House v. NCAA settlement to be filed Friday night

Friday will be a historic day in college sports. The House v. NCAA long-form settlement will be filed in the Northern District of California.

The broad strokes of the 10-year settlement include athlete revenue sharing, new roster limits for every sport and arbitration to enforce disputes. The expectation is lawyers will pick arbitrators before the final hearing of the suit.

It’s been two months since plaintiffs’ attorneys – Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman – and defendants – the NCAA and Power Five conferences – agreed to the broad strokes of settlement terms. Kessler told On3 on Friday morning the settlement would be filed around 5 p.m. ET.

What enforcement the NCAA and conference leaders move forward with remains an unknown entering Friday. The settlement makes clear leagues will create their own new enforcement entity. The expectation is this will happen.

The NCAA and its conferences have also agreed to pay $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes over 10 years. As previously reported by On3, the distribution model for backpay is expected to be used a framework for future revenue sharing.

Berman confirmed to On3 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% divided by the remaining athletes.

Booster payments remain unknown. A source told On3 that the settlement will require NIL collectives’ payments to be a valid business purpose related to the promotion or endorsement of goods or services provided to the general public for profit. This would mean collectives operating with 501(c)(3) would need to reassess its structure.

Meanwhile, athletic departments have spent their summer focused on how they will distribute revenue and how their bottom lines could shift with new roster caps. Football will now have a roster limit of 105 – a scholarship increase of 20. The expectation is the 105 requirement will not begin until the start of the season.

Baseball is nearly tripling its scholarship limits, jumping from 11.7 to 34. Men’s and women’s basketball programs will have a roster limit of 15. The current limit is 13. Men’s and women’s soccer bumps up from 14 to 28.

“There’s going to be three categories,” Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told On3 this week on the next iteration of college sports. “Financial aid for athletes, the traditional scholarship, academic award money, cost of attendance. There’s going to be revenue share for some sports, not all sports. And then you’re going to have the third bucket, which is the NIL ecosystem.”