After a few years of battling behind the scenes to come up with a solution that would settle a lawsuit that would change the face of college athletics, the House settlement has finally been approved. Now we are headed into uncharted territory, with plenty of questions still to be answered. 

It might have taken over two weeks for Judge Claudia Wilken to issue her approval, but at 9:15 p.m. ET on Friday night, the collegiate sports we once knew is now gone. 

As you’ve watched this play out over the last number of years, with plenty of setbacks along the way, former collegiate athletes were looking to get a cut of the pie that they missed out on due to NIL not being around during their playing days. 

According to the order filed, schools will have roughly $20.5 million to share with their athletes. This will be broken up into different sports, which is at the discretion of each school participating in the revenue-sharing. 

Now, we are living in the era where players who are looking to cash-in on their NIL, will be dealing directly with the school itself, while third-party collectives will still be around at most schools.  It started with the Ed O’Bannon case, which was a fight over whether former and current athletes should be paid for their likeness being used in video games. This led to the dam opening, and more players taking the NCAA to court over their current NIL rights. 

TO READ THE FULL APPROVAL ORDER, CLICK HERE

What we got in return was a settlement that would see college athletes being paid by the schools themselves, which was illegal up until this point. Clearly, all hell has broken loose in the NIL circles, as what you are seeing today has nothing to do with actual name, image and likeness, but more so, players getting paid to play at a particular school. 

By the way, there is nothing wrong with these athletes getting paid to play sports. But let’s not act as if this is anything other than that. 

According to multiple sources, MLB executive Bryan Seeley is set to be named CEO of the newly formed ‘College Sports Commission’  that will be the enforcement arm of the House settlement, along with providing guidance on traversing this going forward

There will be an initial salary cap that each school must abide by, which should hover around the $20.5 million range for the first year, before it increases on a yearly basis. 

In her order, Judge Wilken also said she is unclear whether the upcoming revenue-sharing cap is a violation of antitrust law. This will certainly lead to lawsuits being filed that are connected to the cap placed on NIL payments from the schools themselves. 

There Will Be Further Lawsuits Regarding NIL, Along With Third Party Deals

One of the more interesting arguments made in her order had to do with payments made by collectives, or through deals that schools present to athletes. 

“The NCAA shall not have any Division I rules prohibiting student-athletes from receiving payments from third parties for NIL, other than as set forth in this Injunctive Relief Settlement. For the avoidance of doubt, entities or organizations that are owned, controlled, or operated by Member Institutions and/or conferences are not third parties. 

“Subcontractors of a Member Institution will not be considered third parties in instances and to the extent they are acting as an agent, facilitator, and/or administrator for a Member Institution whereby they are making payments to student-athletes that originate from/are paid by a Member Institution.”

How NIL Deals Will Be Determined If Fair From 

There will be three evaluation determining factors for NIL deals with the clearinghouse that will either approve or deny a deal that is submitted through the ‘NIL-Go’ software program. 

–Payor association: “The relationship between the payor and the student-athlete’s school”

–Valid Business Purpose: “Whether the payor is seeking the use of the student-athlete’s NIL for a valid business purpose, meaning to sell a good or service to the public for profit”

–Range of Compensation: “Whether the compensation paid to the student-athlete is commensurate with compensation paid to similarly situated individuals”

On Friday night, Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey took to social media to make a point about the need for collective bargaining with athletes in college sports. 

“Collective bargaining discussions need to happen…let’s curiously question bc what we’re currently doing continues insanity. We have a responsibility to find solutions…Agent regulations…low hanging fruit”

$2.8 Billion In Back Damages Have To Be Paid Out

Athletes who could not earn money by using their own NIL before its inception in 2021 would be owed a payout from the settlement. This monetary figure was a negotiated settlement that would cost the NCAA and its power conferences significantly less than what they would’ve had to pay if this case ended up going to trial. 

• There will be upwards of $20 billion in revenue-sharing that will go towards athletes in the future.

In her ruling, Judge Claudia Wilken had this to say about the revenue-sharing cap. 

