The Ivy League will not join the House vs. NCAA settlement that will allow schools to pay athletes directly, while the Coastal Athletic Conference has affirmed it will opt into the settlement by March 1, 2025.
The House vs. NCAA settlement accuses the NCAA and its five biggest conferences—the former Power 5—of restricting athletes’ ability to earn their cut of the college sports entertainment business. It received preliminary approval from Judge Claudia Wilken and will have a final approval hearing on April 7. If approved, the settlement will send millions in backpay to NCAA athletes and replace scholarship caps with roster limits, which has caused much stress among Olympic sports programs. It will also establish a 10-year revenue-sharing model allowing NCAA conferences and member schools to share 22% of their annual revenue with student-athletes.
The former Power 5 conferences—the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and PAC-12—who are defendants in the settlement, have agreed to this model. Other conferences and schools can decide to opt into the proposed revenue-sharing model.
The CAA released a statement on Wednesday, Jan. 29, announcing its Board of Directors and member institutions had agreed to commit to the settlement. Opting into the settlement allows the CAA schools to facilitate NIL deals and engage in revenue-sharing with athletes. It also places financial obligations on the conference. According to HBCU Gameday, “the NCAA is reducing revenue distributions to Division I schools over the next decade to fund the $2.8 billion settlement, with 60% of the burden falling on conferences like the CAA,” that is to say, Division I mid-major conference schools as opposed to the now Power 4 conferences.
Conversely, the Ivy League has decided against joining this landscape-shifting settlement. The move was first reported by the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper, on Jan. 22, after Ivy League executive director Robin Harris sent an email announcing the decision to Ivy League players and coaches on Jan. 21.
The decision, made by the Ivy League Council of Presidents with the recommendation of the Ivy League Athletics Directors and Policy Committee, is unsurprising given the conference’s historic attitude about the relationship between money and athletics. The conference does not provide athletic scholarships, nor has it participated in athlete compensation via NIL collectives, which have become a prominent trend in attracting athletes to an institution. Last month, the Dartmouth men’s basketball program ended its attempt to unionize–which could’ve made made them the first college athletes to bargain for a contract–as they anticipated a shifting National Labor Relations Board.
The Ivy League’s decision to stay out of the House settlement means “pay for play” deals are not available to its athletes, endorsement deals and sponsorship deals will remain available, as will athletes’ ability to participate in brand-based NIL activities. Even though the conference has not opted into the settlement deal, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports it will still be bound to the “clearinghouse” terms of the settlement requiring all student-athletes to disclose payments over $600 to a third-party clearinghouse that has the power to block any NIL payment it deems a “pay for play” alternative.
Conferences have until March 1 to opt into the settlement, so more decisions should be announced in the coming weeks.
Any indication what the Big East will do since they are a basketball conference?
Does this mean the CAA would be imposing roster limits?
Should be the case. With football in the conference, as poor as it is, this will most likely drop swim rosters.
My child swims in the CAA and they are indeed cutting rosters down.
Since this whole thing basically revolves around men’s football and basketball, why can’t we just make those 2 sports separate from the NCAA so that the remaining ncaa sports, including Olympic sports, thrive? When 18 year old football players can start making millions in college, the whole premise of amateurism is gone anyway. When football coaches make more than the entire budget for m/w swimming, diving and waterpolo combined, in one year, why are we still trying to keep them together?
Because without the money the NCAA and athletic departments redistribute from football and basketball, many athletic programs will struggle to function. There are a lot of things I don’t like about the NCAA’s governance, but the tv deals for the men’s and women’s DI basketball tournaments pay for so many other sports. The NCAA redistributed $669 million to DI athletic departments after the 2022-23 school year, which is about $2 million per DI school. A drop in the bucket for P4 schools, but Fairleigh Dickinson knocked a one-seed out of the tournament with a $14 million budget for its entire athletic department. Losing even half a million from the NCAA would be tough to overcome.
Here is a link to the CAA statement:
https://caasports.com/news/2025/1/29/general-caa-board-of-directors-commits-to-opt-into-house-settlement.aspx
Grant House has somehow managed to single handedly screw over all Olympic sports programs in the NCAA. Swimming will see zero benefit from this.
Very narrow-minded understanding of the issue and House’s actual involvement in the final settlement. While the settlement terms certainly don’t help Olympic sports it is moronic to blame him. He was the named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit—1000’s of plaintiffs. Olympic sports have done nothing to help themselves preserve the collegiate feeder program system. Laziness, apathy, lack of vision is the real culprit. Fifteen years ago I was saying Olympic sports should be collectively lobbying congress to amend the ASA to require colleges receiving federal funds to dedicate a certain percentage of their athletic budgets to Olympic sports. Or demand legislation carving out football from certain equity laws in exhange for better women’s sports funding.
Good ideas. The SEC seems to be leading the way in a quiet dismantling of swimming and other Olympic sports, while maximizing football revenues. These are public schools that are supposed to be focused on the public good. Gutting our Olympic pipeline is not good for our public universities or the U.S. Athletics directors should not be deciding Olympic sports’ fate behind closed doors, especially when they are rewarded for maximizing football profits. Federal intervention is required.
I think the SEC was looking at the overall sports offerings by the conference and Title IX, I do not agree with the 22 male swimmers and think it will hurt SEC swimming a lot, but without looking at what the SEC did for all the sports, I think that is the link.
“Single-handedly” with the 15,000 other member of the class action. Safelite has around 15,000 employees. How would you react if CEO Renee Cacchillo said she was single-handedly responsible for all those windshield repairs and replacements?