[Sorry for cross posting on the "roster limits" thread. Apparently any Trump EO will remake or repurpose some commission on college sports and likely include Saban?! At least that was the news of the day] Plenty of reporting out now about this. Not sure how I would feel about this if I was one of the litigants. That is, had complained about losing a spot. Seems up to each school or conference to decide is not very reassuring. She gave time for concerns to be raised. This definitely means the full details and the big public announcement definitely pushed back another week or two at least. According to a filing made Wednesday, House attorneys have agreed that schools will be permitted to grandfather in a range of athletes, according to Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger, who notes those athletes include: (1) those currently on a roster; (2) those athletes who have already been cut this year; and (3) those high school recruits who enrolled at a school after committing to a roster position only to see it eliminated.” Dellenger adds that, as he reported last week, the revision is “not mandatory but is at each school’s discretion — a move that is seen as a compromise from the power leagues to the judge’s wishes.” As part of the settlement revision, schools would be “expected to track their protected/grandfathered-in roster spots with a rolling list of exceptions. Those protected athletes would presumably roll off the exception list as their eligibility expires. These exceptions would permit a school to exceed roster limits tied to the settlement.” Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken said she would allow objectors to file responses to the revision by May 13. The plaintiffs and the NCAA would then have three days to respond.
Attorneys for the parties in the House Settlement have begun submitting comments or concerns to the proposed methods of Grandfathering in the cut/dropped athletes due to roster limits. They are due Friday. To say this is going to be a cluster___ is an understatement. Some of the provisions of the actual NIL regulation are also going to be immediately challenged in court. Namely that boosters, through collectives, will be under much more scrutiny and regulation and they will certainly object to putting the genie back in the bottle. Sportico’s Michael McCann notes that attorney Laura Reathaford’s objection to the revised House settlement includes a request that, should U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken approve the settlement, she also stay implementation of the injunction “until the resolution of all appeals.” Reathaford contends that approach would prevent “fundamental unfairness” in the form of athletes immediately losing roster spots. McCann explains that’s an “important request, because a stay of the injunction likely means the settlement wouldn’t go into effect for many months (if ever), since objectors would appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. Given that many conferences and colleges have acted as if the settlement is a done deal for the 2025-26 academic year, a stay would mean those institutions’ leaders made an erroneous and overconfident assumption.” Meanwhile, an objection filed by attorneys Douglas M. DePeppe and Robert B. Hinckley Jr. argue that giving the schools the option to grandfather in players is unlikely to protect many athletes: “The member schools, many of whom having made roster cuts just in the weeks since April 23, have no intrinsic incentive to reverse course and invite back their cut athletes.” McCann observes that “many of the points raised in these memos are difficult to rebut from a factual standpoint. … The relevant legal question is whether what might be seen as ‘less bad’ is ‘good enough’ for Wilken. The judge has described most of the settlement’s terms…in a favorable light. She also doesn’t need to regard the settlement as perfect or excellent, but instead a more modest assessment that it is reasonable.”
While the boosters may not like it and attorneys can be very creative in the legal arguments they dig up, I'm having some trouble thinking of viable legal arguments they might make. I think the biggest question is going to be whether boosters who contribute into a school-run NIL pool of money can direct where their contributions will go. Part of that question is going to be Title IX related.
Many of the, ahem, student-athletes who get NIL money do little or nothing to earn that money. That's a problem and shows that NIL is often not a legit business arrangement but rather just giving money to players.
What’s the data behind this? Not saying it’s wrong, just curious on where you’ve seen it? At the same time, that’s what everything is written to be as well — even with a lot of the Olympic money. Nothing is truly given on performance. Some of it is the understanding of performance OR expectations on performance. For NCAA specifically, NIL money cannot be tied to athletic performance.
This actually is somewhat a part of the proposed settlement. There are small amounts of NIL money that do not have to go through a school, but the amount paid directly by a business to the athlete must be reasonable in relation to the value the business derives from being able to use the athlete's name, image, or likeness. One of the big accounting firms will be the gatekeeper for the process of enforcing this stringent limitation on what a business directly can pay an athlete. All the rest of the money must go through the school, the school (theoretically) can decide how to distribute it, and there is no requirement that the amount given to an athlete reflect some value the athlete contributes.
