After years of buildup and legal arguments, the House v. NCAA reached a settlement on revenue share for collegiate athletes on June 6. The $2.8 billion, ten-year settlement will pay current and past players for missed name, image and likeness opportunities. Still, it most notably will allow colleges to pay current players directly starting July 1.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken gave final approval of the landmark settlement. This comes after five years of litigation, followed by another year of discussions and edits, following the NCAA and power conferences’ initial decision to settle the suit in 2024.
This ruling ends the amateurism status of the NCAA and provides a new framework of rules and regulations to help tame what some have called the “Wild West” era of NIL. Currently, NIL collectives operate virtually free from any sort of regulation, which results in widespread tampering across college sports and multiple lawsuits every time a player leaves a school for another after receiving a payment from the school they left.
This most notable incident took place recently, when quarterback Madden Iamaleava transferred from Arkansas to UCLA during the spring transfer portal window. Iamaleava was an early-enrollee member of the Razorbacks’ 2025 high school recruiting class. He transferred after just spending a few weeks with the program.
The school’s collective, Arkansas EDGE, is still pursuing its legal dispute against Iamaleava. According to CBS Sports, they’re seeking $200,000 in repayment following his decision to leave before he touched the field. This case marks a new and aggressive approach to NIL contract enforcement, which is likely to become a more common occurrence as NIL contracts become a requirement for players to enroll at a new school.
According to the Associated Press, universities will share up to $20.5 million with student-athletes directly across all sports. That cap will increase by at least four percent each year throughout the ten-year agreement. As far as the current planned distribution model goes, most schools are expected to allocate roughly 75 percent of future revenue to football players, 15 percent to men’s basketball, five percent to women’s basketball and the rest to all remaining sports. However, other schools plan to mirror the gross revenue each sport averages, which would likely result in more than 85 percent of the money earned being allocated to football players.
One of the main arguments against the settlement was that the new roster limits could result in thousands of student-athletes losing their spots due to imposed limitations across all 43 NCAA-sponsored sports.
This counterargument led to a delay in the final ruling until a compromise was reached. While the judge asked for a plan to be proposed that would “grandfather in” current athletes, the power conferences instead proposed a compromise that would allow schools the option to temporarily exceed the roster limits until the players exhausted their eligibility.
Once the roster limits are enforced, some sports will gain spots that they didn’t have in previous years, but most will be shrunk down despite being able to offer unlimited scholarships within those thresholds.
