The proposed House v. NCAA settlement to remodel how college athletes are compensated received preliminary approval on Oct. 7. 

The settlement, drafted to resolve three antitrust cases against the NCAA, is separated into two parts. The first segment allots $2.78 billion to former athletes who couldn’t capitalize on modern name, image and likeness rules. 

The second segment allows athletes in the Power Four conferences, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and SEC, to be paid directly by their universities. 

The original terms of the settlement were released in late May of 2024. In early September, Senior Judge Claudia Wilken in the northern district of California sent the parties involved “back to the drawing board.” She had concerns regarding proposed restrictions on third-party NIL payments to college athletes. 

Shortly after the terms were released in May, the Ohio Valley Conference board of presidents sent a letter of concern to the NCAA. 

“It’s challenging to think about institutions like Eastern paying a disproportionate share of their annual budgets to reach a settlement in a case in which they weren’t a named party,” Eastern’s president Jay Gatrell said. “And in a case where they don’t really yield any benefits from the legislation or protections for the next ten years.” 

To pay the settlement, the NCAA is reducing yearly revenue distributions to their member schools. The yearly revenue distributions provide additional funding to schools and their conferences. 

Schools in the Football Championship Subdivision— such as Eastern— will lose roughly $265,000 a year for the next decade.  

Now that the settlement has reached preliminary approval, both sides will have time to discuss terms at length before anything is finalized. That finalization should take place sometime in the spring of 2025, according to Eastern’s Athletic Director Tom Michael. 

“It’s a really interesting time in college athletics,” Michael said. “And the House settlement is just one of many things that will trigger a next step.” 

The FCS and non-football schools are still unhappy with the NCAA 

The letter from the OVC board of presidents raised concerns the conference had regarding the collection method proposed by the NCAA. In an office meeting last week, Michael said those concerns are still harbored. 

“As much as we’re not in favor of how all that (the payment model for the settlement) came about and what that is, I also don’t think we’re moving forward thinking that’s going to change,” Michael said. 

Since the original terms came out in the summer, FCS and non-football playing schools have had their gripes about not having a seat at the negotiation table. On July 21, partial OVC member Houston Christian University filed a motion to intervene in the House v. NCAA lawsuit. 

The school argued its financial interests were not being represented when the terms of the settlement were first coming out. 

At the time, Michael reckoned this was a move by HCU to get them in negotiation talks.  

Pitching a new model 

Michael shared his vision for the model some are working on to keep FCS and non-football Division I schools in Division I programs. He described a landscape where Power Four schools have increased autonomy yet are still considered part Division I alongside the FCS and non-football schools. 

“There’s a lot of things that are probably in distress in college athletics,” Michael said. “That’s going to continue to be the case. We’re trying to continue to work on models that somehow keeps everyone under this Division I tent.” 

NACDA is the national organization for athletic administrators, like Michael. They have a committee that Michael is co-chairing to develop a new model. 

“We’re working on some things,” Michael said. “We’re working with commissioners and we’re working with the NCAA trying to see what [a new] model looks like.”

For about 15 months, Michael said, the commissioners have been working on this proposal.

“We think we’re making progress, but we’re trying to change a model that’s been in place for decades and decades, trying to get people to think a little bit differently, yet still having it centered around student athletes getting an education,” he said.

What the FCS wants 

The committee is looking to create a new model with more independence granted to the Power Four schools. 

“If the Power Four schools want to go do what they want to do, [I say] go do it,” Michael said. “But in the FCS world and non-football playing schools, we’re going to manage this in a different way. [The Power Four] might have a lot of different rules than us, so we’re going to try to do something different over here.” 

According to Michael, the FCS and non-football playing Division I schools still want the luxuries granted to them because they are at the highest level of college athletics. 

“We still want to have access to championships, we still want to have revenue share, we need to have some say in some governance,” Michael said. “But the governance really is, we still want to qualify for the championships and somehow have revenue share. Otherwise, if [the Power Four] wants to have revenue share in terms of individuals, go do it. If you want to pay your players, go do it.” 

Power conferences are acting independently 

In late September, the Big 10 and SEC held a meeting without the two remaining Power conferences, Big 12 and ACC. Leaders from the two conferences discussed scheduling, college football playoffs and the settlement. 

“You can see by the reports that continue to come out that the SEC and Big 10 are meeting separately than the other Power Four conferences,” Michael said. “The ACC and Big 12 aren’t involved. What’s going to come out of that?” 

Michael is also concerned about the apparent desire to disassociate from the FCS held by the highest echelon of Division I schools.  

“There’s been reports that Power Four schools don’t want to play FCS schools anymore,” Michael said. “The question you would ask is, ‘Is Michigan really only going to have six home games?’ They need seven or eight home games financially to make it work.” 

It all comes back to working on a new model, he said. 

“We got a lot of work to do,” Michael said. “We’ll just keep pushing to find a model that works for a lot of folks.” 

Aidan Cusack can be reached at 581-2812 or at atcusack@eiu.edu.