The new landscape of bigtime college sports
There is nothing that I like more than to see Nick Saban wailing and gnashing his teeth begging at the foot of the President of the United States to preserve the caste system that earned him a net worth in excess of $80 million dollars and the Alabama football team nearly two decades of dominance. Of course, he does not want the system to change. He makes the argument with
a straight face: college sports was better the way that it was and a lot of fans agree. Here is the problem: college sports the way it was, was an illegal cartel that was artificially suppressing wages and earnings of college athletes in violation of the antitrust laws of the United States of America. It still is.
There was genuine hope when the attorneys settled the House v. NCAA case that there would be peace, the lawsuits would slow, and the threat to the NCAA’s existence would cease. Honestly,
I had to laugh at the victory lap that the NCAA and the plaintiffs’ attorneys made when they came to an agreement. The reality was that the thinly veiled shroud that hid the inner-workings of big-time college football and basketball was ripped down. For those who were paying attention, you could see that this was just the beginning.
Jefferey Kessler, one of the lead class action attorneys who brought the suit bragged that the agreement was similar to a collective bargaining agreement in the NFL and the NBA. But it’s not
a collective bargaining agreement. It was a group of attorneys, who were not hired by the players, negotiating on behalf of a decade of past players and a decade of future players.
When I say that the players had no input, I mean they had no input. Grant House, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit didn’t even know that the suit was filed. He never reviewed the complaint and he was never asked his opinion on what a settlement ought to look like. That might be usual in the world of antitrust lawsuits, it is not usual in collective bargaining, where those who are being represented vote for their own leaders and hire their own attorneys.
We are now left with a settlement that is still in violation of the antitrust laws and has attorneys representing women athletes calling foul. Why? Depending on who you listen to, the potential damages against the NCAA for violating antitrust laws was as much a $15 billion. Whether that would have been the proverbial nail in the coffin, we will never know. The House case was strong enough to make the NCAA do an about-face and agree to change the landscape of college sports forever but the case left us with more questions than answers.
The Big Picture
The settlement clarified three things:
1) Some former players will be compensated collectively to the tune of $2.8 billion over 10 years by the NCAA and what was known as the Power Five conferences to atone for their lost earning opportunities due to NCAA regulations. However, these payments are on hold until outstanding appeals are resolved, including Title IX challenges.
2) University athletic departments can now engage in revenue sharing with the players (i.e. the talent) of the sports programs for as much as 22% of revenue.
3) Legitimate third-party NIL deals for current and future players are alive and well.
How will all of this shake out? To quote Churchill, “it’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
Every future freshman class will have the opportunity to object to the settlement. There are hotly debated issues regarding Title IX and sex discrimination. There is the looming enforcement structure known as the College Sports Commission (CSC), and the employment status of college athletes. All of this while the President and Congress scramble to piece together legislation to codify the changes agreed to by the NCAA and the class action attorneys.
On July 1, 2025, universities and athletic directors walked through a looking glass and into a labyrinth impossible to predict and perhaps more difficult to prepare for.
Why Do We Have to Pay College Players?
The reality is the system that has been in place since college sport became big business was inevitably going to collapse. Some argue that the NCAA brought this on themselves for its heavy handedness and a variety of nonsensical rules that left fans, coaches, and athletic directors shaking their collective heads. While that certainly did not aid in the image and support of the NCAA, it was the fact that the NCAA and the Power Five conferences turned college sports into big business that resulted in the current circumstances. Money changes everything.
The average fan was generally unaware of the amounts of money that college sports generated until relatively recently. Past generations of players were satisfied with a college scholarship, the amenities of the athletic department, and the prestige of being a student athlete. But the business was growing and the revenue was rolling in.
The canary in the coal mine was coaches’ salaries. Johnny Majors was the head coach at the University of Tennessee when I arrived on campus. In 1982, he made an estimated salary of $128,500. That is approximately $430,000 in 2025.
It didn’t take long for the old ball coach to find himself rolling in the dough. In 1997, the University of Florida agreed to pay Steve Spurrier $2 million per season to keep him from bolting to the NFL. By 2017, Nick Saban was earning $11.1 million per season after failing miserably in the NFL as the Miami Dolphins head coach. The following year, my draw dropped when Texas A&M gave Jimbo Fisher a fully guaranteed contract worth $75 million. That is generational wealth. Meanwhile, players received what they had always received, and if they dared to earn even the smallest amounts of money, they jeopardized their future in sports, their teams, and their universities.