“The pool spending cap will permit schools that choose to opt-in to the IRS to provide benefits and compensation to Division ! student-athletes of approximately $20 million per year per school. This is a dramatic increase from the $5,980 per student athlete per year that was permitted in Alston, and from the $5,000 per student-athlete per year that the Ninth Circuit reversed in O’Bannon.”

The athletes who are going to be paid had to sign up for this through the settlement terms, and will receive a check. Right now, these athletes can see their payout through an online portal that’s currently available. Some of these payouts will obviously be higher than others, so it will be interesting to see how much some athletes make when this is finalized. 

Judge Claudia Wilken holds all the power with the House settlement 

NIL Deals With Third Parties Allowed, But Have To Be Cleared

One of the biggest aspects of this new settlement will be how athletes can make money from third-party deals. According to the settlement, players who are presented NIL deals that are more than $600 will have to submit them to a clearinghouse, which is actually being run through a company called ‘Deloitte,’ which is calculated by computer software. 

This will be an independent group that makes up the clearinghouse committee, which will take a look at deals that they feel might violate the rules put into place. If a deal is not deemed worthy, which means it’s not legal under the new rules, it will be denied. This could also lead to schools potentially getting into trouble, though the NCAA is struggling with its power right now. 

Simply put, if your school is putting together an NIL deal, whether that’s from the athletic department itself or the collective, it has to be approved if it’s over $600. And by the way, there won’t be many, if any, deals that are under that amount. So, schools are preparing for a number of different situations with the enforcement arm of this settlement. 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, as a number of states have passed laws that would exclude state universities from following rules that are put into place by the settlement. Also, some states have passed laws where revenue made from NIL would not be subject to state income taxes, which has caused quite a stir around the country. 

Schools Will Now Pay Players Directly. There Will Be A Cap On Annual Revenue

The biggest component of this entire settlement is the new rules that allow schools to pay their athletes directly. Think about that one for a minute. Just five years ago, universities would face the harshest of punishment from the NCAA if they were caught paying players. 

But now, there will be checks sent out, or weekly wire transfers, sent to the athletes from the schools. Every month, a player will receive a payment from the athletic departments of participating institutions, which is fascinating. 

According to multiple sources, there is a fear that schools are going to have a hard time putting a limit on how much boosters are going to spend. 

The revenue cap is scheduled to be around $20.5 million per year, which every school will disperse in different ways. A majority of big-time schools will spend their money on football rosters, while the remaining amount will go to other sports. This means that the football program could spend upwards of $16 to $17 million on football alone. 

The other interesting part is that there are plenty of schools that do not have a powerful football program, or even a football team at all, so they can spend a majority of that money on basketball. This will see some schools have a leg up on others in different sports, which should translate into a Big East school like Villanova spending $15-$16 million on the basketball team, while schools from the SEC or Big Ten are spending upwards of $3 to $4 million on the revenue-sharing agreement. 

Will other schools decide to spend more money on basketball and baseball compared to others? This could lead to programs having to shut down athletic programs, based off the amount of money being made, along with the allotted sums. 

Players have already started signing contracts with schools under the presumption that the settlement would be approved, which is another reason why you have seen a plethora of athletes have their new deals ‘front-loaded.’ All this did was get a majority of their contract off the books, so that it would not count toward the revenue-share cap that was agreed to. 

This is obviously a landmark moment for college athletics, just as the inception of NIL was in 2021. But with this settlement, everything you once knew about sports at the collegiate level has now changed. What was once taboo, is now legal. 

Schools will start cutting checks to athletes, and what we once characterized as ‘amateur sports’ has shifted to a more professional model. The only thing missing is the athletes being able to collectively bargain, which I would imagine is the next step on the crazy rollercoaster that has changed college athletics forever. 

Welcome to the ‘Semi-Pro’ era. 

College athletics is officially entering a new world.

A California judge on Friday night a little bit past 9 p.m. ET granted approval to the NCAA’s landmark settlement of three antitrust cases, often referred to as the “House settlement,” ushering in an era where schools are permitted to share revenue with athletes within a new enforcement structure led by the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC.

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Claudia Wilken, the 75-year-old presiding judge in California’s Northern District, granted approval of an agreement between the named defendants (the NCAA and power conferences) and the plaintiffs (dozens of suing athletes) to settle three consolidated cases, all of them seeking more compensation for athletes.

