College sports are becoming more like the pros now that schools finally can pay college players.
Judge Claudia Wilken two weeks ago approved the deal between the NCAA and lawyers representing Division I athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement ends three separate federal antitrust suits against college sports’ governing body.
The settlement gives schools the power to create new rules in limiting the influence of boosters and (NIL) collectives. Any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete will be vetted to ensure it is valid and not a recruiting incentive.
More importantly, the $2.8B settlement is back damages to be paid to student athletes over the next 10 years who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day.
Beginning July 1 schools can start playing athletes like the pros using an annual cap of an estimated $20.5 million per school beginning with the 2005-06 school and athletic year, with an increase every year. This is in addition to scholarships and other permitted benefits for athletes.
It is speculated that the University of Minnesota will share its annual $20.5 million in revenue among five sports — football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s hockey, and volleyball — with football getting most of the money, not unlike other big-time schools. What this does for women’s hockey, one of the school’s most successful teams, and other non-revenue sports has yet to be determined.
What about HBCUs, which historically have smaller budgets than larger schools, or for that matter, smaller Division I PWIs (primarily White institutions)?
SWAC Commissioner Charles McClelland told HBCU Sports that the House settlement “will impact the finances of every SWAC institution.”
While there are reasons to celebrate decades of fighting for fair compensation for student athletes while coaches and others make millions off them, the House settlement also created more questions as a result.
“I don’t know how all of this is going to play out,” said Ithaca College Sport Sciences Associate Professor Ellen Staurowsky to the MSR. She is a longtime advocate for college players to get paid, especially Black student-athletes. “It’s difficult for me to say that’s a good deal, and that’s just one of the issues,” she added on the House settlement.
“I’ve spoken to a couple of other people about this who are lawyers,” continued Staurowsky. “The question becomes how much of an improvement it is really to the finalization of the settlement.”
Furthermore, the House settlement and Wilken’s decision does not address the longstanding inequity between men’s sports and women’s sports, the professor pointed out.
“I think in many ways that has confused the issues,” she believes. “I agree with the judge that the Title IX concerns are not antitrust concerns. What I think should happen and what I think could have happened long before now is that the Title IX case that should have been brought never was [filed].”
“What I think should happen is that I think the NCAA should be sued,” said Staurowsky. “I think the conferences should be sued. I think the schools should be sued for the damages that they’ve done to women’s sport, which has been massive. I just think it’s a separate case.”
The times are crazy now with the anti-anything-not-White fervor being whipped up politically, especially against colleges and universities, surmised Staurowsky. “What concerns me just more than anything else is for our students and for my colleagues, this is a very threatening time to be living in America.”
“I am so worried and concerned, and I take none of it for granted in terms of my position in relationship to yours [as a white person to someone Black]. It’s not the same.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.