All In-NCAA and Power Five Vote for Settlement and College Athletics Will Pay Athletes

STILLWATER – Everybody has voted and the NCAA Board of Gvernors along with the presidents and the chancellors of the Power Five Conferences have voted to settle the lawsuits against the NCAA citing antitrust issues and led by the class-action suit known as House vs. NCAA. The results of this will basically agree to the basics on a multibillion-dollar settlement to resolve three antitrust lawsuits, paving the way for schools to pay athletes in what would make for a drastic change in the makeup of college sports and will be a monumental change to the college sports business model.

This won’t happen immediately as their will be many negotiiations to have that will take this from a basic settlement to the exact and detailed settlement the judge will have to review and sign off on. Both sides and their attorneys have lots of i’s to dot and t’s to cross in the process. 

The exact structure of the payment of the $2.7 billion dollars in damages to the plaintiffs has to be ironed out. Right now the NCAA reserve and then the NCAA witholding payments to the conferences and schools in what is planned. At some point, it is expected that schools will have to come up with part of the damages.

The major issue for individual school’s athletic departments moving forward will be the planning and methods that they will use to share the revenue with the athletes moving forward. It is expected the schools in the Power Five, that will be a Power Four, and that share in the multi-billion television rights deals based on football and the College Football Playoff will be sharing up to $20 million in revenue with their athletes. How will that be broken down. Now that the schools are paying direct. how do they decide which athletes in which sports get the most money and which get the least. 

I would advise this. Schools that dive into this aggressively and have the smartest plans; the plans that give their major sports and their department the most attractive situation that the most talented athletes want to share in will reap the most benefits. 

A constant concern will be whether this action causes the powers involved to move more quickly to an NFL model of a college football super league. That is something that could ease any financial burdens as that kind of league would get the highest ever television rights fees for their product. 

Welcome the college athletics as professional sports. The basic framework has been signed off on.