Simply a sad statement on where college athletics has traveled in my lifetime. This is all Dicken's "Bleak House."
So, there are some ideas out there to reaffirm funding commitments for Olympic sports. No idea how much weight a Knight Commission recommendation would have frankly. Don't know if United Soccer Coaches has discussed taking a position on this one. Not sure how much schools would like to be told how many sports to have and at what ratio's to fund them. I think Colorado would have to add 3 sports! Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger reports an interesting proposal to preserve Olympic sports was submitted at the Knight Commission meeting today. Specifically, “Olympic coaches associations are pushing for a law to (1) codify NCAA sport minimum (16 for FBS) and (2) require schools maintain current average resource allocations for non-FB/BSK sports.” AVCA CEO Jaime Gordon shared more on the required allocation, pointing out to Dellenger that FBS schools allocate 65% of their budget to football and basketball and 35% on other sports. Under the proposal, that funding level would be maintained in perpetuity. Dellenger adds that “Gordon told the Knight Commission that 32 Olympic sports programs in Division I have been cut since the announcement of the House settlement – a loss of 966 roster spots. That does not include Saint Francis moving all 22 programs to Division III.”
On looking at the transfer numbers for the Power 4 conferences, it appears that for a good number of Power 4 women soccer players, soccer no longer is an extracurricular activity. Rather, classes are the extracurricular activity.
Still waiting for the House settlement to go final and public. The NIL Go admin service is apparently ready to go live 3 days after to approve legit NIL deals. So, there will now be 3 ways or lanes to fund students - traditional scholarships (with new max limits), the revenue share funds (up to around 20M per school), and then legit and approved NIL deals (approved by this new clearinghouse as legit pay for services contracts). So called 3rd-party NIL deals are not permitted but apparently FB Coaches are looking for ways to keep paying kids that signed contracts and committed in the present wildwest system. Could get ugly as NIL Go is going to get swamped immediately with submissions. Paul Finebaum is at the conference meetings with his radio/podcast and hearing lots of stuff from commissioners, ADs, and coaches. One strong rumor is that the SEC is ready to just leave the NCAA. Another is an SEC/Big10 alliance to leave. Another is that the P4 and/or with the G5s, all leave to create a new governance structure. Some of these ideas have been around since the BCS was created in 1998. The CFP playoff replaced it so you could say there already is a separate governance model but just for D1 Football. How much do the BB folks want to stay in the current D1 setup?? Always the question as Olympics sports are an afterthought - even though some do have revenue and sell out venues. About women's soccer - as predicted, some school will run out and fully fund the 28 roster spots. Many more will gradually do so. The UNC AD is quoted by Dellinger saying they will prob not ever get to full funding but will be increasing scholarships more gradually. (wonder what Belichick and his 'advisor' think of that statement) Here is some reporting as Texas A&M went public going to full funding. Ross Dellenger @RossDellenger Texas A&M has decided to fully fund every roster position, increasing its total scholarship allotment by more than 150, AD Trev Alberts says. Aggies join Tennessee, Clemson and some others in completely scholarshipping each sport. May 27, 2025
https://www.espn.com/college-sports...grants-final-approval-house-v-ncaa-settlement This one is finally done. Let the next round of lawsuits begin.
MLS — yeah. Look at the elite 8 in men’s soccer. maybe one or two off players will spend their freshman year at a non p4 in women’s soccer (gtown, Santa Clara until Smith retires etc.) but I don’t think we will see any of those teams in the college cup again. If they do it will be really against the $$$… though some of those type schools are massively increasing scholarships as well.
Hope this shows. timelines published. Roster limits only apply to those that opt-in. “Designated” SAs don’t count for roster max limits. Just released by the new "College Sports Commission": a timeline of how the settlement will be implemented, including key dates for the "designated student-athletes" who will not count towards roster limits. pic.twitter.com/CYuE0LiemY— Sam C. Ehrlich (@samcehrlich) June 7, 2025
Not sure I was clear. In Chile, they have a club called U de Chile, which is somehow associated with the university down there. And actually BYU club soccer used to compete in League Two when it was PDL. So I'm talking more like colleges in the US forming pro soccer teams in pro soccer leagues. Like, I wanna see a Red Bulls/Nittany Lions MLS Cup final. Or a Gotham/UNC NWSL final to bring is back to woso. lol.
