College athletics continues to change in the NIL era. On Friday evening, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement. This decision will lead to revenue sharing and roster limits throughout college athletics. 

College athletics will now have a salary cap of around $20 million. Football programs could have anywhere between $13 and $16 million to spend on their teams for the 2025 season. 

“Despite some compromises, the settlement agreement nevertheless will result in extraordinary relief for members of the settlement classes,” Judge Wilken shared. “If approved, it would permit levels and types of student-athlete compensation that have never been permitted in the history of college sports while also very generously compensating Division I student-athletes who suffered past harms.”

The settlement will also create a new NIL clearinghouse for third-party NIL deals of $600 or more. The new clearinghouse, “NIL Go,” must approve all contracts meeting that restriction.

If the NIL deal is not approved, the school could be fined, or the athlete could be ineligible for the upcoming season, creating massive implications for NIL contracts. 

It was reported that 70% of past NIL deals would have been denied under the new settlement and NIL guidelines, but 90% of deals with public companies would have been approved. 

Under the new settlement, roster limits will also be phased into college athletics. The proposed roster changes include 105 for football, 15 for men’s and women’s basketball, 34 for baseball, 28 for men’s and women’s soccer, 25 for softball, and 18 for volleyball. 

Paul Finebaum did not hold back from calling out the NCAA and its inability to govern college athletics, belittling the organization to just “tournament directors,” and he’s not wrong. 

“We’re still having tournaments, such as the Women’s World Series and the Men’s Baseball Tournament, but the NCAA, as we know it, is gone,” Finebaum said on Sportscenter. “They literally have no jurisdiction whatsoever other than to be tournament directors.”

The NCAA has lost virtually all control over member schools, allowing them to do almost anything they want. The NIL era is often referred to as the “Wild West,” and that is because the NCAA’s controlling power is diminishing more and more every day. 

How could the settlement affect Tennessee athletics?

The settlement and future outcomes could impact Tennessee athletics’ approach moving forward, including the possibility of being kicked out of the SEC if they comply with state law, which contradicts the NCAA. 

Membership contracts are currently being introduced throughout Power Four conferences, challenging Tennessee’s new state law stating that state institutions and their NIL collectives can continue to pay above the proposed salary cap. 

It also states that schools cannot sue the College Sports Commission, which will be the group enforcing the new rules under the House settlement. 

If Tennessee, or any other Power Four school, chooses not to sign the agreement, it could be kicked out of its conference and blackballed from joining other conferences. 

Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White seemed to be optimistic about the House settlement and its effectiveness in college athletics moving forward, but believes collective bargaining is the key to leveling the playing field across all sports.

“There’s been a lot of speculation around collective bargaining,” White shared. “Every sports organization in our country has collective bargaining for a reason. It’s very complicated. These are students. We don’t have just one sport. We have twenty and only two of which are profitable. It’s a really complicated situation that we have been deep in for 3-4 years. I think everyone is search for answers.

“There’s a lot to transpire to see how that plays out. But as you and I have discussed, I think collective bargaining is maybe where we land down the road. But in a competitive space like this, everyone’s trying to win.”

The House settlement decision isn’t the only major decision courts have to make regarding college athletics. There are also decisions waiting to be made regarding athletes’ eligibility, with the possibility of changing the original four years of eligibility to five years of eligibility. 

That could drastically change what college athletics looks like moving forward and could even help Tennessee, as Jordan Gainey and Zakai Zeigler have both expressed interest in returning to play one more season for Rick Barnes if it is passed. 

Tennessee could benefit from multiple sports from the results of the house settlement and potentially add a fifth year of eligibility for college athletes. 

The Vols want to continue being championship contenders across various sports, and the revenue sharing and NIL caps could help Tennessee compete with the blue bloods of college athletics moving forward.

Associated Press

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.

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.

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

The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has been around since 1906. In its 119-year history, institutions have never directly paid athletes (legally). That has all now changed, as Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House settlement on Friday in the U.S. Northern District of California, 59 months after the initial class-action House vs NCAA suit was filed.

The settlement arose out of three different lawsuits over the issue of compensation for collegiate athletes. More than 390,000 current and former college athletes acted as the plaintiffs in the suit, and the defendants were the NCAA and five athletic conferences.

After more than a year of negotiating, the saga finally comes to a close.

