30 Year War Ends

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thousands of miles away, but literally just hours before Florida
and Houston tipped off the National Championship Game of college basketball,
the NCAA's showcase event. A bespectacled woman with curly graying hair,
wearing a leather jacket and carrying a beige tote bag
and black purse, crossed to Jefferson Street in downtown Oakland, California.

(00:22):
She walked up two flights of marble steps, entered the
Ronald Dellhams Federal Building and US Courthouse for her day's work.
She is US District Court Judge Claudio Wilkin, who in
her hands holds the future of American college athletics. The
National Collegiate Athletic Association, a one hundred year old governing

(00:43):
body created by President Theodore Roosevelt to preserve college sports
for the generations, was to hear last rites for the
rest of the day in a small third floor courtroom
and in front of about seventy five Wilkin presided over
court proceeding marking the end of the thirty year war

(01:04):
between athletes and the organization of member colleges and universities
they made rich. She heard final arguments in the billion
dollar settlement of three lawsuits led by a former Arizona
state swimmer, Grant House, who sued the NCAA over its
rules denying him the ability to earn from his name, image,

(01:24):
and likeness. But it also tied together other antitrust lawsuits
which have spent thirty years working their way through the
judicial system. Wilkin hinted that if the two sides can
agree on two issues, the grandfathering of current athletes including recruits,
temporarily uncapping roster limits, and clarifying binding language involving payments

(01:47):
to former athletes, she will approve, which means schools will
now be allowed to share twenty two percent of their
annual revenues to an initial cap of twenty point five
million dollars per year with the athletes, rendering them professionals.
The settlement includes two point eight billion dollars to be
paid over the next ten years to former athletes who

(02:08):
were denied access to the marketplace beginning in twenty sixteen.
The settlement will also implement roster limits for each sport.
This means schools are free to allocate grants in aid
in any way they choose, but by limiting roster sizes.
It's clear more full scholarships will be the norm, ending
the age of the walk on. How will this settlement

(02:28):
affect the current NIL system of private collectives raising booster
money to both compensate and entice athletes to your program. Well,
the revenue share is no cap. The athletes will still
be able to sign third party deals. If the judge
approves this settlement and it survives any other core challenges,
the collectives will now be regulated. Any NIL offer higher

(02:49):
than six hundred dollars must be approved by the national
accounting firm Deloitte. It will vet the proposal ensuring that
it meets SINCERE guidelines on celebrity commercial value. In other words,
the cash for a recruiting visit or some private donor
activity will theoretically cease. Any public use of an athlete
will likely be approved. This will prove very difficult to enforce,

(03:13):
or it will require the athlete and or the school
to self report. How will the revenue share funds be distributed?
Expect seventy five percent of them to go to football players,
fifteen to twenty percent to men's basketball players, five to
ten percent for women's volleyball and basketball, with the rest
for Olympic sports. There are still many questions if some

(03:33):
conferences opt out of the settlement, what happens. Well. The
Big East and Creighton, for example, have hinted as much,
since a big chunk of that money for ex athletes
is to come from future NCAA tournament revenues. Those schools
don't have football, so they don't have to accept the
revenue share language of this agreement. They'll do their own
rev share, which could literally come from university revenues. Creighton

(03:55):
went on a big nil spending spree last week. That
cash is coming from somewhere, And is this it for
the NCAA. Yes, in its former life, but it's not
going away. It'll still oversee the revenue sharing agreements and
stage its championship events like the Basketball Tournament and the
College World Series. To some degree, it will monitor academic eligibility,

(04:18):
but the game now belongs to the big conferences and
the schools alone. It's getting a big handoff from one judge.