NCAA athletes have started to receive their estimated settlement payments from the House v. NCAA class action lawsuit, with the figures ranging higher than initially expected for some lower-level athletes, and lower than expected for some of the more successful collegiate swimmers.
SwimSwam received confirmation from two sources, both former NCAA Division I swimmers, that their estimated compensation had been posted. All payments are pending final acceptance of the House settlement, which is expected in the next few months. The court will hold a final approval hearing to decide whether to approve the settlement on April 7, 2025.
One of the athletes, a male swimmer from an SEC school who made the C-finals at the SEC Championships, is estimated to receive approximately $286.92 in athletic services compensation. As a high-achieving student, that swimmer is also estimated to receive an additional $3,140.17 in Alston Award payment, a payment reserved specifically for schools to award as a result of academic achievement. According to the NCAA, schools may award up to $5,980 annually for the Alston Award.
Another athlete told SwimSwam that she is estimated to receive $426.00 in athletic services payment after swimming at a PAC-12 school for two years. During those two years, the swimmer participated in the PAC-12 Championships but never scored. In addition to her athletic compensation, she is estimated to receive $813.36 for the Alston Award, which the swimmer told us is the remaining balance that her school currently owes her from a previous Alston Award.
One NCAA Champion, though, was not as excited about their outcome, saying that they received similar compensation to their teammates who did not have as much success in the pool. That swimmer reported around $600 in estimated athletic compensation in addition to $3,100 in Alston Award funds.
The House v. NCAA lawsuit, issued by former ASU Swimmer Grant House alongside TCU women’s basketball player Sedona Prince, is set to dramatically change the landscape of college athletics. The lawsuit allows for revenue sharing between schools and athletes, allowing direct revenue generated by university sports teams to go to their players. In addition, it will distribute $2.8 billion in backpay over ten years to NCAA athletes who mostly played from 2016 to 2021, with athletes now seeing the results of these payments.
When the case was granted preliminary approval in October 2024, concerns were raised about how the lawsuit would impact non-revenue sports such as swimming and diving. One of the major impacts on swimming and diving programs is that under the preliminarily approved settlement, scholarship caps have been axed in favor of roster limits. Sources told SwimSwam in October that the SEC will impose a 22-athlete roster cap on men’s swimming and diving teams.
If Judge Claudia Wilken grants the preliminary settlement final approval at the hearing in April, payments are expected to be finalized and distributed shortly after.
SwimSwam is interested in collecting data on the estimated compensation for former NCAA swimmers. Want to help? Submit the form below with your data.
SwimSwam’s House v NCAA Compensation Reporting Form
To get your estimate, go to collegeathletecompensation.com, scroll down, and click “To view your estimated payment amounts, click HERE.” Then give them your NCAA eligibility number or the information from your claims email. If you have not submitted your claim yet, find your NCAA eligibility number in the old emails you received during the recruitment process or call the NCAA eligibility office at 1-877-262-1492. The final deadline to submit a claim is January 31, 2025.
We need to collect your name and school to verify that the form was filled out by you, but if you ask to be anonymized, we will only share by your accomplishments, i.e. “a 3-year swimmer in the SEC who qualified for NCAAs once but did not score.”
They forgot to mention these amounts are paid out over 10 years…
I don’t understand any of this… but does House himself get more by virtue of being a named plaintiff?
Yes
Yes. That’s fairly common.
Geez this is ruining sports…
Let me start by saying that I hate what is happening to college sport. I used to want to work in collegiate athletics, but not anymore with what’s going on. With that being said, I put my eligibility number into the calculator out of curiosity because I feel it should be zero. It was $91.78. I scored about 5 individual points and swam in one point scoring relay in my four years at a mid-major. Did not a big social media following where I would have gotten brand deals. I feel like that number should be 0.
The “class” of plaintiffs really need to be able to opt in or out of suits like this when they are awarded their settlement. And if the class rejects the settlement, the attorneys should not be entitled either.
This case is translating to the destruction of college sports to little to no benefit even for the “beneficiaries” of the settlement and instead all to the lawyers. If it isn’t good for the class, it should not be accepted by the courts.
Football players are getting $3k. Swimmers are done if they aren’t Olympians or the plaintiff
Total bullshit. They declared as amateur athletes and signed that contract. The rules changed and should not be retroactive. Most swimmers received years of coaching, athletic training, health and dental care, suits, gear, travel and oh yeah, tuition and opportunity for a degree.
What a complete joke.
Why should athletes from non-revenue producing sports expect more than zero?
Right?! I imagine a end of year review something like:
“Thanks for the great year. As 1 member of the 25 member team, you are clearly entitled to 4% of our profit. Let me just check the numbers real quick….. Okay. Looks like the swim team lost $1.2m last year. So you will owe us $48,000! We wanted to again say how much we appreciate your hard work and are super excited to see your progression this year and are excited to see what we can do next year!”
This is the big challenge and why there needs to be a legislative carveout.
The law doesn’t allow you to say you don’t have to pay your employees unless your business is making money. And while everyone’s dancing around calling them employees, that’s sort of the nuclear winter we’re heading toward.
But it’s also kind of silly for a program with $5 million in expenses and $10,000 in revenue to expect its athletes to get a piece of the pie.
The law was built around the real world, and is a good law. Sports are not the real world in so many ways.
If I were trying to lobby for legislation, I would pull something together that would try to… Read more »