The House vs. NCAA settlement deal has dominated college sports in the past year, as the landscape governing institutions paying student-athletes has been altered irrevocably. The settlement has not been accepted in all quarters and some players recently went to court to dispute the details of the $2.75 billion settlement.
The historic settlement mandated that student-athletes who competed between 2016 and 2024 be party to the huge settlement due to their Names, Images and Likenesses being utilized by programs without compensation during those years.
On Tuesday, former LSU Tigers gymnast Olivia Dunne, who has been the highest-earning female athlete in the NIL era, testified against the $2.75 billion settlement granted to student-athletes in the settlement.
“This settlement uses old logic to calculate modern value,” Dunne said in front of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken. “It takes a narrow snapshot of a still maturing market and freezes it, ignoring the trajectory we were on and the deals we lost and the future we could have had.”
When the case started, TCU Horned Frogs star Sedona Prince, who was one of the primary plaintiffs, spoke about the expected verdict of the House vs. NCAA settlement by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken.
“I know she (Wilken) has the athletes’ best interests in mind, always,” Prince said. “She obviously is touched by the athletes that have been here and spoken today. I’m confident that we’ll reach a settlement. Obviously there are many more things people have brought up here that we need to address and talk about and fix. It’s the first step to a very long road of change and the beginning of a new industry.”
Judge leaning towards House vs. NCAA settlement deal
After hearing from the defendants in the House vs. NCAA settlement case, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken will give her decision in the coming weeks, although, in her closing statement, she sided with the basic structure of the agreed-upon amount.
“Basically I think it is a good settlement, don’t quote me, and I think it’s worth pursuing,” Wilken said. “I think some of these things could be fixed if people tried to fix them and that it would be worth their while to try to fix them.”
If approved, programs all over the country will be required to share up to $20.5 million annually with their student-athletes effective from Jul. 1 in line with the historic House vs. NCAA settlement. The knock-on effects could also see football teams have roster cuts with 105 spots instead of the traditional 128 to deal with the revenue-sharing aspect of the settlement.
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