NCAA president Charlie Baker sent a letter to member schools on Friday night shortly after U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken officially signed off on the landmark House v. NCAA settlement.
The settlement, which sets up an enforcement division to police NIL deals, institutes roster limits across sports, and provides nearly $3 billion back pay to former college athletes, opens the door to direct revenue sharing with college student-athletes for the first time in NCAA history. In his letter, Baker called it “a new beginning” for Division I athletics.
“We will increasingly shift our focus at the NCAA away from enforcing rules prohibiting and limiting financial benefits in college sports, which has been the source of many of the recent challenges,” Baker wrote. “We can now turn toward what most agree is our primary function: providing a world-class academic and athletics experience.
“With these changes in place, including release from future litigation on these subjects for the next decade, the foundation of college sports is stronger than at any point in years. The NCAA can increase focus on reforming glunky governance structures and, most importantly, prioritizing fair competition, academics, and student-athlete well-being.”
Baker confirmed that the NCAA plans to take the lead on paying back damages from the settlement. The NCAA will “continue to regulate” areas like eligibility, playing seasons, sports betting, academic standards, and what Baker referred to as “minimal recruiting rules.”
You can see his full letter below:
Many looked to April’s hearing about the House settlement as a culmination of sorts, but the court’s final approval of the settlement in fact marks a new beginning for Division I student-athletes and for the NCAA. For several years, Division I members crafted well-intentioned rules and systems to govern financial benefits from schools and name, image and likeness opportunities, but the NCAA could not easily enforce these for several reasons. The result was a sense of chaos: instability for schools, confusion for student-athletes and too often litigation. Sometimes member schools even supported that litigation — some of which spurred hastily imposed court orders upending the rules.
Approving the agreement reached by the NCAA, the defendant conferences and student-athletes in the settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports. This new framework that enables schools to provide direct financial benefits to student-athletes and establishes clear and specific rules to regulate third-party NIL agreements marks a huge step forward for college sports.
That huge step comes with significant change. Going forward, the defendant conferences will be responsible for implementing several elements of the settlement, including the design and enforcement of the annual 22.5% cap (approximately $20.5 million in year one) for financial benefits a Division I school may direct to student-athletes. In addition, the court maintains jurisdiction over the implementation of the settlement, and the plaintiffs will continue to track progress. The defendant conferences are also responsible for launching and enforcing a series of rules regarding the third-party NIL contracts student-athletes may enter into. With these reforms, along with scholarships and other benefits, student-athletes at many schools will be able to receive nearly 50% of all athletics department revenue. That is a tremendously positive change and one that was long overdue.
With the defendant conferences leading administration and enforcement of the now approved settlement terms related to financial benefits, we will increasingly shift our focus at the NCAA away from enforcing rules prohibiting and limiting financial benefits in college sports, which has been the source of many of the recent challenges. We can now turn toward what most agree is our primary function: providing a world-class academic and athletics experience. With these changes in place, including release from future litigation on these subjects for the next decade, the foundation of college sports is stronger than at any point in years. The NCAA can increase focus on reforming clunky governance structures and, most importantly, prioritizing fair competition, academics and student-athlete well-being.
Beyond the rules that will be managed by the defendant conferences, Division I will continue to regulate in key areas (e.g., eligibility, playing seasons, sports betting and minimal recruiting rules) while prioritizing educational success through setting and monitoring academic standards. The NCAA will finance the back damages portion of the settlement. To do that, we are both reducing costs and generating more revenue, all while investing in the student-athlete experience.
Together the NCAA, the defendant conferences and the Division I membership have identified the existing NCAA rules that must change to reflect the settlement. These include replacing scholarship limits with roster limits — a change that will enable schools to vastly increase the scholarship opportunities student-athletes receive and potentially double the number of athletics scholarships made available to women.
The NCAA and Division I leaders are designing a new governance system that reduces the number of committees and streamlines the process to set rules governing competition, championships, eligibility and academic standards. While there will be more to come on the Division I structure, it is clear it must be far simpler with far fewer layers, and student-athletes must have more votes on the committees that deal with issues that impact them.
This is an exciting moment for everyone involved in college sports. As the defendant conferences now own several facets of rulemaking and enforcement related to specific settlement areas, the NCAA will be able to move away from certain enforcement activity that, despite the best efforts of many, wasn’t working well. Rather, we will focus on further enhancing what is working: elevating the student-athlete experience and maintaining fair playing rules and eligibility and academic standards. Student-athletes will benefit from the rich opportunities they enjoy now, plus far more scholarship opportunities, landmark financial benefits and a streamlined NCAA to support them.
Significant challenges remain, including attempts to force student-athletes to be classified as employees despite their leadership at all levels opposing this. In addition, attacks persist on college sports’ ability to set national rules regarding years of eligibility — the policies that enable the next generation of young people to access educational and athletics opportunities. And states continue to undercut one another in a race to the bottom by challenging the ability of the NCAA and conferences to establish and enforce rules that maintain level playing fields. The NCAA and college sports leaders have made tremendous, positive change in recent years, but only Congress can address these issues.
In the weeks ahead, we will work to show Congress why the settlement is both a massive win for student-athletes and a road map to legislative reform. The Division I Decision-Making Working Group will complete its work building the new governance structure, and the Division I Council and Board of Directors will take action on the necessary policies to implement the settlement.
Yes, this all means change, and change at this scale is never easy. This is new terrain for everyone. Given the defendant conferences’ new ownership of complicated pieces of rulemaking and enforcement, there will be a transition period and certainly bumps in the road. Opportunities to drive transformative change don’t come often to organizations like ours. It’s important we make the most of this one. We have accomplished a lot over the last several months, from new health and wellness and academic requirements to a stronger financial footing. Together, we can use this new beginning to launch college sports into the future, too.
NCAA prez calls House settlement a ‘new beginning’ for college sports Saturday Down South.
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