Arian Foster is the second all-time leading rusher for the University of Tennessee playing from 2004-2007. In 2013, he confessed to the travails of being a college football player at a major land grant university. He spoke of getting home after a game with 107,000 people in the crowd cheering, rushing for 100 yards, having no groceries in the refrigerator and no money in his pocket. Meanwhile, everyone but the players seemed to be cashing in.
Foster was not a highly sought after recruit. At the end of his playing career, he went undrafted, so it is not surprising that the sketchy underworld of player payola didn’t reach him in the early 2000’s. In the end, during his senior year at Tennessee, Foster asserts someone offered him cash, and he took it. This is not a bombshell by any means. From the SMU death penalty case to the NCAA’s Reggie Bush investigation, anyone paying attention knew there was money swirling around college athletes in various forms but in the shadows.
Whatever players were getting from boosters, agents, and the like paled in comparison to the behemoth the NCAA and the Power 5 Conferences had become. In the 2022-2023 college year, ESPN reported the NCAA earned $1.3 billion in revenue and still stood resolute that the players on the field should get no part of the windfall.
Quoting from the House v. NCAA complaint:
“The hard work of college athletes has translated into billion-dollar television deals, multi-million dollar coaching salaries, extravagant facilities, and lucrative commercial licensing and sponsorship agreements that greatly benefit the NCAA and its member conferences and schools. For those in positions of power, the college sports industry has become immensely profitable. The median salary for an athletic director at a Division I institution is now over $500,000 a year. More than 100 coaches at Division I schools earn over $1 million per year, with the top 25 football coaches earning an average of $5.2 million annually, and the top 25 basketball coaches earning an average of $3.2 million annually. Although student-athletes produce the product that fuels this industry, and they are the individuals whose athleticism, hard work, and character make college sports so popular, these same young men and women receive only a tiny fraction of the revenues they generate, while continuing to face severe penalties for failing to abide by a labyrinth of rules that restrict any meaningful participation in the industry.”
Nowhere else in America does a billion-dollar industry exist that is legally allowed to engage in fixing the wages and compensation of those who ultimately produce the product. In this case, the product on the field would not exist but for the players.
Future Payments
This year is a year of cataclysmic change in the NCAA. Athletic departments now have a cap of approximately $20.5 million to pay athletes directly. Prior to the settlement payments such as these were prohibited. Each individual institution is allowed to distribute the $20.5 million as they see fit. Most estimates are that the schools will distribute 75% to football players, 15% to basketball players, and the rest scattered across the board with women’s basketball being likely the third highest paid beneficiaries at most institutions.
There are real legal challenges to this plan of action due to Title IX. In the House v. NCAA order from the judge, she acknowledged that this issue is left open. She also stated that institutions could choose to distribute the funds equally according to strict interpretation of Title IX and how it has been enforced in the past. For both future payments and the payments for past damages, much remains to be argued. When Title IX was written, there certainly was no contemplation of a damages award such as this, nor a revenue sharing model such as was agreed to in this case.
Back Pay
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Pac-12 Conference, Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Southeastern Conference, and Atlantic Coast Conference have agreed to pay approximately $2.8 billion in total to compensate student athletes who participated all student-athletes who compete on a Division I athletic team and who have been declared initially eligible for competition in Division I at anytime from June 15, 2016 through September 15, 2024.
The payments will be paid yearly over the course of 10 years and are intended to compensate student athletes for opportunities that NCAA rules prohibited them from being paid for using their NIL rights in broadcasts, video games, merchandise, their athletic services, and the restraint of scholarship caps. These payments are on hold pending appeal of the settlement.
Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports
When I read the White House press release that headlined “Donald J. Trump Saves College Sports,” I could hear the great Lee Corso’s famous words, “not so fast my friend.” The enforceability of executive orders depends on their compliance with constitutional principles, including the separation of powers. For example, an executive order cannot override congressional authority or violate constitutional rights.
In this case, the executive order for the time being is largely ceremonial. It signals the administration’s support for legislation that is in line with the order. It is also likely a response to calls from United States Senator Tommy Tuberville, former coach of the Auburn football team and Nick Saban for some action to restore order in big time college sports.
One of the strangest points made by the White House was that they stated “bidding wars amongst university boosters, with some universities and their outside supporters reportedly spending more than $50 million per year on fielding rosters, mostly for the revenue-generating sports like football. Football players on one team will receive $35-40 million in 2025 alone,” seems to support the argument that the entire structure of college sports is an illegal cartel.
While the order may sway some of the legislators and some of the public, an executive order does little to stop the juggernaut of professionalizing college sports. That will take, quite literally an act of Congress.
Score Legislation
For many years the NCAA has been urging Congress to exempt them and the Power 5 (now the Power 4) conferences from the Sherman Antitrust Act. This has largely fallen on deaf ears as the issues facing Congress like inflation and the economy, partisan cooperation and legislative gridlock, and healthcare costs and access have taken precedence over college sports.
