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After two months of deliberation, the settlement in House vs. NCAA has been approved.
This is a watershed moment in college athletics as, effective Saturday, schools are permitted to pay players directly as part of revenue sharing. Athletics departments that opt into House will have roughly $20.5 million to spend on all sports each year, though that budget can still be supplemented with money from NIL agreements.
Of that $20.5 million, upwards of $16 million or more is expected to be spent on football.
The settlement ended three separate federal antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA, which claimed the organization's limitations on athletes' ability to profit were illegal. As part of the settlement, the NCAA will also pay nearly $2.8 billion in retroactive damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed in college beginning in 2016.
Despite some uncertainty about whether Judge Claudia Wilken would approve the settlement, schools had already begun putting revenue-sharing language into coaching and NIL contracts, with payments expected to begin on July 1 of this year.
There will certainly be legal challenges to come, and whether athletes will receive employee status will likely be at the forefront of those disputes. But Friday's ruling has fundamentally changed the shape of college athletics, representing something of a culmination to the events that began when the United States Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA in 2021, paving the way for players to receive payments based on their name, image and likeness.
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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: Judge approves House settlement, paving the way for direct payments to college athletes
Reporting by Tyler Nettuno, College Sports Wire / College Sports Wire
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