The NCAA Has Voted To Settle Its Antitrust Cases and Officially Share Revenue With Players

Yahoo — In the spring of 2021, attorneys for the NCAA, appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, argued vehemently against providing each college athlete with additional cash annually.

The amount: $5,980.

Three years later, in a landmark agreement that will transform the course of major college athletics, the organization left behind its archaic rules, shook off its long-time amateurism argument and thrust the industry into an era of direct athlete compensation.

The amount: more than $15 billion in new cash is expected to funnel to athletes over the duration of the 10-year agreement.

The NCAA and power conferences cast votes this week in support of settling three antitrust cases (House, Hubbard and Carter), approving terms that feature nearly $2.8 billion in back damages; a future athlete revenue-sharing model that will cost major conferences a cumulative $1 billion-plus annually; and other potential changes to the association’s governance, enforcement and scholarship structure.

The biggest change in the history of college sports is here. Five years ago, NCAA student-athletes were forbidden from receiving any compensation beyond a full-ride scholarship and now they'll soon be paid directly by the schools for which they compete via a revenue share.

This is what the entire NIL era has been building towards. While the way things work now with collectives paying players is a great deal for the schools, it seems like they all recognize they need to be the ones shaping the inevitable future of having to pay the players directly rather than having it foisted upon them. That's what happened with NIL and we all see the chaos that has ensued with the current model.

It seems like this is probably still one step shy of schools signing players to professional-esque contracts with buyouts and such, but I'm not sure anyone is fully sure of what this next era of collegiate athletics is going to look like just yet. All we know right now is the NCAA was staring down the barrel of the cessation of its existence in federal court, so it was forced into a model that should have already existed for a long time.

I'm fascinated to see what a rev share model looks like. Right now, players would receive about $22 million per school — 22 percent of a Power Five average of $100 million a year in revenue — though that number will fluctuate. Scholarship limits are also being done away with as part of the settlement, which will be very interesting to monitor, particularly in football. If your school doesn't already have a GM-type figure, it needs to get one immediately.

Obviously all of this is great news if you believe in capitalism and the free market, but pour one out for all the student-athletes who didn't get a piece of the pie for so many years. I'd be salty as fuck.