In the wake of the House v. NCAA settlement, for the first time, a bill will get to the floor of the House this fall in response to the NCAA’s pleadings. The bill is called the SCORE Act, which is the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act.
Critics of the bill say that this, along with the Executive order signed by the President, amount to a wish list of the NCAA and the Power 4 conferences. The bill includes a broad antitrust exemption, language that prohibits classification of student athletes as employees, and preempting all state laws in contradiction of the language in the bill.
Inherent in the desire to be exempt from the antitrust laws is that the NCAA wants to forever, and in perpetuity, be allowed to operate outside of the laws that govern nearly every other industry in the United States. In short, they want to be allowed to collude to fix wages without the players ever getting a chance to negotiate.
What happens with this bill is anyone’s best guess. There is the possibility that the sides get together and compromise on something that has a possibility of being passed into law. At this stage, most critics and legislators are in agreement with one thing: the chances of the bill passing the Senate as it is written today are very low.
Roster Limits & Caps On Scholarships
The average fan may not notice the change to roster limits for teams and the removal of the cap on scholarships but the student athletes sure will. One of the more arbitrary and capricious NCAA rules were its caps on scholarships. For instance, each Division 1 NCAA member baseball team was allowed 11.7 scholarships per team. Now, every player on the team can receive a scholarship for baseball. This year, college baseball teams who intend on competing for a national championship will certainly be offering the maximum number of scholarships allowed, now 34.
This is balanced by new roster limitations. For instance, in football, the roster is now limited to 105 players per team. However, last year there was a maximum of 85 scholarships an institution could award. Now, every student on the roster may be awarded a scholarship if the member institution opts to do so. Hundreds of students previously not on scholarship will have their lives changed as a result of this new rule.
However, there will be a trade off. With fewer roster spots, there are fewer opportunities for high school athletes to compete at the D1 level. Proponents of the change point out that opportunities still exist at the D2 and D3 levels and perhaps those athletes will have
a better chance to play at those schools. Football teams like Nebraska might disagree. They have a tradition of carrying dozens of walk-on players not on scholarship. Those days are gone. The Nebraska roster that boasted more than 150 players last season will be reduced to 105, like every other D1 football program.
Not every university will be able to offer scholarships for every student athlete on campus but the fact that they can and that each case is at the university’s discretion is a quantum leap forward for providing access to a college education for student athletes.
Title IX
Perhaps the largest issue facing the House settlement is how it interacts with Title IX legislation that is designed to prohibit sex discrimination by any educational institution that receives federal funds. Title IX expands beyond sports but it requires roughly equal treatment of male and female athletes on college campuses.
There are schools who have already announced how they plan to distribute their allotted $20.5 million dollars this season. Men’s football and basketball programs are expected to receive approximately 90% of the funds next year (75%-85% for football, 10%-15% for basketball). At those universities, it will be interesting to see how they argue that approximately $18 million is being paid out to male athletes off of the top, not leaving much for female athletes and how that is “equivalent” treatment under the law.
There have been two notices of appeal filed in the case challenging the settlement on Title IX grounds. This has put on hold payments to former players pending the appeal. However, the payments to current players begins now. The outcome of these appeals and possible future litigation directly against the universities will dictate how the money flows in the future.
The Future
So here we are. It’s a mess. But there are some solutions. For instance, the NCAA could just stop engaging in violations of the antitrust laws of the United States. We could all agree to treat college athletes just like anyone else, with the same rights as any other person. We could allow the free market to work in this business like it does everywhere else. Will that happen? Not likely. But why?
Everybody thinks they know better than the market. Saban and Tuberville think Trump and Congress know better. The NCAA and the Plaintiffs class action attorneys think they know better. Just about every armchair quarterback in America thinks they know better. Even a market solution is racked with challenges, not least of which is a solution that complies with Title IX. But money and power are the biggest challenges. Those that have it will fight to keep it, those that don’t will fight to take it.
Lurking in shadows are private equity and unions who seek to wrest their pound of flesh from this wounded giant. Players have just begun to receive their recompense and no doubt they will continue to fight. And while battles will rage in the courtrooms and boardrooms, there is one thing that rises above it all: the competition.
When 102,000 people cram into Neyland Stadium clad in orange and white, when the band plays Rocky Top, when the ball is in the air and time stands still, no one will care about any of this. On occasion during a game, the competition transcends everything but the moment. If you are a college sports fan, those are moments you never forget, shared with friends, shared with family, at home or in the arena, in triumph and in defeat, those are the moments we pay to see.
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