“Despite some compromises, the settlement agreement nevertheless will result in extraordinary relief for members of the settlement classes. 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,” Wilken said as part of the 76-page opinion.

Unsuccessful in so many legal battles recently — most notably a 9-0 loss in a 2021 Supreme Court decision — the NCAA and its richest, most influential conferences decided last spring to strike a revolutionary agreement by settling these cases instead of risking a court defeat that might cost them as much as $10 billion.

The House settlement will pay thousands of former athletes — playing from 2016-2024 — a whopping $2.8 billion in backpay from lost name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation. Even more groundbreaking, the settlement paves the way for schools, for the first time ever, to directly compensate athletes in a system that features an annual cap and a new enforcement entity that is expected to more heavily scrutinize booster-backed payments.

While paychecks can begin to be distributed from schools to athletes on July 1 — the official start date of settlement implementation — the new enforcement entity, the College Sports Commission, an LLC operated mostly by the power leagues, immediately takes effect with Wilken’s approval of the agreement.

“This is new terrain for everyone. … Opportunities to drive transformative change don’t come often to organizations like ours. It’s important we make the most of this one,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement released Friday night. “We have accomplished a lot over the last several months, from new health and wellness and academic requirements to a stronger financial footing. Together, we can use this new beginning to launch college sports into the future, too.”

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It means that any new contract struck between an athlete and a third-party entity, such a business, brand, booster or collective, is now subject to the new Deloitte-run NIL clearinghouse. The clearinghouse, dubbed “NIL Go,” is charged with evaluating NIL deals between athletes and third parties to determine their legitimacy.

It puts an end, perhaps, to schools hurriedly signing current players and transfers to new contracts before the approval of the settlement in deals that frontload a majority of the compensation. Contracts signed before the settlement approval and paid out before July 1 were not subject to the clearinghouse or cap, leading to a “mad dash” in the basketball and football portal.

Power conference leaders are targeting a Major League Baseball executive to manage the College Sports Commission as CEO, multiple sources tell Yahoo Sports. Bryan Seeley, a former assistant U.S. attorney who has served for more than a decade as MLB’s vice president of investigations and deputy general counsel, is believed to be the preferred candidate for the CEO role of college sports’ new enforcement entity.

Despite plenty of hurdles in the settlement’s years-long approval process, those who negotiated the deal have long expected it to be approved because of the sheer numbers involved. More than 85,000 athletes have filed claims for the backpay and just 600 have opted out or objected to the agreement — a paltry number that did not faze the judge.

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Wiken’s decision, coming two months after the final hearing in Oakland, California, puts an end to what was thought to be one of the last looming hurdles of a deal: roster limits. In a concept authored by the power conferences, the settlement imposes new limits on sports rosters, many of which had not previously existed.

In a recent filing, the NCAA and power leagues agreed to revise settlement language to permit schools to grandfather-in athletes on existing teams or those who have been cut this year, as well as recruits who enrolled on the promise of a roster spot.

With its approval, the settlement ushers into college sports a more professionalized framework but one, many believe, that is ripe for more legal scrutiny. Already, attorneys are gearing up for future legal challenges over, at the very least, the new NIL clearinghouse, Title IX and the capped compensation system — much of which can be resolved, legal experts contend, with a collective bargaining and/or employment model that college executives have so far avoided.

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The settlement’s approval is only the first in what many college leaders describe as a two-step process to usher in stability in the college sports landscape.

Step 2 may be even more difficult: lawmakers producing a congressional bill to codify the settlement terms and protect the NCAA and power conferences from legal challenges over enforcement of their rules. Five U.S. senators have been meeting regularly in serious negotiations over legislation, but no agreement has been reached.

Here’s an explainer of college sports’ new world delivered by the settlement’s approval:

Revenue-share pool

Each school is permitted — not required — to share up to a certain amount of revenue annually with their athletes (the cap). Per the settlement agreement, the cap is calculated by taking 22% of the average of certain power school revenues, most notably ticket sales, television dollars and sponsorships.

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In Year 1 — July 2025 through June 2026 — the cap amount is projected to be $20.5 million.

