On Monday, April 7 the House vs. NCAA Settlement was heard by Judge Claudia Wilkins, a case that has seismic ramifications for the college sport model. The case situates the tension between amateurism, pay-for-play, and name, image, and likeness (NIL). The former being the NCAA’s long stance that college athletes are student-athletes first and foremost and therefore must remain without pay or benefits professional athletes receive. The newest moves and model represented in the case demonstrate a systematic change to Division I collegiate sport moving forward.
The settlement includes the three antitrust cases (House, Hubbard, and Carter) who are seeking relief and benefits from the NCAA as they were unable to participate in the NCAA’s NIL legislation enacted in 2021 that allowed collegiate athletes to make money in the forms of sponsorships, endorsements, appearances, etc. based off their athlete status.
Key Details of the House Settlement
The NCAA in this case decided to settle as fighting and going further to court could have cost the NCAA and its member institutions a much higher payout than the approximate $2.8 billion that has been settled on to back pay all Division I athletes who participated in NCAA sports from 2016 to 2024. This payout would happen over a 10 year period.
Additionally, the case will permit athletes to be paid directly from their institutions labeled as “athlete revenue-sharing” up to a certain threshold yearly; this year it looks like the figure is going to land around $20 million.
Furthermore, the case and its ruling would remove the current scholarship limits for NCAA Division I sports. Currently, many sports have scholarship limitations, meaning that they only have so many full scholarships they can offer per team and per sport. The new ruling would make it permissible to provide more full scholarships but have roster caps.
For example, currently baseball has 11.7 scholarships and many teams have around 40 players on their roster, meaning many of these full scholarships are divided up between players or many players could be walk ons. Moving forward under the House Settlement, baseball would have the ability to provide more full scholarships but they would have a roster limit on how many athletes they could carry on the team.
Lastly, as a new requirement of the ruling all Division I athletes have to report third-party NIL deals greater than $600 which will now be regulated by the NCAA and run by Deloitte. Meaning, that Deloitte will now regulate, evaluate, and approve the fair market value of the athlete and the deal.
What is interesting about the hearing, is it seems Judge Wilkins is in alignment with the Power4 institutions that have voiced and emphasized the model for payouts both in backpay and moving forward in the “athlete revenue-sharing” that looks to distribute funds with 75% going to football players, 15% to men’s basketball players, 5% to women’s basketball, and 5% to all other athletes.
The settlement case on Monday, April 7 seems to moving closer to approval, but Judge Wilkins did designate areas she wanted to see addressed by the parties involved: changes to the roster limits, potentially phasing in this process and the inclusion of future athletes in this case. Wilkins provided lawyers additional time to address these concerns before the case reconvenes.
As with all law cases, this is an onion with a multitude of layers, complications, and a multitude of players involved and further experts have dissected the minute details of the case elements above in their work. However, focusing on the business of women’s sports, there are major red flags and concerns that need to be addressed and highlighted here in the House Settlement.
Gender Equity Concerns Embedded in House Settlement
First and foremost, Judge Wilkins decided to see gender equity issues as separate from the heart of the House case. According to Assistant Professor of Sport Management at the University of Florida, Dr. Molly Harry, who studies collegiate sport as well as gender equity issues this was disheartening to hear and reflects a larger paradigm where men’s sports are prioritized. She stated, “Judge Wilkin’s decision to see gender equity issues as separate from the heart of the House case reflects a longstanding paradigm in which college sport continues to be interpreted and valued through frameworks that were designed by and for men’s high profile teams, namely football and men’s basketball.”
Additionally, Steven Molo, founding partner at MoloLamken law firm representing the objectors noted flaws in the framework stating, “Women are treated unfairly under the settlement agreement. The distribution presented by the plaintiffs’ expert was seriously flawed. We also believe that the unfair treatment of athletes affected by the roster caps and the perpetuation of an ongoing anti-trust violation by the revenue share cap require that the settlement be rejected.”
