But it is unclear just what those changes will look like.
There is a lot of conjecture as to what will happen with college sports following the apparent settlement of the House versus National Collegiate Athletic Association class action lawsuit. The only thing that is known is this. If the settlement is approved by Judge Claudia Wilken, the NCAA is going to be sending a lot of money to so-called student athletes. The House versus NCAA lawsuit was filed by Grant House and Sedona Prince, two college athletes, against the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences, the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast Conferences, in the United States District Court Northern District of California Oakland Division in 2020. The lawsuit claimed the NCAA restricted how much student athletes can earn in outside employment.
NCAA members apparently decided to settle the case after it realized just how many billions of dollars it could lose by losing the case. The NCAA is just an umbrella organization looking after the welfare of its member schools, not the so-called “student-athletes” that the organization claims to look after. Just how the agreed framework to the settlement of the class-action suit is going to play out is unknown. Will the NCAA splinter into various organizations with college football becoming an entity by itself? What happens to conferences such as the Big East? The big-time conferences with big television contracts should be able to continue even if those conferences have to dole out billions of dollars as part of the settlement. What happens to the smaller conferences without big TV deals? What happens to the lesser revenue producing or non-revenue producing sports? Those questions will have to be answered. The college model of giving an athlete a scholarship in exchange for that athlete’s services is done. College sports is a huge business and now only the strongest will survive in that business.
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