You are not far off. Start a thread for this maybe. There are lots of college club teams that compete at their own expense. Some get decent funding from their sga or campus activities office for refs, travel, etc,. They can usually play a wide variety of teams. Jucos for example, those semi-pro type teams tend to be more summer than school year but they can scrimmage anyone. NWSL and International teams already play college teams when the calendars work out. Could there be a growth in club sports in the P4 with the roster maxes? Yes, there should be. More kids will stay, and not transfer, or even choose the bigger school and 'just play club'. Remember, there are sports much more affected by roster caps then WS - track, swimming, lacrosse has big rosters, so does baseball. Football just went to 105. Can't wait to see how they handle the next 20 kids or so. The practice of 'gray shirting' or delaying joining the team until the spring will grow. So will using gap years. Could they play in the G-league (or USL) for some money now and then go to college? What will become of "amateurism". For soccer, maybe some of the summer semi-pro leagues extend into a fall season? Somewhere it could happen. Prob is already on the mens side, just stay with the team and stay mixed in with the recent grads just like summer, but for a fall season. Could some college sports clubs spend more money now perhaps? even recruit more with money? Gear deals and some nil money? I would bet your common club sports like hockey or rugby are thinking through this all of course. We'll see...
Check out this article on the now almost "ready to roll" Title IX lawsuits that will come out of the now-approved House settlement: Colleges Prep for Atthlete Title IX Lawsuits of the Revenue-Share Era. As a retired attorney who has followed these issues pretty closely, I think this article presents a really well written and unbiased picture of the post-House Title IX landscape.
Here you go. Some in the group are soccer players. This would delay the payment of damages to current/former athletes but not the settlement terms going forward. You imagine that as funds do begin to be distributed going forward, there will be challenges if they are not as proportionate as Title IX suggests they should be. The current OCR may not enforce Title IX much presently, but unless Congress changes the law, judges can certainly rule on the legality of any of the House settlement provisions. A group of eight women filed an appeal of the House settlement on Wednesday, arguing that it violates Title IX, according to Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich, who notes the appeal “only challenged the back damages portion of the settlement. … The law firm Hutchinson Black and Cook, which filed the appeal on behalf of the athletes, also filed one of many objections to the settlement during its approval process. But now, the firm is making another attempt. The eight athletes are a mix of track, soccer, and volleyball players: Kacie Breeding from Vanderbilt; Lexi Drumm, Emma Appleman, Emmie Wannemacher, Riley Hass, Savannah Baron, and Elizabeth Arnold from the College of Charleston, and Kate Johnson from the University of Virginia.” Attorney Ashlyn Hare: “Paying out the money as proposed would be a massive error that would cause irreparable harm to women’s sports. The settlement suggests schools would have paid male athletes over 90% of their revenue over the past six years as though Title IX didn’t apply. If Nike wants to do that, that is their choice. If the school, or a conference acting on the school’s behalf tries to do that, they are violating the law. They can either pay the athletes proportionately, or they can return all of their federal funds. But they can’t do both.”
NCAA President Baker is hopeful about P4 Olympic sports going forward. So there's that... More from NCAA President Charlie Baker’s sitdown with Sports Illustrated’s Bryan Fischer for Collegiate Sports Connect at the 2025 NACDA Convention, during which Baker says of the House settlement’s impact on Olympic sports: "Virtually all of the P4 schools, which is where a majority of the Olympic athletes come from, have all said they're going to continue to support their Olympic programs and many of them have actually talked about the fact that they’re going to scholarship a lot more people in their Olympic programs as a result of this – and a lot more folks in their women’s programs as a result of this settlement. So, I remain fairly hopeful about that. I think the bigger challenge on all the Olympic stuff is just going to come down to – we have a great relationship with the USOPC, and we're just going to have to make sure that we continue to stay close to them as we go forward here.”