The presidents and chancellors of the Big 12 Conference voted unanimously to authorize the settlement of House v. NCAA, Yahoo Sports and ESPN reported Tuesday.
The Big 12 is the first power conference to take that step, with the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC expected to join it in the coming days.
If and when the settlement is approved, athletes will be given a much larger share of the pie of college sports revenue. According to the reports, one of the chief features of the settlement is a fund of nearly $2.8 billion in back damages for former college athletes who were not allowed to capitalize on their name, image and likeness (NIL) rights before 2021.
The NCAA would pay those damages out over 10 years and about 60 percent of it will come from payments withheld by the NCAA to member schools, according to Yahoo.
The settlement also would establish a revenue-sharing model, likely in the fall of 2025, that forever changes how college athletes can make money. The cap would equal 22 percent of the average of a power conference school’s media rights, ticket sales and sponsorship income, Yahoo reported.
The third major change the settlement would bring roster limits to power-conference sports.
The power conferences believe settling House vs. NCAA is the right decision in order to avoid being on the hook for an even larger number in damages in the future, reports said.
The move is not universally popular. Big East commissioner Val Ackerman told member schools of her “strong objection” to the settlement proposal in an email this weekend, Yahoo reported. At issue was how much the Big East, a non-football playing school, would be responsible for in back damages when the FBS conferences’ liability is “disproportionately high.”
–Field Level Media
