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Big Bad Bruins
Joined: 10/01/21 Posts: 225
Getting closer to a college salary cap and NIL regulation
Posted Tue, Apr 15 10:37 pm
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5354232/paying-college-athletes-ncaa-legal-settlement

Key takeaways:

Starting July 1, the House vs NCAA settlement establishes a future revenue-sharing model where schools can distribute up to $20.5 million annually to athletes, sourced primarily from media rights and increased costs to fans and students.

The settlement also introduces a third-party clearinghouse operated by Deloitte to oversee NIL deals worth $600 or more, ensuring they are of fair market value and not used to circumvent the salary cap. Athletes will have to report NIL deals greater than $600 and any such deal has to be for a valid business purpose.

A federal judge held a final approval hearing to allow supporters and objectors of the settlement to make last arguments about the agreement. Compensation splits for prior years and roster limits are some issues that are still being discussed.

Plaintiffs' lawyers and attorneys for the defendants, the NCAA and its major conferences, both urged the judge to approve the settlement. Judge Wilken set a deadline next week for lawyers to file a response to the objections raised at Monday's hearing. Ultimately, she spoke positively of the settlement as the hearing finished, suggesting she favors approval. A final ruling from Judge Wilken is expected in the coming weeks.
OswegoBruin
Joined: 11/11/10 Posts: 17,107
Can't come soon enough.
Posted Wed, Apr 16 9:23 am
In response to Getting closer to a college salary cap and NIL regulation (Big Bad Bruins)
You can see the effect NIL has on basketball.

Just look at the top recruiting teams for 2025:

1: Houston (football school)
2: Duke (basketball school)
3: UConn (basketball school)
4: Kentucky (basketball school)
5: Arkansas (football school)
6: North Carolina (basketball school)
7: BYU (football school)
8: Arizona (basketball school)
9: Michigan (football school)
10: Louisville (football school)
NotSure
Joined: 3/09/23 Posts: 1,147
Until The Opt-Out & Appeal
Posted Wed, Apr 16 12:44 pm
In response to Getting closer to a college salary cap and NIL regulation (Big Bad Bruins)
This will go up to the SCOTUS at some point.
Big Bad Bruins
Joined: 10/01/21 Posts: 225
I do expect objections to this new system
Posted Wed, Apr 16 10:50 pm
In response to Until The Opt-Out & Appeal (NotSure)
But it seems like an acceptable plan for now. It can serve as a bridge until a final solution is reached.
NotSure
Joined: 3/09/23 Posts: 1,147
I'm Not Talking About The Merits
Posted Thu, Apr 17 6:17 am
In response to I do expect objections to this new system (Big Bad Bruins)
The proposed Senate Bill that Dinos described to me had various elements, like only NBA-certified agents can rep student-athletes for NIL deals, some kind of salary cap, some kind of minimum guarantee, one transfer allowed but keeping the exception for going home or the head coach bolts to another school, etc...

I'm saying that this settlement now gets presented to the class (all student-athletes at NCAA D 1 schools and the NCAA & its member institutions) and then members of the class can agree to join in this settlement or opt-out.

What if 80% of the student-athletes opt out? 50%? 25%? The 25% who get paid the most money?

What if 8 SEC schools are required by state law to opt-out? Right now, that's the case. How does the federal judge even have jurisdiction over that in a federal system? Interstate commerce, antitrust laws, but that doesn't nullify state's abilities to regulate schools within their lines. What if the schools just individually opt-out and the schools that do include 75% of the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, Big East and Mountain West?

And what if they also file an appeal to vacate the settlement agreement, arguing (among other things) that it violates their 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Assembly?

A lawsuit like that could tie up that Senate bill too for years... of course, I'm still waiting for this Congress to pass anything other than a temporary funding resolution. It's mid-April and I'm not sure they've passed a law yet and they have bigger fish and people to fry, dissect and mutilate than deciding how much Alabama can play its basketball and football players.

Tuberville loves the status quo... so if his bill passes, it erases this settlement.

And the SCOTUS can say: Well, well, well, this settlement violates the Antitrust laws, we don't see a union or employees or a CBA, we see the employers agreeing to fix wages & working conditions for a few athletes who want to fix wages & working conditions for all of them, for all time.

I don't see the status quo changing for years, if ever, though I want some sanity to come back into the scene because the inherent conflict between teaching businesses running a pro sports league does raise truly important issues including the risk that some of the countries best schools will have to stop being schools and become pro sports franchises instead.
Big Bad Bruins
Joined: 10/01/21 Posts: 225
Agree, those are the type of things that will need to be
Posted Thu, Apr 17 8:42 am
In response to I'm Not Talking About The Merits (NotSure)
worked out. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
BruinPete
Joined: 8/07/07 Posts: 8,717

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The enforcement mechanism
Posted Thu, Apr 17 6:10 am
In response to Getting closer to a college salary cap and NIL regulation (Big Bad Bruins)
Will be key. Otherwise, it will just be a suggestion.
DB
Joined: 2/03/05 Posts: 19,670

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Exactly and the penalty for exceeding....
Posted Thu, Apr 17 10:08 am (Edited Thu, Apr 17 10:09 am)
In response to The enforcement mechanism (BruinPete)
any cap. It must be audited exactly like the pro sports audit these things to work. I do think a CAP is coming and also limits to transfer portal entries at some point. I have long stated that every player should be allowed 1 free portal entry (over 5 yrs) unless their coach leaves which would give them a 2nd. Otherwise the old rule of sitting out a year should apply for transfers after use of the 1 free entry. That seems fair for all IMO.