While each school is charged with determining how to distribute those funds, most power conference programs are planning to distribute 90% to football and men’s basketball, as those are, for the most part, the only revenue-generating sports for an athletic department.

In Year 1, that’s about $13-16 million for a football roster and $2-4 million for men’s basketball, with the remaining amount shared with women’s basketball, baseball, volleyball and other Olympic sports.

While the 22% cap will remain the same through the 10-year settlement agreement, the cap money figure will rise based on built-in escalators (4% increase in Year 2 and Year 3), scheduled recalculations (after each third year) and additional cash flows into athletic departments, such as when conferences enter into new, more lucrative television deals or/and begin receiving new College Football Playoff monies.

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Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told Yahoo Sports this summer that he expects the cap to break $25 million by the time the Year 4 recalculation happens. There are exceptions, though, that can artificially lower the annual cap, most notably up to $2.5 million in additional scholarships that a school offers.

Enforcement entity

A new non-NCAA enforcement entity — an LLC predominantly managed by the power conferences — will oversee and enforce rules related to the revenue-share concept.

The company, College Sports Commission, is expected to be headed by a CEO as well as a head investigator for enforcement matters. The entity is charged with assuring that schools remain under the cap and that third-party NIL deals with athletes are not the phony booster-backed deals so prevalent over the last four years.

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An enforcement staff is expected to be hired to investigate and enforce rules related to cap circumvention, tampering, etc., and are charged with levying stiff penalties. Violators may be subject to multi-game coach suspensions, reductions in a school’s rev-share pool as well as reductions in allowed transfers, and significant schools fines.

However, the biggest looming uncertainty of the settlement agreement involves a Deloitte-run NIL clearinghouse that must approve all third-party NIL deals of at least $600 in value. The “NIL Go” clearinghouse is using a fair market value algorithm to create “compensation ranges” for third-party deals.

Deloitte is expected to approve or disapprove deals in as little as one day, and athletes can resubmit rejected deals at least once with alterations suggested by the clearinghouse. For example, Deloitte may deem a submitted $100,000 deal between an athlete and third party to actually be valued at $50,000. The player can alter the deal to align with the clearinghouse’s suggested figure or the school can cover the difference by accepting a reduction against their revenue-pool cap.

Deals rejected for a second time are referred to the CEO and enforcement staff and are then processed through an appeals system via court-overseen arbitration. Arbitration rulings are expected within 45 days, according to the settlement.

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Athletes who lose arbitration cases and still accept compensation in the rejected deal are deemed ineligible.

Rev-share contracts

Starting with the fall basketball and football signing periods, schools began readying for this new era.

Some even signed players to revenue-sharing agreements that begin to make payments on July 1 or later, contingent on the settlement’s approval. Other players signed contracts with school booster collectives that featured a clause assigning the contract to the school on July 1.

For the most part, the contracts grant schools permission to use a player’s NIL rights — a reason for the compensation — but these agreements feature language often found in employment contracts, including buyouts, athlete requirements and prohibitions as well as the freedom for schools to reduce the players’ compensation based on their academic standing and performance.

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Already, the agreements are a subject of legal scrutiny.

In January, Wisconsin defensive back Xavier Lucas left the university to enroll at Miami despite signing a revenue-share contract with UW. In public statements, Wisconsin has suggested it will pursue legal action against Lucas and/or Miami, which, it suggested, tampered with an athlete under contract. Lucas’ representatives believe the contract is not enforceable as it was contingent on settlement approval when signed.

The situation is a potential landmark case on settlement-contingent revenue-sharing agreements.

Schools are now free to begin paying their athletes directly, marking the dawn of a new era in college sports brought about by a multibillion-dollar legal settlement that was formally approved Friday.

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the deal between the NCAA, its most powerful conferences and lawyers representing all Division I athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement ends three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, all of which claimed the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes.

Wilken’s long-awaited decision comes with less than a month remaining before schools are planning to start cutting checks to athletes on July 1. Both sides presented their arguments for approving the settlement at a hearing in early April. While college sports leaders have been making tentative plans for a major shift in how they do business, the tight turnaround time means schools and conferences will have to hustle to establish the infrastructure needed to enforce their new rules.

The NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day. Moving forward, each school can pay its athletes up to a certain limit. The annual cap is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and increase every year during the decade-long deal. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.

Friday’s order is a major milestone in the long push to remove outdated amateurism rules from major college sports. Since 2021, college athletes have been allowed to make money from third parties via name, image and likeness deals. Boosters quickly organized groups called collectives that used NIL money as de facto salaries for their teams, in some cases paying millions of dollars mostly to top-rated basketball and football players. Now, that money will come straight from the athletic departments.

“It’s historic,” former college basketball star Sedona Prince, one of the co-lead plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, told ESPN. “It seemed like this crazy, outlandish idea at the time of what college athletics could and should be like. It was a difficult process at times … but it’s going to change millions of lives for the better.”

In June 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the NCAA in a case that made it clear that college athletics should be treated less like an education-based endeavor and more like a lucrative entertainment industry. The decision unleashed a flood of fresh legal challenges to NCAA rules that have led to unprecedented turmoil.

The settlement approved this week will not put an end to the barrage of legal challenges. Questions about whether athletes should be considered employees and the current rules that dictate how long an athlete can play college sports remain unanswered.

However, NCAA president Charlie Baker and others believe the deal will help schools regain control and tamp down the skyrocketing, largely unregulated market for paying college players through third parties.

The NCAA and its schools are hoping that federal lawmakers will now intercede to help solve the industry’s remaining legal problems. Industry leaders have asked Congress to write a law that would prevent athletes from becoming employees and provide the NCAA with an antitrust exemption to create some caps on player pay and transfers.

Salary caps and free agency restrictions in professional sports are legal because they are negotiated as part of a collective bargaining agreement with a union. College sports leaders say many schools won’t be able to afford to fund their teams if players are deemed to be employees and allowed to unionize.

The settlement gives the schools power to create new rules designed to limit the influence of boosters and collectives. Starting this summer, any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete will be vetted to ensure it is for a “valid business purpose” rather than a recruiting incentive.

Many sources in the college sports industry have doubts about whether the limit on booster spending — aimed at protecting competitive balance — will be effective in slowing the rapid increase in money flowing to athletes at the NCAA’s richest schools. Some believe the rule will spur new lawsuits.

The power conferences are launching a new enforcement organization to monitor payments that come from both schools and boosters, a duty that was previously one of the main functions of the NCAA’s national office. College sports officials hope the new organization will have a more streamlined and effective approach to investigating potential violations and punishing those who break the rules.

The new enforcement organization, called the College Sports Commission, on Friday night announced the hiring of MLB executive Bryan Seeley as its CEO. Seeley’s job is described as having to “build out the organization’s investigative and enforcement teams and oversee all of its ongoing operations and stakeholder relationships.”

According to the news release announcing his hire, “Seeley and his team will also be responsible for enforcement of the new rules around revenue sharing, student-athlete third-party name image and likeness (NIL) deals, and roster limits.”

Sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Jeff Passan that Seeley has been the target for weeks, with the formalization of the settlement triggering his hire.

“This is new terrain for everyone,” Baker wrote in an open letter Friday night. “Given the defendant conferences’ new ownership of complicated pieces of rulemaking and enforcement, there will be a transition period and certainly bumps in the road. Opportunities to drive transformative change don’t come often to organizations like ours. It’s important we make the most of this one.”

Wilken refused to approve the settlement in early April because several athletes objected to a term of the deal that allows the NCAA to set a limit for how many players each team can carry on its roster. The limits would have potentially resulted in thousands of athletes losing their place on their team. Lawyers for both sides agreed in late April to alter the deal so that no athletes would lose their opportunity to play college sports as a direct result of the new roster limits.

The House v. NCAA settlement was officially ratified on Friday, clearing the way for universities to directly pay athletes starting in 2025. The settlement is expected to formally take effect on July 1, 2025, after it was approved by Judge Claudia Wilken of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. 

This settlement marks one of the greatest shifts in the history of college athletics by paving the way for formalized pay-for-play for the first time ever. The NCAA cleared several rules banning the practice in the lead-up to the settlement, and the new reality is now here. 

So how will players be paid, and what impact will this have on the structure of college football heading forward? 

How will players be paid?