As reiterated by Harry, the model being used to distribute the backpay as well as the “athlete revenue-sharing” does not consider the growth and attractiveness of women’s college sports in its totality, particularly women’s basketball, but also up and coming sports in popularity such as women’s softball and volleyball who have demonstrated their ability to capture audiences.
After 2021, the women’s basketball tournament was granted permission to use the March Madness monikers due to the findings from the Kaplan Report, that coupled with the stars that women’s basketball has seen in the last several years, the ratings, viewership, ticket sales, and attendance, women’s collegiate basketball continues to demonstrate interest in the product. However, in 2024, the NCAA bundled the women’s basketball tournament media rights along with other Division I sport championships and sold those rights to ESPN for a sum of $290 million for eight years. In this deal, women’s basketball was evaluated around $65 million.
So how does this serve to hurt women’s basketball particularly now in the House Settlement? The women’s basketball March Madness tournament has not been able to see its value out in the open, free, and fair market. Perhaps women’s basketball would be evaluated and earn a much larger amount of media rights revenue than what the NCAA has settled for in their most recent deal that last until 2032. Thus, could women’s basketball players be worth more than a 5% share of revenue and NIL backpay?
Similar to the concerns of Harry, Pam Seidenman, founder of Accelerate Equity and The Revenue Project, a company and website designed to track institutions compliance with Title IX, detailed, “It’s [distribution formula] based on, you know, agreements that were made by individuals who didn’t see any potential of any women sports really, be it basketball, softball, volleyball, and that means that those players are going to both get less in back damages. Many of the schools, while they had the discretion to distribute future revenue according to any formula they choose many of them are going to simply use the same formula that they use for back damages and will continue to give 90% to football players and men’s basketball players and everyone else is getting a lot less.”
Additionally, if the model of evaluation is based on this formula that prioritizes men’s sports and all NIL deals greater than $600 are now having to be evaluated by a third party, will this third party in Deloitte see the potential earning power of women athletes? For example, Livvy Dunne, gymnast from LSU and the highest earning NIL women athlete evaluated at $4.1 million, warned and addressed concern over these evaluations citing that her own NIL deals were most likely below her actual value based on her following and marketability. Thus, Dunne and other women athletes that have raised objections against the House Settlement are expressing grave concern on if they will be evaluated fairly given a formula that is based on historical prioritization of revenue generation seen primarily as football and men’s basketball.
For Seidenman, Wilkins dismissal of Title IX as irrelevant to an argument against the settlement was difficult to digest as it signals to women athletes that they “…are going to see their men counterparts getting much more, much more reward, financial reward from their schools. And it’s going to, you know, once again, put women into sort of a clear lower class, second class category.”
However, Harry and Seidenman warned that despite Wilkins dismissal of the relevance of Title IX as an argument against the House Settlement in court on Monday, the dismissal will not keep the settlement from falling under attack. This point was also noted by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics in their summary report of the case, “A disparity in any new institutional payments provided to male and female athletes may be challenged as discriminatory under Title IX. Clarity on how Title IX will apply to these new payments and benefits will most likely be resolved in the courts, in administrative proceedings, or through federal legislation or regulations. Institutions should be mindful of potential legal challenges arising from disparate payments and benefits to male and female athletes.”
Further, Harry explained, “the settlement opens the door for future Title IX complaints or related litigation. If revenue-sharing practices or roster limits shifts disproportionately impact women’s sports—either through reductions in opportunity or unequal access to new compensations streams—schools could face legal challenges for non-compliance.” Harry went on to boldly predict that “as times have proven, ignoring gender equity now doesn’t make it disappear; it may in fact, create a stronger faction of women athletes ready to fight.”
Thus, time will tell which Division I institutions opt into this new model of collegiate athletics and how the formula will be used institutionally but also at the conference level. What is certain is that there is concern over how the settlement will impact women athletes and women teams moving into the future.
If you would like to learn more about the Accelerate Equity project click here. Additionally, to stay up-to-date with Forbes coverage of the House Settlement, follow Joe Sabin on X.