Getty Image / Jordon Kelly
College athletics, especially college football, has been going through a myriad of changes in the last decade-or-so. More are coming, and it’s just a matter of when, not if.
That date seems to be more concrete than ever before. And, according to Yahoo!’s Ross Dellenger, details of what this new college football would entail in terms of direct revenue sharing with the players.
Currently, the NCAA is facing an antitrust lawsuit, House v. NCAA, that could set the NCAA and member schools back billions dollars over lost earnings from rules and regulations that courts have now ruled to be antitrust violations. The schools obviously do not want to pay out that much money all at once. They’re motivated to settle with the plaintiffs.
But, the cost of a settlement is still going to be steep, and is likely to result in schools being forced to share some of the revenue generated from television deals and other sources.
According to a tweet by Dellenger, here is what he’s hearing.
Per @YahooSportssources, new details on a college model that may cost power schools $300M each over 10 yrs:
-Scholarship expansion & new roster limits-$17-22M rev-share cap-$2.9B~ damages tab-Deadline: ~40 days-Implementation no sooner than fall 2025
Separately, the NCAA is responsible for paying about $2.9 billion in back damages over a 10-year period. The funds, some of which could be offset by insurance payments, are expected to come from the NCAA’s annual distribution to schools, mostly from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (upwards of $700 million annually). Power schools are expecting to see a reduction in distribution by at least $2 million annually, but that figure, too, could fluctuate dramatically.
Ultimately, this would remake college sports in a big way. And, it’s unclear if all current P5 schools could even afford this kind of outlay. There’s a big difference between the budgets of Georgia and Cincinnati.
It does seem like this plan has momentum, and we could see a settlement prior to the season starting this fall.