The NCAA House Settlement has been officially approved.
Following multiple delays and revisions, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the NCAA's $2.78 billion House Settlement on Friday, meaning colleges will be able to engage in revenue sharing directly with players beginning on July 1. Roster limits in many sports will change, some reduced, some increased, but the NCAA agreed to grandfather in athletes who would have been impacted this year as part of a compromise.
The model created by the settlement will permit schools – though it won’t require them – to share revenue with athletes up to a cap equivalent to 22% of the average revenue for power conference schools.
Per On3's Pete Nakos, schools will be operating with roughly a $20.5 million revenue share salary cap in year one, between $13 to $16 million of which will go to football. Schools may try to work around the cap with traditional NIL deals, though as part of the settlement, all NIL deals larger than $600 must be approved by the NIL Clearinghouse run by Deloitte. As always, billable hours will remain undefeated in the future.
The $2.78 billion will be distributed to former college athletes to resolve a trio of antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA. The NCAA will pay $1.2 million from its reserves while the rest of the settlement will be funded by a reduction in distributions to its Division I members over the next 10 years. Power Five conferences and the NCAA approved the settlement terms on May 23 and had waited on official approval for a few weeks.