What exactly does the settlement do

Beginning July 1, schools will be able to share $20.5 million with athletes, with football expected to receive 75 percent of the share, followed by men’s basketball (15 percent), women’s basketball (five percent) and the remainder of sports (five percent). The amount shared in revenue will increase annually. This number will act as base pay for the athletes competing in Division I programs, earning money at the school’s discretion of how they want to split up the funds.

The second main thing regards back-pay for athletes who competed in collegiate sports dating back to 2016, but were unable to capitalize on their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). Instead of facing $20 billion in back damages, “the NCAA and Power Five conferences signed off on a 10-year settlement agreement that includes $2.776 billion in back damages.”

The NCAA is responsible for paying $277 million annually over the next decade. It has been estimated that 60 percent will come from a reduction in distribution to institutions, and the NCAA is expected to come up with the other 40 percent, which will come through reducing operating expenses, according to On3.

The third issue was oversight. The NCAA is a self-disciplined machine. All suspensions, investigations of wrongdoing and eligibility hearings were done in-house. Judge Wilkins wanted to ensure the beast of revenue sharing had enough checks and balances, so she approved of an “NIL clearinghouse.”

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 fines to the school. This could even the playing field by cutting out the fake deals or forcing college coaches to be more transparent, but it also could be the most controversial if that information is made public.

The final topic heavily debated surrounded roster limits. At the preliminary approval hearing on Oct. 7, 2024, the two sides agreed to increasing the number of scholarships each football team can distribute to 105 by next fall, but it would not allow for any walk-on spots or other non-scholarship players over the 105 limit. It worked similarly for other non-revenue sports increasing the number of scholarships given out, but reducing the overall roster size.

When Wilkens met with the attorneys from both sides to approve the settlement in April, she made them go back to the drawing board, pushing back strongly against roster limits and asking that roster spots be grandfathered in.

Under the new agreement, athletes who had their positions cut will be eligible for reinstatement at schools’ discretion. It also permits athletes who leave or are not kept by their current school to keep their grandfathered status at a new school. Proposed rosters include 105 spots for football, 15 for men’s and women’s basketball, 34 for baseball, 28 for men’s and women’s soccer, 25 for softball and 18 for volleyball. This will is effective at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.

“Despite some compromises, the settlement agreement nevertheless will result in extraordinary relief for members of the settlement classes,” Wilken wrote in her 76-page final opinion. “If approved, it would permit levels and types of student-athlete compensation that have never been permitted in the history of college sports, while also very generously compensating Division I student-athletes who suffered past harms.”

How does this impact Michigan

This is a massive win for University of Michigan athletes, but it is also a difference-maker in staying competitive for years to come. The university already has one of the largest budgets in college athletics and the second-largest alumni network in the country, and it has already generated more than $30 million in NIL funds, putting it in the top tier of college athletics.

Between flipping Bryce Underwood, landing the No. 1 ranked basketball transfer in Yaxel Landeborg, and having banner-hanging seasons in softball, men’s gymnastics and men’s basketball, the Wolverines are already at the top of the college athletics totem pole, and that should not change given the investments already made.

Michigan also has untapped areas of revenue it hopes to cash in this next academic year. Athletic Director Warde Manuel announced last fall that Michigan was looking into putting sponsorships and advertisements in the Big House, something Michigan has never done since Michigan Stadium was built in the 1920s. What was originally a survey has since been put into practice, and fans saw advertisements and videos played throughout the 2025 spring game. This untapped revenue space could generate $15-20 million next year alone, making up for the $20.5 million in revenue sharing the athletic department is expected to dish out.

Manuel also introduced alcohol sales to sporting events in 2024. After the Wolverines’ first full season since the state legalized in-stadium sales in 2023, the university reported a profit of $5 million in alcohol sales, including $4.6 million at football games alone. With such a successful year, you can expect even more of this moving forward.

Finally, Michigan’s Athletic Department has publicly supported revenue sharing for a while, and Manuel has even said they will not be cutting any varsity sports. That may not be the case at every school, and we could see major shake ups across college sports outside of Ann Arbor.

The bottom line is Michigan is prepared and equipped for the settlement. As previously stated, it creates a base pay for athletes in revenue-generating sports, but the NIL collectives will still serve as the sprinkles and whipped cream on top of the sundae for all college athletes. Champion Circle, Hail Impact, and Stadium and Main will not be going away, and neither will Michigan football general manager Sean Magee.

