The world of college sports as you know it could soon change overnight. Here's how – Deseret News

As the House v. NCAA settlement nears final approval, stakeholders in the world of sports are preparing to enter a new era — again.
Four years after legalizing NIL compensation, the NCAA will attempt to level the chaotic, uneven playing field that took shape in the wake of that decision by allowing direct payments from schools to athletes and increasing regulation of NIL deals, including from collectives.
In this new era, which could begin as soon as July 1 if the House settlement is approved, schools will share a capped amount of revenue with athletes while an NIL clearinghouse attempts to curtail certain big-money offers from booster clubs.
The settlement will make it harder for high-profile programs to simply outspend their opponents and likely reduce the earning power of the flashiest athletes. Those are two reasons why some observers assume the college sports landscape isn’t done evolving.
“The market should be a free market,” said Michael Hausfeld, an attorney representing athletes who are dissatisfied with the settlement, in an interview with The Athletic.
A judge’s ruling on the proposed settlement is expected any day. Here’s what to know about what it could mean for college sports.
The acronym NIL stands for name, image or likeness.
If you control an athlete’s NIL rights, you can make money off their personal brand by selling jerseys that carry their number and name, for example.
For decades, colleges controlled their athletes’ NIL rights, since student-athletes were forbidden from profiting off their fame. That changed in 2021 when the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA’s NIL-related restrictions violated antitrust law.
Soon after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling, college sports entered its current NIL era. The NCAA gave athletes the green light to capitalize on public interest by cutting deals with restaurants, car dealerships and all kinds of other businesses.
NIL deals in college sports come in many forms.
Sometimes, athletes are paid to promote a brand in the same way that an actor or other influencer would promote it. They might talk about how much they love a pair of leggings or an energy drink or Popeyes chicken in a social media post or commercial.
Other times, athletes essentially access huge sums of money from a booster-funded collective just by signing with and then playing for a school.
The most popular college athletes in the most popular sports can make millions of dollars per season.
Some delay graduating or going pro in order to keep the NIL paychecks coming.
The NIL landscape is kind of a mess. Different schools and states have different rules for NIL deals, and it’s impossible for lower-profile schools to keep up with what’s available to athletes at higher-profile programs.
Generally, schools are most interested in implementing rules that keep athletes from advertising something controversial, like alcohol or tobacco.
State lawmakers, on the other hand, have typically focused on boosters and passed laws that aim to prevent “NIL deals from being used as recruitment tools,” according to ESPN.
But in part because rules vary widely from place to place, NIL deals do play a huge role in recruitment these days.
Coaches can no longer be certain that a well-coached, well-used player will stay in the fold — they have to worry about the player being tempted by the NIL market somewhere else.
House v. NCAA is the name of a lawsuit brought by Arizona State swimmer Grant House. House sued the NCAA over its refusal to share TV revenue with college athletes, among other issues.
House v. NCAA is one of the cases that would be resolved if the proposed settlement is approved.
The proposed settlement aims to address multiple issues — and multiple lawsuits — at once.
It resolves legal battles over revenue sharing and NIL deals by requiring a payout to past athletes and laying out how schools will make direct payments to athletes moving forward.
It sets the formula that will be used to determine the annual cap, or limit, on these payments in the short-term. (The number for the first year of the settlement would be $20.5 million, per ESPN.)
It disrupts growing reliance on booster-funded collectives by mandating external review of most NIL deals. Relatedly, it systematizes reporting and tracking of deals.
“The power conferences have contracted with auditing giant Deloitte to review booster NIL deals and decide whether each is a legitimate endorsement contract or a veiled attempt to circumvent the salary cap,” ESPN reported.
The settlement also discourages efforts to circumvent NIL restrictions by giving watchdogs more power.
As the phrase “revenue sharing” implies, the new direct payments from schools to athletes will come from athletic revenue.
In other words, athletes will take a cut of the money that comes in from media rights deals, ticket sales and sponsorships, according to The Associated Press.
And schools will be free to use the House v. NCAA settlement as a reason to raise costs for fans.
“Some schools are increasing costs to fans through ”talent fees,” concession price hikes and “athletic fees” added to tuition costs,” the AP reported.
Although the House v. NCAA settlement has powerful supporters, it also has some notable detractors.
Star athletes like LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne have argued that former college athletes deserve a much higher payout to make up for what they missed under past NCAA policies.
Lesser-known athletes, including Utah swimmer Gannon Flynn, have said they’ll lose their roster spot under the roster restrictions that will come along with the new revenue sharing model. The roster limits were the downside of a deal that eliminates limits on how many scholarships colleges can offer to student-athletes.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken has asked stakeholders to revisit the roster limit rules before she signs off on the settlement, according to The Athletic’s “The Audible” podcast. New limits will likely end up being phased in so that fewer current athletes lose their spots, but it’s not clear what that approach will mean for athletes who have already been told they’re being cut.
Questions also remain about the external assessment process for NIL deals that’s laid out in the settlement. It’s not yet clear if it’s actually possible for a third-party observer to decide the fair market value of an athlete’s NIL rights — or if the athlete or business or booster involved will actually accept what the observer says.
“It’s hard to imagine how someone can (define) fair market value because to me, the fair market value is what a company or an organization sees that individual’s worth as,” Kansas basketball coach Bill Self told ESPN.
The settlement is set to take effect on July 1, but only if Judge Wilken approves it by then.
She granted preliminary approval in October, but had tough questions for attorneys during a hearing on Monday.
“Lawyers for the principals hastily agreed to confer about next steps and to report in one week to Wilken, who suggested that to ‘fix everything,’ the parties would ‘need to do some redrafting,‘” according to USA Today.

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