A tentative agreement announced Thursday by the NCAA and the country’s five biggest conferences to a series of antitrust lawsuits could direct millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as fall 2025. The nearly $2.8 billion settlement, would be paid out over the next decade to 14,000 former and current student-athletes. This is a drastic move that the NCAA has fought for decades. What we had was a system of pay-to-play under-the-table system, then came NIL deals, now an open system where athletes can gt paid by the school themselves. A profit share is also a part of the deal.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a joint statement Thursday night with the commissioners of the ACC, the Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and the SEC.

“This is an important step in the continuing reform of college sports that will provide benefits to student-athletes and provide clarity in college athletics across all divisions for years to come,”

legal analyst Michael McCann had this to say;

“The going forward part is that colleges can opt in, conferences can opt in, as well, to pay players, to share revenue with them, to have direct pay, and that would be of course a radical from the traditions of college sports,” McCann said, adding many would say that change is warranted. “Now the athletes, at least at some schools, will get a direct stake.”

There could be ramifications that many say are not worth the trouble. One such issue is the Olympics. You say, “How”? All of our athletes that flow into the Olympics come from college sports. The water polo players, gymnastics, Track and field, can all of these teams survive the new structure of pay-to-play? A recent suit between an athlete committing to the University of Florida for a contract he said he signed for over 13 million for four years.

If a school must fork over that type of money to one player, then you will most surely give somewhat the same to the basketball stars. How about the baseball guys? If the football and basketball guys and women get money so do we! then the softball team says what about us? Then the…you get the point. At some point, some of these sports will just have to, well, be eliminated. Don’t make say which ones go first as we all know, oh but then title 9 says…man this will get interesting, to say the least.

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