Let's not forget, #NIL was not granted by the NCAA - it's been decades of public pressure, lawsuits, and law changes. And so, the urgency to push forward with a deal on the NCAA side is a clear attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.
Within the details of the settlement, there are three elements at stake.
- Non-employee status for athletes with a compensation plan directly from the university
- Deal disclosure to Deloitte on transaction over $600.
- A cap of 20.5M or 20% of top line revenue of athletic departments for 10 years.
FYI - 2025 March Madness just generated ~1.5B for the NCAA, and in professional leagues such as NFL, NBA, ~48% of profits are granted to the employees (athletes) players association. With approval of this settlement, that would be capped at 20.5M, split between men and women programs and no players association permitted.
FWIW top football programs are spending $30-40M on their team, which will be cut to half of 20.5M, and split amongst all the programs. An approx 50-75% pay cut to current earnings. A pay cut, in this economy?
The ethical path that I see is:
- Permit athletes as classified W-2 employees
- State implement anti-trust law for prospective and collegiate athletics
- Offer the athletes the deal and assess their collective response
Otherwise, this is the beginning of the end of the revenue generating collegiate sports - as professional teams will begin to implement a vertical academy system such as European sports. Clearly there’s a business there for u23 players, and who wouldn’t want to have access to top recruits earlier than their competition.
Leave it to the NCAA to disguise a deal to protect their pockets moving forward. Modern day gladiators.