The House Settlement: What To Expect?

The college sports ride is going to get more bumpy, not less.

The House settlement has been finalized and quite honestly, while we understand the basic idea, we haven’t fully grasped the implications.

As best we understand it, schools can now pay players directly from their athletic budget. This is in addition to NIL income and of course a scholarship (although that means less and less with players now transferring up to five times in some cases).

Schools can use up to $20.5 million, coming from various sources, to pay athletes. This will continue to go up over time.

There is going to be a lot of pressure at different schools about how to manage all of this. Obviously the SEC, Big Ten and Big 12 are going to have to put the emphasis on football (and that’s true for much of the ACC too).

The settlement will also increase scholarships from 85 to 105.

Basketball is the only other revenue program at most schools and those go up from 13 to 15 now.

That’s up to 120 scholarships between those two programs and that’s before you get to Title IX requirements. Some schools, like Iowa, Iowa State and Penn, are going to want to make sure to take care of wrestling, while others (Syracuse, Maryland and Virginia, for three examples) take lacrosse very seriously.

And then when you get into the Big East, it’s probably going to be much easier since they don't play football (we think only UConn has aspirations there) and that money can stretch further. We’re not advocating for this, but someone soon will make a logical argument for Duke joining the Big East.

What we’re going to quickly find out is that football schools will be under immense pressure to funnel money to football. The settlement is done and that suit is over, but there will be others, and a lot will be about how that money is distributed. Prediction: Olympic sports are going to get cut left and right. And the nasty knock-on problem from conferences going coast-to-coast is going to be travel expenses for Olympic teams. It’s one thing to pay to fly UCLA football out to Rutgers; those teams make bank.

UCLA softball flying out to Rutgers is quite another.

For Duke, the focus will continue to be basketball, but football can’t be ignored and Duke made big waves for how much incoming QB Darian Mensah will get ($8 million over two years).

As far as we can guess, this is what will happen: the direct payments will be a floor and schools will push hard to make up ground with NIL.

And that’s where the cheating will move. Will Wade! Your entrepreneurial skills are about to be resurrected.

Actually, if you want to make an early guess on where corruption will turn up, a reasonable guess is accounting. Players are now required to report NIL deals worth more than $600 to their schools. You could easily imagine a coach just sort of facilitating cash transfers between interested parties and players and keeping it off the books. Where there’s a Will there’s a way, you know?

In a related note, MLB exec Bryan Seeley has been hired as CEO of the College Sports Commission, which will handle enforcement issues (the NCAA is out of that now).

However, the law of unintended consequences will also kick in and none of us not many of us know how that will unfold. Suffice it to say there will be more lawsuits and soon, new types of investigations and, no doubt, forensic accountants will be hired. Off shore crypto! Dark Web payments!

The mind boggles.

Seeley is getting a seven-figure salary. It may not be enough for what he’s about to deal with.

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• Grant House Prevails in Landmark Settlement, But Olympic Sports Will Be Severely Affected
• Mitch Barnhart releases statement on House Settlement’s impact on Kentucky Athletics
• “NCAA Is Dead”: Paul Finebaum Sends Blunt Message on House Settlement After $2.8B Announcement