College sports leaders have made significant progress in talks to reach a legal settlement in the class-action lawsuit spearheaded by former Arizona State swimmer Grant House.
The House v. NCAA case, which was opened in 2020, argues that the NCAA and its Power Five conferences are breaking federal law by placing restrictions on how student-athletes make money from selling rights to their name, image and likeness (NIL).
College sports leaders are currently in “deep discussions” to reach a settlement that would likely lay out the framework for a revenue-sharing agreement with athletes under a future NCAA business model, according to ESPN.
Talks about settling have been ongoing, but significant progress was reportedly made last week when the Power Five conference commissioners, their general counsels, NCAA president Charlie Baker, NCAA lawyers and the plaintiffs’ attorneys met in Dallas.
If House were to win the case, the NCAA and its schools could be liable for up to $4 billion in damages, which is said to be the catalyst for motivation to get a settlement agreement put in place sooner rather than later.
The case is scheduled to go to court in January 2025.
Sources told ESPN that while no deal is imminent, details about what a multibillion-dollar settlement could look like is expected to be shared with schools in the “near future” and progress has “ramped up” in recent weeks.
The settlement is expected to cost billions to the NCAA in backpay to former athletes, which would require a new revenue-sharing agreement to be established moving forward.
ESPN sources report that the high end of a revenue share number per school would be in the range of $20 million annually. Schools will have the opportunity to opt in and share up to that number with their student-athletes—they can choose to share less but no more than the set number.
This could result in schools adding $15 to $20 million to their annual budgets in what new Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts called a “new expense category.”
How the specifics regarding schools distributing these funds is currently unknown, as is how any potential revenue-sharing system could impact Title IX.
Steve Berman, the co-counsel for the plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Kessler, told ESPN: “Judge Wilken has told us that she expected us to be discussing settlement given the lengthy litigation over the issues and the parties’ familiarities with the strengths and weaknesses on each side. We are simply following the judge’s instructions and have nothing to report other than that.”
This past November, Judge Wilken granted class-action status to the House side, and in early April, the plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a motion for summary judgment. If that were to be passed, the only thing left for a jury to decide would be the amount of damages.
House’s attorneys pointed to NCAA president Baker’s recent proposal paving the way for college athletes to receive direct payments from their schools as proof that the organization’s remaining restrictions on NIL earnings violate federal antitrust law. For decades, the NCAA leaned on the legal argument that amateurism is necessary to protect consumer demand and competitive balance.
“This pronouncement by President Baker is an admission by the NCAA that, by itself, establishes the existence of less restrictive alternatives,” the athletes’ lawyers wrote in their motion.
With still eight months until the trial date, a settlement isn’t expected immediately, but things seem to have been expedited.
I think it’s fine he’s still swimming–nothing wrong with staying in the sport, and swimming at Olympic trials is still an accomplishment. But it does seem purposely misleading how he refers to himself as an “Olympic athlete” or “training for the Olympics” in interviews about this lawsuit–he knows how that will be interpretated in non-swimming media.
There’s definitely more than a little ego involved in all this (look at his social media–painfully inauthentic, wanna-be influencer vibes). Viewers who tune in to NCAA sports aren’t turning on the TV for Grant House of all people.
While it’s very much the case that many NCAA athletes have been under compensated for powering a billion dollar entertainment industry, the vast majority of athletes on significant scholarships have presumably had more spent on them than the revenue that they’ve generated. That’s not to say that they haven’t worked endless hours but not every athlete is in a situation to be an immediate net profit for their school or the NCAA. This decision will be interesting and, I’m sorry to say, is not likely to be beneficial to Olympic sports.
NCAA throughout its history has rules and regulations that have made no sense.
In the past if you swam for one university and transferred you had to sit out a year.
However, even if you transferred from a University that did not offer the sport of swimming you still had to sit out a year.
I believe this will be devastating to swimming in college!! Even power 5 conferences. Mid-major programs will disappear!
Hey guys lay off House, he’s just trying to get compensated for the income he brought to ASU and an extra $79,999,957
Just what every AD wants, another 8-figure line item on the expense report.
How do you make up the shortfall? Is there a sport we can cut to save a couple million that literally brings in no revenue during the course of a competitive season? Well?
Excellent, Mr. House. Bravo.
“Schools could be liable for up to $4 billion in damages”
Ah yes, bankrupting college sports, just the justice current athletes need.
The number to fear is the $20 million annually. Think hard about how that will effect colleges and their swim and dive teams.
Yet another reason for the AD to find a way to dump the men’s swim and dive team.
I think just recently the Alabama AD said that the non-revenue Olympic sports (he mentioned swimming first) would need to be looked at. This is all too real. If a athletic powerhouse like Alabama is talking about having to make cuts, then there is even a far greater chance of lesser revenue generating institutions having to cut swimming.