The NCPA opposes settlement that would allow the NCAA, conferences, and colleges to restrict NIL money from NIL collectives and reduce team roster limits.
The NCPA announced today its opposition to the preliminary settlement agreement in the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit.
NCPA Executive Director Ramogi Huma stated, “Despite discussions in the media that the proposed settlement will bring revenue sharing for athletes, there are terms in the settlement that would allow the conferences to prohibit athlete revenue sharing. The settlement would also allow the NCAA and conferences to adopt rules to eliminate much of the money that collectives are paying college athletes within just a few months from now. And instead of agreeing to spare non-revenue sports from cuts as a benefit for that subclass, the settlement explicitly asserts conferences and colleges have the right to cut sports.”
The settlement would allow the NCAA, conferences, and colleges to collude to adopt rules to ban any revenue sharing if a change in law or circumstance allows athletes to collectively bargain. Such a determination may soon be made in the NLRB’s unfair labor practice charge against the NCAA, Pac-12, and USC as joint employers of USC football and basketball players.
The settlement also allows conferences and their respective colleges to adopt rules to simply decide not to share revenue. The settlement is silent on conference realignment so conferences could realign into one conference, with 3-4 power divisions, to ban revenue sharing at any time during the ten year settlement period.
The settlement would allow the NCAA to phase out full athletic scholarships (head count scholarships) and replace them with partial scholarships (equivalency scholarships) that can fall below current full scholarship levels.
Additionally, the settlement allows the conferences and NCAA to collude to ban all NIL money from collectives that would pay athletes based on their status on their team. This could snuff out a thriving collective NIL marketplace that is already set to pay athletes approximately over $1.3 billion this year and $2.1 billion next year (based on “Opendorse NIL at 3” report) in exchange for possibly receiving $0 in revenue sharing.
The settlement also permits the NCAA to adopt rules to ban boosters and collectives paying NIL money for athletes to support nonprofit purposes.
The settlement would allow the NCAA and conferences to adopt rules that restrict the amount of NIL money universities can pay their athletes despite a new Virginia NIL law guaranteeing its colleges the ability to directly pay their athletes NIL compensation without limits. The Virginia law states in part:
“C. No athletic association, athletic conference, or other organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics shall…
4. Prevent an institution from compensating a student-athlete for the use of his name, image, or likeness; or…”
The House preliminary settlement would allow the NCAA and conferences to adopt rules prohibiting colleges from paying athletes a combination of NIL money and other pay that exceeds 22% of the average Power colleges athletic revenue. But Virginia’s new law already gives the state’s colleges the freedom to pay their athletes NIL money that align with their budgets, which could be 33%, 40% or some other amount of such athletic revenue. Virginia college coaches discussed how they are planning to use their new law to better compete against other colleges, and colleges in other states are incentivized to take similar measures due to market competition.
The NCPA also points out that the settlement would permit the NCAA and conferences to adopt rules that run counter to the many state NIL laws guaranteeing athletes the freedom to earn NIL without interference or punishment from the NCAA, conferences, and colleges.
“This settlement would not only affect current athletes but future college athletes who are only in 4thgrade. It could even affect children who aren’t even born yet because the lawyers can agree to extend the terms of this settlement. The NCPA will work to get this settlement rejected,” stated Huma.
Any Division I college athlete that does not agree with this settlement should visit this NCPA web page for information to receive information and how to help make sure that this settlement is rejected.