If you thought the introduction of NIL was a big change, just wait. This is the beginning of one of the biggest changes in American sports history, and we are witnessing it in real time.

In wake of Judge Claudia Wilken’s order granting final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, NCAA president Charlie Baker penned a letter to membership. He walked through the next steps once the agreement goes into place, as well as what the landmark moment means for the future of college athletics.

Baker called final approval a “new beginning” for college sports now that revenue-sharing is on the way, as well as roster limits. Schools will soon be able to directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes in the first year of the settlement agreement, and that figure will go up 4% each year for 10 years.

Judge approves landmark House v. NCAA settlement

While April’s final approval hearing was a date many circled, Baker said Friday will be the moment the “new beginning” for the NCAA. He also noted the trouble enforcing NIL rules and the way the landscape transformed as a result.

“Many looked to April’s hearing about the House settlement as a culmination of sorts, but the court’s final approval of the settlement in fact marks a new beginning for Division I student-athletes and for the NCAA,” Baker wrote. “For several years, Division I members crafted well-intentioned rules and systems to govern financial benefits from schools and name, image and likeness opportunities, but the NCAA could not easily enforce these for several reasons.

“The result was a sense of chaos: instability for schools, confusion for student-athletes and too often litigation. Sometimes member schools even supported that litigation — some of which spurred hastily imposed court orders upending the rules.”

As a result of the settlement’s final approval, the College Sports Commission has been formed. The expectation is Major League Baseball executive Bryan Seeley has been named CEO, and the commission will take on a key role in creating stability following approval.

However, Charlie Baker also noted the NCAA will still have a role in regulation of other areas. Additionally, the NCAA will take the lead on paying back damages as part of the settlement.

“Beyond the rules that will be managed by the defendant conferences, Division I will continue to regulate in key areas (e.g., eligibility, playing seasons, sports betting and minimal recruiting rules) while prioritizing educational success through setting and monitoring academic standards,” Baker wrote. “The NCAA will finance the back damages portion of the settlement. To do that, we are both reducing costs and generating more revenue, all while investing in the student-athlete experience.

“Together the NCAA, the defendant conferences and the Division I membership have identified the existing NCAA rules that must change to reflect the settlement. These include replacing scholarship limits with roster limits — a change that will enable schools to vastly increase the scholarship opportunities student-athletes receive and potentially double the number of athletics scholarships made available to women.”

The post Judge approves NCAA House Settlement allowing schools to pay players appeared first on ClutchPoints.

The landscape of college sports has been in constant change over the last few years, and now a major development has taken place that will ensure it is never the same again. On Friday night, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House settlement in the House vs. NCAA lawsuit.

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The biggest point in the settlement is that it now allows schools to pay their own athletes, instead of all payment having to go through NIL collectives. This ruling doesn’t end the controversy about whether athletes are considered employees of the universities that they play for, but schools being able to pay them is a massive development in the ongoing debate.

Schools will be able to pay athletes $20.5 million over the course of the year, with a decided split in which sports get how much money, according to Pete Nakos of On3 Sports.

“Beginning July 1, schools will be able to share $20.5 million with athletes, with football expected to receive 75%, followed by men’s basketball (15%), women’s basketball (5%) and the remainder of sports (5%),” Nakos wrote. “The amount shared in revenue will increase annually.”

That means that football programs will have about $15 million, give or take, to spend on their rosters.

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The settlement will also introduce roster limits, which was a big sticking point between the two sides over the course of the last few months. Those roster limits will be grandfathered in, a stipulation that Wilkin required in order to go through with the approval of the settlement.

On Friday night, NCAA president Charlie Baker released a letter titled “A new beginning for Division I student-athletes and the NCAA.”

“Approving the agreement reached by the NCAA, the defendant conferences and student-athletes in the settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports,” part of the letter read. “This new framework that enables schools to provide direct financial benefits to student-athletes and establishes clear and specific rules to regulate third-party NIL agreements marks a huge step forward for college sports.”

How this settlement affects the teams on the field and the court in 2025-26 remains to be seen, but there is no question that this massive change will impact the way that college sports work forever.

Related: Former NCAA athletes to be paid $2.8 billion for lost NIL earnings

Related: Former MLB exec to be new head of College Sports Commission