A full settlement agreement for antitrust lawsuits involving the NCAA and college sports' wealthiest conferences is expected to be filed in federal court by the end of the week, an attorney for the defendants told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“I expect we'll file the lawsuit on Friday,” said Steve Berman, a Seattle-based attorney with the law firm Hagens Berman.
On May 23, the NCAA, along with the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference, agreed to the framework for a $2.77 billion settlement of multiple antitrust lawsuits challenging limits on college athlete compensation.
In addition to the damages the NCAA will pay to eligible current and former college athletes in the case known as House v. NCAA, the association and conferences have agreed to a plan to allow schools to share revenue generated by athletics with athletes. Schools will be able to divert about $22 million to their athletes beginning in 2025, a figure that is expected to rise as sports revenues for schools in major conferences increase.
There are still many details to be worked out for the revenue-sharing plan, particularly roster caps for sports that will replace scholarship caps. Conferences have been working separately and together on roster caps.
“Yes, there's a lot to unpack in the House agreement,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti told reporters at the football conference's media days in Indianapolis on Tuesday. “That new model is going to require a lot of changes in terms of how we operate. We now have a situation where schools can provide benefits directly to student-athletes. There's a limit to that system. We have to monitor what schools spend, so you need a reporting system that doesn't exist.”
Petitti did not provide details, but three major conference athletic directors told the AP they expect the football player limit to reach 105. The current scholarship limit for college football is 85. The athletic directors spoke on condition of anonymity because the conferences were not making their discussions public.
Berman said he was not surprised that the full terms document was not ready to be submitted in time to meet the 45-day deadline he requested.
“It's slow and it's not what I thought it would be because we have five conferences plus the NCAA. So you have the conference lawyers and then they report to all of their schools and the schools have lawyers and they have presidents, many of whom are lawyers, and they all want to weigh in on every word,” Berman said.
Berman said that regardless of the pace of progress, negotiations are going well.
“We are very close to closing the deal,” Berman said. “The amount of disputes at this point is minimal.”
Once the full settlement is submitted to the court for consideration by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, a motion for preliminary court approval will be filed. Berman said a motion for preliminary approval is typically granted.
Houston Christian University, a Southland Conference institution that has been competing in Division I, has already filed a motion to intervene in the settlement. It claims that non-power conference institutions will unfairly absorb an outsized amount of the cost of damages to be paid over a 10-year period.
Schools in non-power conferences have argued that more than 90% of the damages will be paid to football and basketball players who have competed or are competing in the conferences that were named in the lawsuit.
The NCAA will pay damages from operating costs, reserves, insurance and distributions withheld from Division I conferences.
Berman said the defendants asked the court to dismiss HCU's motion.
“There is no publicly filed agreement that can be challenged at this time, so we thought it was premature, among other flaws,” Berman said.
Berman said if preliminary approval is granted, they can begin the process of informing athletes how much compensation they will be entitled to receive. He said it's a complicated formula because thousands of eligible athletes fall into many different categories.
“The way this is going to work is that at some point, like 60 or 70 days from now, after the notice is sent, if you're an athlete, you'll be able to go to a website and put in your name and the website will tell you how much you're going to get from the settlement,” Berman said.