Starting in 2025, colleges will be able to opt into revenue sharing with athletes. Athletic departments will be allowed to use their own funds to pay players, with a cap expected to hover around $20 million annually per school. That figure is intended to cover all athlete compensation across varsity sports — not just those that generate revenue. 

The number represents approximately 22% of average athletic department revenue across power conference athletic departments. The settlement estimates that the total cap will start at around $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and could rise to nearly $33 million per school in the next decade. Between the revenue sharing, scholarships and other athletic benefits, the NCAA believes that compensation to athletes could push close to 50% of athletic revenue in many athletic departments. 

There are few guidelines in place for how the money should be distributed across sports. The expectation is that more than 70% of the funds — around $15 million — will go to football at power-conference schools. However, individual schools have the discretion to allocate funds as they choose. For example, Kentucky or UConn could decide to spend 50% of their budget on men’s basketball. Non-football schools in conferences, like the Big East, could gain a major advantage when funding other programs.

It remains unclear how Title IX will factor into the model, though at least some funds will likely be directed toward women’s sports. While players will be compensated directly for participating in college athletics, potentially through contracts worth seven figures or more, they still won’t be classified as employees. Instead, their compensation is expected to resemble that of independent contractors.

Which schools will be eligible? 

Any NCAA schools that opted into the House settlement will be allowed to participate in revenue sharing, regardless of level or funding. Schools in the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC have all confirmed that they will pay out the full $20+ million rev share each season. The AAC notably is requiring schools to rev-share $10 million with their athletes over the next three years. Sacramento State, an FCS school hoping to transition to FBS, also intends to share revenue. Any school at any level of the NCAA can technically opt into the agreement as long as they in exchange follow the terms of the settlement. Plenty of FBS schools, however, will forego the major new expense. 

Who will administer the new sport? 

In the wake of the settlement, the Power Four conferences will take over regulation and enforcement of player compensation issues. They plan to create a new organization called the College Sports Commission, and will hire a CEO soon after the settlement. Power conference schools will be pressured to sign onto the new organization or risk expulsion from their conferences. 

The CSC will be in charge of enforcing the upcoming salary cap and working with Deloitte to create the NIL clearinghouse. Additionally, they will police and enforce punishments for circumventing the salary cap or improper athlete compensation. 

The decision to move player compensation to the CSC was spurred by the plaintiffs in the House case. The NCAA will continue to focus its enforcement efforts on its traditional issues heading forward, including player eligibility, academics, competition and a variety of other topics. 

Can players still sign school NIL contracts? 

The new agreement will allow players to sign outside contracts. However, a new wrinkle requires NIL contracts to be sent through a clearinghouse run by Deloitte to ensure “fair market value” based on an actual endorsement. For example, a rotation offensive lineman could potentially make six figures in the NIL era. While they will still be allowed to do that with a revenue-sharing contract, future NIL contracts are expected to be far more stringent. Additionally, the NCAA has the right to prohibit NIL compensation from a group it classifies as “Associated Entities or Individuals,” which would seem to mean boosters. 

Take a player like Cooper Flagg at Duke. His brand value would be considered high for Duke, which could allow the school to pay him for an endorsement without pulling from their revenue sharing money. Notably, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian claimed Quinn Ewers did not take any money from their collective, instead signing endorsement contracts to claim his millions. 

Per reports, Deloitte told ACC officials that 90% of existing NIL contracts with public companies would have been approved. More than 70% of deals with booster collectives would have been denied. 

The rule is intended to prevent schools from using fake NIL deals to circumvent the salary cap. However, the likelihood of this is highly dependent on whether the Deloitte-run clearinghouse will have any teeth. At least one high-profile sports lawyer has argued for athletes to refuse to disclose NIL deals to the clearinghouse. It remains to be seen how the NCAA will attempt to handle a punitive case of cap circumvention. 

The race to keep up with $40 million rosters is shaking college football

John Talty

What will happen to collectives?

There’s no one consensus answer on the future of collectives; every school will handle them differently. Some will sunset their collectives and move all operations in-house. Others will use third-party collectives as a support tool for services like connecting athletes with outside endorsements or financial education. Different collectives have different relationships with their respective schools. 

Will rev-share contracts be binding?

