The NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved the House settlement as an addition to the organization’s rule book last Monday, thus beginning the process of integrating the settlement into college athletics.
Now, all that remains between the settlement and all schools that opt in to it needing to enforce its terms fully is its approval by Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California.
Judge Wilken was expected to approve the settlement last Wednesday at a hearing, but did not do so due to objections to the settlement’s requiring immediate implementation of roster limits; namely, rather than capping the number of scholarships, schools will cap the roster sizes of each sport, and each person on those rosters will be able to receive a scholarship of some sort.
Roster limits were just one of the objections to the settlement raised at the hearing, but it was the only one that Judge Wilken sustained, thus resulting in her not approving the settlement.
In a five-page order, Jugde Wilken wrote that the settlement needed to be modified to address the potential negative impact of these roster limits going into effect immediately before she could approve it. She gave the parties to the settlement 14 days to revise it.
Wilken suggested in her order that a revised settlement might stipulate that no members of the injunction relief settlement class “who have or had a roster spot will lose it as a result of the immediate implementation of the settlement agreement.” This language appears to address schools that have been preemptively cutting athletes from their rosters in anticipation of the new limits, whispers of which have already been heard in gymnastics and other sports.
Following Judge Wilken’s order, the parties, including the Plaintiff athletes, the NCAA, and the Power 5/4 conferences, will now need to come to some sort of agreement to revise the settlement, be that “grandfathering in” current athletes whose spots on their rosters could be in jeopardy due to the limits, or some other agreed course of action that will protect those athletes.
Should the settlement be revised and then approved, it will go into effect on July 1 of this year. Schools opting in will need to enforce all of its terms, from roster limits to operating a revenue-sharing model that will pay athletes, as well as most NIL deals needing approval by a clearinghouse.
On the other hand, if the settlement is not approved, the antitrust lawsuits the settlement is seeking to resolve will proceed to trial, opening the door to a verdict in major excess of the $2.8 billion settlement, and the potential bankruptcy of the NCAA.
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Article by Katherine Weaver
