Earlier this week, the NCAA agreed to pay $303 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with volunteer coaches, who allege the organization engaged in illegal wage fixing under a rule that prohibited schools from paying them.
The lawsuit represents 7,700 volunteer coaches who worked for a Division I sport (other than baseball) at any point from March 17, 2019, until June 20, 2023.
That means, on average, each coach will receive $39,350 (before expenses and taxes), though the actual amount earned by each coach will be determined by a specific formula, as can be found in the joint declaration by the plaintiffs here (page 41).
PAYOUT PROCESS
- The NCAA will put $303 million into a “Qualified Settlement Fund,” and three payments of $101 million will be made to coaches.
- Payouts to coaches will be made based on their “Recognized Loss,” which aims to calculate how much a coach was underpaid during their time working as a volunteer.
- Princeton economist Dr. Orley Ashenfelter will calculate a Recognized Loss for every six-month period that a class member served as a volunteer coach. (Each six-month block is a “Class Member Half-Year.”)
- To estimate what the volunteer coach should have been paid, they use the salary of the team’s lowest-paid non-volunteer coach during that same six-month period (reference coach).
- Dr. Ashenfelter then applies a “stepdown factor,” accounting for the fact that the volunteer coach would’ve likely been paid less than the lowest-paid regular coach.
- The size of the stepdown comes from a regression analysis using post-conspiracy salary data, comparing the lowest-paid coach and the second-lowest-paid coach after the Volunteer Coach Rule was removed.
- Once each class member’s Recognized Loss is calculated for each Half-Year they coached, they are matched to their corresponding periods and receive their share of the settlement fund based on those totals.
- Using this methodology, the total will come out to less than $303 million, according to the document, so Dr. Ashenfelter will “scale up” all Recognized Loss amounts until the total comes to $303 million.
- If the methodology results in any Class Member Half-Year with a scaled Recognized Loss below $2,500, they’ll be given $2,500. “In no event will any Claimant be allocated less than $5,000.”
Example Used In Document:
For example, assume a Class Member who coached a Division I softball team for the 2021 calendar year. If the data show that the Reference Coach on that team was paid $65,000 in the 2021 calendar year, the two Class Member Half-Years for that calendar year will have reference wages of $32,500. If the stepdown for softball is 45%, the Recognized Loss associated with those Class Member Half-Years would be $17,550 [$32,500 – ($32,500 x 0.45)], making the Class Member’s total Recognized Loss for the year $35,100 [$17,550 + $17,550]. That Recognized Loss will then be scaled into a final Scaled Recognized Loss, which will be distributed to the Class Member in three equal payments.
In 2023, the NCAA removed its policy that allowed volunteer coaching positions, which opened up room for more paid coaches on rosters if schools were willing to pay.
The lawsuit represents volunteer coaches in every Division I sport other than baseball because, in November 2022, baseball coaches filed a similar lawsuit and reached a settlement with the NCAA earlier this year for $49.25 million.
“We are incredibly proud of this settlement which, if approved, will provide significant and meaningful compensation to thousands of hard-working coaches,” the lawyers for the coaches said in a statement, according to Front Office Sports. “We look forward to the approval process and are committed to ensuring that these funds are distributed to coaches in a fair and efficient manner.”
The settlement is still awaiting approval from Judge William B. Shubb in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The preliminary approval hearing is scheduled for December 22.
If approved (likely in early 2026), the three payments will be made over three years, with the first installment coming as soon as within 30 days of final approval. The following payments would then come in 2027 and 2028, if approved early next year.
$39,500 is more than I ever made as a full-time D-I coach.
Genuine question: I wonder what percentage of D1 diving coaches are full time and what percentage have outside work.
As someone who served as a volunteer assistant during Covid, I am a member of this class.
On August 2, 2025, I received an email with notice of the lawsuit which outlined my rights as well as the general process of the lawsuit and pay out.
This was a standard “if you do nothing, you remain in the lawsuit.”
It explains that a second notice will be sent once Counsel obtains any money or benefits of a settlement.
Personally, my volunteer year was necessary after graduating into the beginning of Covid when little movement was occurring in the workforce. No higher level coaching jobs were available.
