House v. NCAA settlement: Attorneys file new brief, include grandfathering provisions for roster limits

Over the last year, coaches and athletic departments have told athletes their roster spot would no longer exist following the adoption of the House v. NCAA settlement. Judge Claudia Wilken has put a pin in those plans.

While schools have cut rosters because of looming roster restrictions, the U.S. Northern District Court of California judge has backtracked, telling the NCAA and plaintiffs’ attorneys that the settlement would not move forward if roster spots were not grandfathered in. Wilken gave both sides two weeks to make the necessary changes, setting a deadline for Wednesday.

NCAA and power conference attorneys, along with plaintiffs’ attorneys, have now agreed on a plan to phase in roster limits. The proposal was submitted to Wilken on Wednesday. Under the plan, athletes who had their positions cut will be eligible for reinstatement at schools’ discretion. It also permits athletes who leave or not retained by their current school would keep grandfather status at a new school.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Kessler told On3 those athletes would be exempt from all roster limits for their entire careers. That includes current athletes cut for next year and high school seniors who were promised spots for next year, but had those positions withdrawn.

“While Defendants insisted that the changes to the Settlement Agreement recognize that individual schools and their athletics departments retain discretion to independently determine which athletes will be on their rosters, that has always been the case; and it remains unchanged whether or not there are roster limits,” the filing reads. “The revisions to the Settlement Agreement ensure that class members who have or would have lost roster spots or promised roster spots as a result of the new roster limits will be in the same position as they would have been in if roster limits were never implemented, i.e., roster limits do not apply to them.

“We thus believe that this relief is exactly the type of change that the Court was seeking and in fact, provides even greater protections for athletes than the Court identified.”

Wilken will now consider the plan, and if approved, the House v. NCAA settlement will move closer to final approval. Roster limits are expected to heavily impact football, swimming, track and cross country. Grandfathering, however, comes with plenty of questions attached.

Under the House v. NCAA settlement, proposed rosters include football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), men’s and women’s soccer (28), softball (25) and volleyball (18). Schools around the country started to prepare for such changes to go into effect, which is why the NCAA argued altering the language would create issues.

Nick Schultz contributed.