletes. Some research has shown as many as 13,000 roster spots will be lost.

Walk-ons have been a huge part of college football, in particular. As USA Today pointed out, Nebraska had 180 football players on its roster, while Texas A&M had 143. Under new roster limits, football will only carry 105 athletes.

New Scholarships Can Be Created

It’s not all bad news. Schools do have the option to increase scholarships in sports where the previous scholarship limits were lower than the new roster limits. It was initially anticipated that not many would do this, as the value of new scholarships up to $2.5 million will count against the amount a school can distribute for revenue sharing.

However, some schools have announced they will be fully funding scholarships for all of their rosters up to the new limits, including Clemson, Tennessee and Texas A&M.

Read all of our House settlement breakdowns

New Roster Limits

Research support provided by Lauren Galaska

Associated Press

Sydney Moore and Sabrina Ootsburg were surrounded by hundreds of college athletes at AthleteCon when news broke that the $2.8 billion NCAA settlement had been approved by a federal judge. In a room full of college athletes, they felt like the only two people who understood the gravity of the situation.

“I’m about to get paid,” Moore said a Division I football player told her.

“Yes, you are about to get paid, and a lot of your women athlete friends are about to get cut,” she responded.

Moore acknowledged that her response might be a stretch, but the sprawling House settlement clears the way for college athletes to get a share of revenue directly from their schools and provides a lucky few a shot at long-term financial stability, it raises genuine concerns for others.

Schools that opt int will be able to share up to $20.5 million with their athletes over the next year starting July 1. The majority is expected to be spent on high-revenue generating sports, with most projections estimating 75% of funds will go toward football.

So what happens to the non-revenue-generating sports which, outside of football and basketball, is pretty much all of them?

It’s a query that’s top of mind for Ootsburg as she enters her senior year at Belmont, where she competes on track and field team.

“My initial thought was, is this good or bad? What does this mean for me? How does this affect me? But more importantly, in the bigger picture, how does it affect athletes as a whole?” Ootsburg said.

“You look at the numbers where it says most of the revenue, up to 75% to 85%, will go toward football players. You understand it’s coming from the TV deals, but then it’s like, how does that affect you on the back end?” Ootsburg asked. “Let’s say 800k goes toward other athletes. Will they be able to afford other things like care, facilities, resources or even just snacks?”

Moore has similar concerns. She says most female athletes aren’t worried about how much – if any – money they’ll receive. They fear how changes could impact the student-athlete experience.

“A lot of us would much rather know that our resources and our experience as a student-athlete is going to stay the same, or possibly get better, rather than be given 3,000 dollars, but now I have to cover my meals, I have to pay for my insurance, I have to buy ankle braces because we don’t have any, and the athletic training room isn’t stocked,” Moore said over the weekend as news of Friday night’s settlement approval spread.

One of the biggest problems, Ootsburg and Moore said, is that athletes aren’t familiar with the changes. At AthleteCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, they said, perhaps the biggest change in college sports history was a push notification generally shrugged off by those directly impacted.

“Athletes do not know what’s happening,” Ootsburg said. “Talking to my teammates, it’s so new, and they see the headlines and they’re like, ‘Ok, cool, but is someone going to explain this?’ because they can read it, but then there’s so many underlying factors that go into this. This is a complex problem that you have to understand the nuances behind, and not every athlete truly does.”

Some coaches, too, are still trying to understand what’s coming.

Mike White, coach of the national champion Texas softball team, called it “the great unknown right now.”

“My athletic director, Chris Del Conte, said it’s like sailing out on a flat world and coming off the edge; we just don’t know what’s going to be out there yet, especially the way the landscape is changing,” he said at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. “Who knows what it’s going to be?”

What about the walk-ons?

Jake Rimmel got a crash course on the settlement in the fall of 2024, when he said he was cut from the Virginia Tech cross-country team alongside several other walk-ons. The topic held up the House case for weeks as the judge basically forced schools to give athletes cut in anticipation of approval a chance to play — they have to earn the spot, no guarantees — without counting against roster limits.

Rimmel packed up and moved back to his parents’ house in Purcellville, Virginia. For the past six months, he’s held on to a glimmer of hope that maybe he could return.

“The past six months have been very tough,” he said. “I’ve felt so alone through this, even though I wasn’t. I just felt like the whole world was out there – I would see teammates of mine and other people I knew just doing all of these things and still being part of a team. I felt like I was sidelined and on pause, while they’re continuing to do all these things.”

News that the settlement had been approved sent Rimmel looking for details.

“I didn’t see much about roster limits,” he said. “Everyone wants to talk about NIL and the revenue-sharing and I mean, that’s definitely a big piece of it, but I just didn’t see anything about the roster limits, and that’s obviously my biggest concern.”

The answer only presents more questions for Rimmel.

“We were hoping for more of a forced decision with the grandfathering, which now it’s only voluntary, so I’m a little skeptical of things because I have zero clue how schools are going to react to that,” Rimmel told The Associated Press.

Rimmel is still deciding what’s best for him, but echoed Moore and Ootsburg in saying that answers are not obvious: “I’m just hoping the schools can make the right decisions with things and have the best interest of the people who were cut.”

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AP Sports Writer Cliff Brunt contributed.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

On the same day the settlement was approved opening the door for college athletes to receive millions of dollars in revenue from schools, the head of the enforcement arm of college sports’ brave new world was selected.