The NCAA just got a last-minute homework assignment.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered attorneys for the NCAA and other parties involved in the House v. NCAA settlement to revisit what it says about roster limits and tweak how they’ll be implemented.
Her announcement makes it clear that the settlement is not as close to final approval as was once widely assumed and that NCAA officials still have some negotiating to do.
The settlement, which lays out a plan for schools to share revenue with their athletes, is intended to take effect on July 1.
Roster limits in NCAA settlement
The roster limits put forward in the settlement have been in the spotlight since a hearing on April 7.
That was when athletes affected by the new roster limits had a chance to raise their concerns.
The roster limits are intended to balance out a related change to athletic scholarships. Under the settlement, there would be no limit on scholarships, but schools would have to stay under a roster cap.
The cap prevents wealthier schools from using their bigger budget to build a much deeper bench, as the Deseret News previously reported.
The issue with the roster limits, at least in the short term, is that they’re forcing schools to cut athletes who thought they’d already secured a spot on their team.
At the April 7 hearing, affected athletes, including some high school seniors, described the pain of being told there was no longer room for them on their dream team.
At the end of the hearing, Wilken instructed the parties involved in the settlement to revisit the issue of roster limits and consider phasing them in to reduce the impact on current athletes.
One week later, the NCAA filed an update with the court on last-minute adjustments to the settlement, but it made no changes to roster limits. Officials argued that getting cut is nothing new in the world of sports and that it’s too late to alter the implementation of the limits since most schools have already made their cuts.
“Member institutions and student-athletes have been making decisions in anticipation of the roster limits being immediately effective if the Settlement is approved,” the filing said.
Judge Wilken apparently didn’t accept that argument.
On Wednesday, she gave attorneys working on the NCAA settlement until May 7 to come up with a new way to implement the roster limits.
If they fail to make changes, she’ll deny the settlement, she said.
“The fact that the Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement should not have been interpreted as an indication that it was certain that the Court would grant final approval,” Wilken wrote in Wednesday’s order, according to The Washington Post.