NCAA Conditionally Eliminates Over 150 Rules Pending House Settlement Approval

The NCAA has approved a series of rule changes to pave the way for the House v. NCAA settlement to come into effect beginning on July 1.

A total of 153 rules and bylaws will be eliminated in anticipation of the settlement’s approval, setting the stage for college athletes to receive direct payments from their schools.

The Division I Board of Directors put forth nine proposals that will end many of the amateurism rules that have shaped college sports since the NCAA was founded in 1906.

The Board eliminated team scholarship limits for institutions and will now allow “institutions that provide student-athletes with settlement-related benefits to provide any amount of an athletics scholarship (up to cost of attendance) to any student-athlete included on a team’s submitted roster.”

The NCAA outlined some of the proposals passed on Monday:

Courtesy of the NCAA

• Permitting schools to provide full scholarships to all student-athletes on a declared roster and eliminating sport-by-sport scholarship maximums, giving schools much greater flexibility in providing athletics aid and doubling the scholarships available in women’s sports.
• Modifying rules to allow autonomy conference schools and others who opt to offer settlement-related benefits to provide up to $20.5 million in direct financial benefits to student-athletes.
• Introducing rules intended to bring clarity and stability to the NIL environment for all Division I schools, including allowing for additional independent review of third-party NIL agreements between student-athletes and entities that are associated with a particular school.
• The creation of technology platforms for schools to monitor their payments to student-athletes and for student-athletes to report their third-party NIL agreements.
• Rules that address steps student-athletes can take if an NIL agreement is considered outside of the range of compensation developed by the external, independent clearinghouse.
• The creation of an enforcement group — created and operated by the defendant conferences — that would provide oversight for rules relating to the terms of the settlement, including third-party NIL and the annual benefits cap.
• A requirement that for student-athletes to receive the new benefits, they must be enrolled full-time, meet Division I progress-toward-degree requirements and receive such benefits during their period of eligibility (e.g., five-year clock).

A summary of legislative changes the NCAA Board made today (contingent on House settlement approval), including elimination of many amateurism rules and addition of roster limits, the new NIL Clearinghouse and enforcement arm that align with settlement terms. https://t.co/ZtdwxbCmcZ pic.twitter.com/GUjg3pUQM3

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) April 21, 2025

The move from the NCAA comes in the wake of the final approval hearing in the House v. NCAA case earlier this month, where Judge Claudia Wilken raised some concerns with the settlement terms but ultimately didn’t indicate final approval was in jeopardy.

Plaintiffs and the NCAA filed a joint report last week addressing Wilken’s concerns, notably opting not to phase in roster limits, arguing that implementing roster limits immediately as part of the overall settlement compromise is both “fair and reasonable.”

Most recently, a note was added to the House settlement docket, with class members who are not named class representatives in the case sending letters to the Clerk.

I’ve had a lot of people message me asking about this. This just in. It looks like Judge Wilken will be docketing all the comment letters that were recently submitted. I interpret this to mean: “I hear you out there.” But let’s see if those letters influence her decision. pic.twitter.com/0BWfFcCvi5

— Philip Sheng (@therealshenger) April 18, 2025

Boise State assistant professor Sam Ehrlich has added a section to his College Sports Litigation Tracker that includes all of the letters that have been posted to the House v. NCAA docket, and the vast majority of them are related to roster limits.

Ehrlich noted on Monday evening that he counted 51 letters on the docket, all but two of which were roster limit-related.

However, at this juncture, the college sports industry continues to operate as if Wilken will grant final approval to the settlement in the near future.