The short answer is — no one knows. Arkansas became the first school to publicly hire an attorney to enforce conditions on an NIL contract when quarterback Madden Iamaleava opted to transfer to UCLA. According to CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello, Iamaleava’s deal requires a buyout of 50% of the remainder of his contract should he transfer. 

Earlier this offseason, Wisconsin lost defensive back Xavier Lucas to Miami and similarly claimed that he was flaunting a two-year binding revenue sharing contract with the school. At this point, no formal legal challenge has been filed. Lucas is now on the roster at Miami. 

The binding nature of contracts could be a key complication still remaining for the pay-for-play era. It could soon be addressed by the courts. 

Is this the end?

Even though the House v. NCAA settlement is coming down, it doesn’t solve the biggest remaining questions around contracts, athlete movement, eligibility, NCAA enforcement power or a plethora of other issues. Key athletics leadership has consistently gone to Washington, D.C., to lobby for federal legislation. 

Additionally, former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville (now a senator) have spoken to president Donald Trump about an executive order to help clarify rules. Trump has proposed a presidential commission to discuss college football issues, though it has not come to fruition. However, the House settlement will at least bring a backdrop for any solutions to be written on. 

(AP) – A federal judge signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports on Friday, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions of dollars as soon as next month as the multibillion-dollar industry shreds the last vestiges of the amateur model that defined it for more than a century.

Nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA and its five biggest conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final proposal that had been hung up on roster limits, just one of many changes ahead amid concerns that thousands of walk-on athletes will lose their chance to play college sports.

The sweeping terms of the so-called House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years.

The agreement brings a seismic shift to hundreds of schools that were forced to reckon with the reality that their players are the ones producing the billions in TV and other revenue, mostly through football and basketball, that keep this machine humming.

The scope of the changes — some have already begun — is difficult to overstate. The professionalization of college athletics will be seen in the high-stakes and expensive recruitment of stars on their way to the NFL and NBA, and they will be felt by athletes whose schools have decided to pare their programs. The agreement will resonate in nearly every one of the NCAA’s 1,100 member schools boasting nearly 500,000 athletes.

The road to a settlement

Wilken’s ruling comes 11 years after she dealt the first significant blow to the NCAA ideal of amateurism when she ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and others who were seeking a way to earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) — a term that is now as common in college sports as “March Madness” or “Roll Tide.” It was just four years ago that the NCAA cleared the way for NIL money to start flowing, but the changes coming are even bigger.

Wilken granted preliminary approval to the settlement last October. That sent colleges scurrying to determine not only how they were going to afford the payments, but how to regulate an industry that also allows players to cut deals with third parties so long as they are deemed compliant by a newly formed enforcement group that will be run by auditors at Deloitte.

The agreement takes a big chunk of oversight away from the NCAA and puts it in the hands of the four biggest conferences. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC hold most of the power and decision-making heft, especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff, which is the most significant financial driver in the industry and is not under the NCAA umbrella like the March Madness tournaments are.

Winners and losers

The list of winners and losers is long and, in some cases, hard to tease out.

A rough guide of winners would include football and basketball stars at the biggest schools, which will devote much of their bankroll to signing and retaining them. For instance, Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal is reportedly worth between $10.5 million and $12 million.

Losers will be the walk-ons and partial scholarship athletes whose spots are gone. One of the adjustments made at Wilken’s behest was to give those athletes a chance to return to the schools that cut them in anticipation of the deal going through.

Also in limbo are Olympic sports many of those athletes play and that serve as the main pipeline for a U.S. team that has won the most medals at every Olympics since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

All this is a price worth paying, according to the attorneys who crafted the settlement and argue they delivered exactly what they were asked for: an attempt to put more money in the pockets of the players whose sweat and toil keep people watching from the start of football season through March Madness and the College World Series in June.

What the settlement does not solve is the threat of further litigation.

Though this deal brings some uniformity to the rules, states still have separate laws regarding how NIL can be doled out, which could lead to legal challenges. NCAA President Charlie Baker has been consistent in pushing for federal legislation that would put college sports under one rulebook and, if he has his way, provide some form of antitrust protection to prevent the new model from being disrupted again.

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