[ARETE] Sport and Society - The House Case

[richard crepeau]

Sport and Society for Arete
June 12, 2025

With the settlement in the House Case finally being accepted by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, five years of litigation has come to a close.  It might be tempting to say, “the other shoe has dropped.” Unfortunately, College Athletics is not a biped, but rather a centipede.  It is likely then that hundreds of more shoes are yet to drop.
With the decision in the Alston Case and two others, many observers and interested parties felt that the House Case would offer the definitive judgement on the new order in College Athletics. It is likely that this will not be the case.
About five years ago Grant House, an Arizona State swimmer, sued the NCAA and five of the large conferences to lift their restrictions on revenue sharing. Several other decisions by the courts proceeded the House decision but are clearly part of a bundle of cases that are impacting Intercollegiate athletics.
Judge Wilken ruled on the first major case eleven years ago when she found in favor of Ed O’Bannon and several other athletes who sought to control the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL}. In the Alston Case, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision found the NCAA in violation of anti-trust by limiting the amount of education related compensation for athletes. This decision laid to rest the amateur definition of intercollegiate athletes for the fraud that it was.
The House Case lays out a structure for the payment of college athletes for their athletic services. Each university may pay as much as $20.5M annually to compensate its athletes. This is in effect a salary cap. Football is expected to receive the largest share of the pool at approximately 75%, basketball the next largest share at 15%, with 5% going to women’s sport, and 5% going to the remainder of sports, male and female.
Off the top of the settlement money there will be $2.8B in retroactive damages paid by the NCAA over a ten-year period. Those who competed from 2016 to the present and were not allowed by the NCAA to collect compensation for their services will be paid from this pool.
There will no longer be any limitation on the numbers of scholarships any institution is allowed to offer in a sport, but there will be limits on roster size. Among others, this will affect those major football schools that routinely carried large numbers of non-scholarship players swelling football rosters to well over 100 players.
These NIL deals will be monitored by a new entity, The College Sports Commission, that will seek to determine if the deal is within market rates or simply an excessive recruiting tool. The NIL deals will be made within the university, although individual athletes will be able to sign NILs outside the university. This College Sports Commission will have the power to void a deal and punish those not complying with their judgement. It is hard to imagine that this group could be less effective than the NCAA enforced bodies, but you never know.
There are other details, but these are the main features of the House decision. This goes into effect on July 1, so universities and their athletic departments have been hard at work on implementation in anticipation of House.
There are many more obstacles on the road ahead. One question often asked concerns the future of the NCAA. Will it go out of business? Probably not, but rather it will continue to organize national championships, handle record keeping, and supervise rules and rule changes, while managing all the paperwork involved in intercollegiate athletics.
If the NCAA does disappear, then what happens? One thing for certain is that a new organization will have to take on the tasks mentioned above. There will be, no doubt, a period of semi-anarchy while conferences try to reorganize the world. There is a good chance that the Power Four will take the opportunity to set themselves apart and above the other conferences and institutions, unless the Power Four try to devour one another.
Many other challenges will come within the courts. The first of these has come from a group of eight women from several universities charging that Title IX has been violated by the House settlement by its formula for the distribution of the $28B NIL penalty pool, as well as the annual distribution of the $20.8M annual cap on university spending on athletics.
The University of Maine has announced it will opt-out of the settlement. Over 60 football players had previously opted out of the House litigation and have brought a separate lawsuit. No doubt this is just a beginning. Universities have until July 1 to opt-in and accept the settlement.
The Biden Administration had taken the position that any new arrangements post-House must comply with Title IX. The Trump Administration has reversed that decision. No doubt others representing minor sports will object to the large shares going to football and basketball.
Transfer questions will remain on the table. How often and under what circumstances will transfer be allowed? The attempt to control free transfer will be countered by the equivalent of a player contract signed at the time of joining a team at a university. No university administrator wants to call this an employee/employer relationship for fear that could lead to collective bargaining between players and teams or universities.
In the Johnson Case, which is now moving forward, several athletes argue that they are employees of the university and should be recognized as such under the Fair Labor Standards Act. If that argument is accepted, the ramifications for the world of intercollegiate athletics would be multiple and significant.
Another possible point of contention is the limits on years of eligibility, especially when and if athletes in some sports find competing for more than four years would be financially advantageous.
And what of the other great power player in intercollegiate athletics: the television networks? Who are now the buyers and sellers in that market?
So, a new world is dawning, and what it will finally look like is anyone’s guess. There will be some things that will not change much, and others that will be entirely new and surprising, and much else in between.
On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.

Copyright 2025 by Richard C. Crepeau


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