House v. NCAA long-form settlement expected to be filed next week

The House v. NCAA long-form settlement could be submitted to the Northern District of California for approval next week.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Kessler is anticipating the suit’s settlement to be sent to Judge Claudia Wilken next week, he told On3 on Thursday afternoon. After it’s submitted, the settlement will need to go through a formal approval process which will take months. During that time, class members and third parties will have the opportunity to reject.

Questions remain since the NCAA and Power 5 conferences voted to sign off on the settlement agreement in May, agreeing to pay $2.77 billion in back damages to athletes over 10 years. The second piece of the settlement is revenue sharing, allowing institutions to pay $20-22 million annually to athletes.

The two sides have been combing through the final details of the settlement in recent weeks. Roster limits have come to the forefront. On Thursday, ESPN and Yahoo! Sports reported commissioners are closing in on 105 as the roster limit for football programs. That would allow programs to offer 20 more scholarships than the current maximum of 85.

Coaches in other NCAA sports have already been openly talking with recruits about the impending roster limits. One power conference women’s soccer coach told On3 that he anticipates his roster will be reduced by 25%.

Kessler declined to comment on the exact number for roster limits. Institutions have spent much of the summer combing data and consulting salary cap experts to learn how revenue will actually be split up.

Steve Berman, the co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the House case, previously confirmed to On3 that the settlement is on track to disperse 75% of TV revenue in back damages to football. From there, 15% would be funneled to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball and the final 5% would be divided by the remaining athletes.

Multiple sources expect the payout for football to sit between $14 to $17 million – 75% of the $20 to $22 million being allocated for football. Oklahoma hired former Philadelphia Eagles executive Jake Rosenberg as a consultant, helping the Sooners understand how to split revenue and structure staff to handle the economics of college sports’ new structure.

“The smart people who have analyzed and are being thoughtful – and we’ll hear from them – they’ll say, ‘Let’s wait and see what Judge Wilken come down and use that as a guide,'” said Jay M. Ezelle, who is an antitrust attorney at Starnes Law and has advised NIL collectives and institutions.

“Because at that point you have a federal judge saying, ‘This is a fair way to distribute your money.’ In hindsight, it would then be smart for universities and conferences to say, ‘We’re going to follow the advice that the federal judge has just given in this case that’s created the revenue sharing, and we’re going to model what we’re doing after what she has just approved.’”

NIL collectives are expected to remain crucial for top programs, helping win recruiting battles and retain top talent. The top spending donor-driven groups are pushing annual budgets of $13 to $20 million. While those numbers could dip with more scholarships and revenue sharing, they’ll create competitive advantages.

The NIL environment, which has repeatedly been called the “wild, wild west,” has become the norm. And with more dollars coming into college football, collectives do not appear to be leaving the scene anytime soon.

“We are literally working to make what would normally be a decade’s worth of change in a matter of months,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said earlier this week. “We’re not in the world either where we’re allowed to focus on just one issue or even one small set of issues at any particular time.”