While I had the means to go a season… Read more »
Is there a form I’ll need to fill out to claim this settlement? I was a volunteer for a D1 institution during the 2019-2020 season.
That info will probably come out once the settlement has been approved. There’s usually a website set up with a form. If/when that happens, we’ll publicize it.
Contact the law firms representing the plaintiffs—Dennis Stewart of Gustafson Gluck, Jamie Crooks of Fairmark Partners, or Robert Gralewski of Kirby McInerney.
This is the official website: https://ncaavolunteercoachlawsuit.com/
I too helped a large D1 that same year, as well as for a period of time in 2021.
I sure want whatever I’m entitled to if this is the case
The math is wrong in the example quoted from the document. It says [$32,500 – ($32,500 x 0.45)] = $17,550, but that isn’t true.
[$32,500 – ($32,500 x 0.45)]
[$32,500 – $14,625]
$17,875, not $17,550
I hope Dr. Ashenfelter doesn’t screw up the calculations.
See what you did there with that photo, SwimSwam. Bravo!
Do people who have more knowledge than me on these types of cases have a rough guess when they’d expect payments to start?
Rough guess is 90 days. It’ll probably take 2-3 months for the judge to review and approve the settlement, then the parties need to confirm the calculations, then the checks are sent out.
Edit: the judge won’t spend 2-3 months. It will likely take that long to schedule a hearing.
Who are these “volunteer” coaches? Will we see a list of those receiving compensation after “volunteering” their time? As someone who started as a volunteer coach, this seems a bit backwards. While I was not compensated for my time, its not like I was paying for meals and hotels. I always felt it was a necessary step into building a career in athletics.
The fact that working for free was a necessary step into building a career in athletics is the problem. It limits the pool of potential coaches to those who can financially swing a year or two of working a job without pay. I’m not saying fresh, unproven coaches should make big money, but they should be paid at least something.
They also agreed to be a volunteer and everything that came with it….Mean no pay, no benefits, limited perks.
They “agreed” because the NCAA institutions colluded to make it so one of the only ways to get your foot in the door for a college coaching career was to work unpaid for a year. Hence the settlement.
And the fact that that is the entry level standard is the problem. Keeps a lot of coaches out of the sport that don’t have family that can keep them afloat while they volunteer.
So the solution would be to remove entry-level standards for a position? That seems like it would be disastrous. Kinda like putting someone without any experience in a critical cabinet position…….oh, wait……
The solution isn’t to eliminate entry level standards…it’s for these schools not to exploit people by making the entry level unpaid across division 1 sports.
Let me break it down:
Exploiting people is wrong, while allowing yourself to be exploited is merely naive. If you exploit someone who is naive, and they realize it later, “Well he allowed himself to be exploited!” isn’t a particularly compelling defense.
And it was definitely not one the NCAA felt comfortable bringing to court.
You don’t have to remove entry level standards. You can require applicants to have coaching experience at other levels or college swimming experience. For example, when I was a college swimmer, I worked at swim camps in the summers. That’s experience. And it’s not like putting someone without an experience in a critical cabinet position because a critical cabinet position is not entry level. There are entry level jobs across almost every industry and things work out just fine. College coaching should not be different.
In swimming at least – the money is simply not there. We know that already. There will now just be less opportunities for coaches to break into the business.
The policy of allowing unpaid volunteers ended in 2023 and many programs added an additional paid assistant after that. Schools may have wanted to before, but the NCAA limited them.
Actually…while the formal role of “volunteer assistant” ended, I don’t believe there’s any requirement that assistants get paid. It’s just that you can’t call someone a “volunteer” anymore and skirt around coach limits. Every assistant has the same rights and responsibilities and counts against the limit, whether they’re paid or not.
Again, I could be wrong, and maybe this settlement does create a new policy, but…I’m pretty sure there are still unpaid assistants.
Yes but now if you’re offering zero dollars for an assistant position, you have to compete against other schools who are paying it.
Before, schools could confidently offer positions with no pay to prospective coaches, because they knew everyone else was offering the same.
This is true. I was a volunteer during the entire period of this lawsuit and have graduated to assistant coach (unpaid).