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Last Friday night, California district judge Claudia Wilken gave her approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, officially signaling the start of the revenue-sharing era of college sports. On Wednesday, a group of eight women filed an appeal of that approval citing the Title IX gender equity statute.
According to the terms of the settlement, the NCAA must pay $2.8 billion in back pay to former college athletes who were not allowed earn NIL (name, image, and likeness) income before 2021. Now, however, those payments have been put on hold.
The eight female athletes who filed the objection with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit include: Vanderbilt cross country runner Kacie Breeding; College of Charleston soccer players Elizabeth Arnold, Savannah Baron, Lexi Drumm, Riley Hass and Emmie Wannemacher; College of Charleston volleyball player Emma Appleman; and Virginia volleyball player Kate Johnson.
Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement last week despite hundreds of objections, according to Front Office Sports. One of the more high-profile college athletes who objected to the settlement, former LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne, claimed that it “doesn’t come close to recognizing the value” she lost. 343 athletes, including Villanova March Madness hero Kris Jenkins, who filed his own lawsuit over lost NIL earnings, opted out of the settlement.
The women who filed the appeal of the settlement claim that the calculations being used to distribute the $2.8 billion in damages because it violates Title IX. Their argument is that female college athletes will receive less money in damage payments and revenue-sharing than men’s basketball and football players. That number, according to attorney Ashlyn Hare, “deprives female athletes of $1.1 billion” and “would be a massive error that would cause irreparable harm to women’s sports.”
“The settlement suggests schools would have paid male athletes over 90% of their revenue over the past six years as though Title IX didn’t apply,” Hare told Front Office Sports. “If Nike wants to do that, that is their choice. If the school, or a conference acting on the school’s behalf tries to do that, they are violating the law. They can either pay the athletes proportionately, or they can return all of their federal funds. But they can’t do both.”
Judge Wilken previously stated during an April hearing that the formula for calculating lost NIL opportunities “seems reasonable” and that the case is not a Title IX issue. She did, however, leave the door open for Title IX-related lawsuits.
“To the extent that schools violate Title IX when providing benefits and compensation to student-athletes pursuant to the Injunctive Settlement Agreement, class members will have the right to file lawsuits arising out of those violations,” Wilken wrote in her approval of the House v. NCAA settlement.