From this fall, the schools of Division I of the NCAA will be able to pay the players directly to a salary ceiling of $ 20.5 million.
Jae C. Hong / AP
hide
tilting legend
Jae C. Hong / AP
A federal judge has approved the legal action for the current action of several billion dollars known as House c. Ncaapave the way for a new era for university sports.
From this fall, the colleges And the universities of the main NCAA division will be allowed to pay the athletes directly for the first time. Payments will be limited by a salary ceiling initially set at $ 20.5 million per school. And more than $ 2 billion will be paid to the former university athletes who were not allowed to earn money while they were at school.
“Despite certain compromises, the settlement agreement will nevertheless lead to an extraordinary compensation for members of the settlement courses,” wrote US District Judge Claudia Wilken in Friday’s order.
The approval of the regulations “marks a huge step forward for university sports”, ” said NCAA president Charlie Baker. Direct payments to players, he added, “is an extremely positive change that has been expected for a long time.”
Origins of the colony
For decades, university athletics was governed by the amateurism tradition, and NCAA rules have prohibited schools from compensating for players – called “students -athletes” by NCAA – with anything beyond a scholarship that covered the costs of schooling and attendance at the college.
But money in large -scale university sports has increased exponentially in recent decades. High -level sports departments are raating hundreds of millions of dollars from broadcasting offers, ticket sales, donations and license agreements.
“Money has become too important not to allow athletes to obtain a cup,” said Noah Henderson, a unique college golfer who now runs the sports management program at the University of Loyola Chicago.
THE Home The regulations were born from three different proceedings on the issue of remuneration of collegial athletes. The complainants were a class of some 390,000 current and old university athletes, and the defendants were the NCAA and five of its sports conferences. Negotiations have taken over a year.
How does the regulations work
There are two main parts of the Home Settlement: the one who looks back, and the one waiting forward.
By looking back, the NCAA and the schools agreed to pay $ 2.75 billion to the former university athletes who played before 2021. It was the year when the NCAA modified its rules to allow players to sign license agreements to earn money from their name, their image and their resemblance, known as Nile. Men’s football and basketball players will win the greatest payments, with eminent athletes who have played in the grandes écoles which earn up to five or six digits.
In the future, the regulations set up a new system that will allow schools to pay players directly. Schools will be able to decide which players will pay and how much to pay them. Most of the remuneration is expected to be reserved for players in sports that generate the most income for schools: mainly football, as well as male and female basketball.
The regulations also fix a salary ceiling. For each school, players’ compensation in all sports will count against a ceiling initially set at $ 20.5 million and this could increase up to $ 33 million in 2035. New alignment limits, which replace traditional stock market limits for each sport. Schools can grant as many scholarships as they wish, but team sizes are limited.
About half of the 365 NCAA Division I schools should adopt the new framework, either because their conferences – the dry, ACC, BIG TEN, BIG 12 and PAC -12 – are appointed defendants and they are required to comply with the regulations or because they are supposed to opt for its conditions, according to legal documents filed by lawyers negotiating the settlement. Some schools, in particular those of the subdivision of lower football and those without football teams, will withdraw from the regulations and will continue to compensate for athletes only with scholarships and other attendance costs.
Name, image and resemblance
Since 2021, when the NCAA has authorized players for the first time to obtain compensation for their names, image and resemblance, zero payments have become a de facto payment system. The star players, such as the Duke basketball phenomenon, Cooper Flagg, won millions of dollars on these offers.
Another key element of the regulation aims at these Nile oversized transactions by establishing a third -party exchange center to examine the license agreements for “just market value”.
This concept was criticized by some in university sports. It is also likely to face legal challenges, said Sam Ehrlich, professor at the Boisse State University who follows university sports disputes.
“There will be important questions to move forward on the type of power of Clearinghouse and if the exchange center is even legal,” said Ehrlich last month.