At least for now, the future of college athletics at the highest level — what it will look like, who will get to participate and how revenue will be distributed between university athletic departments and student-athletes — hinges on the approval of the House v. NCAA settlement.
And whether or not the House settlement is approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken currently rests on proposed roster limits.
When a version of the settlement was presented to Wilken nearly a month ago, the issue of roster limits was her one major complaint.
The plan at that time, as presented by the defendants — the NCAA and conferences — included roster caps for all sports. Put simply, the settlement wanted schools to no longer be bound by scholarship limits for teams. Instead, roster limits would be imposed on every sport, with everyone eligible for financial aid.
That meant, though, that rosters needed to shrink and players needed to be cut from teams. In some sports, a large number of players needed to be cut.
The proposed limits in many cases fell below current roster sizes in sports such as football, track and field, swimming, men’s volleyball and cross country, to name a few.
Additionally, many high school athletes who had committed and signed with programs would no longer have the roster spots previously promised to them.
Wilken found those ideas concerning and rejected the settlement as a result, noting that she wanted all current student-athletes and signed high school athletes “grandfathered into” the agreement and have them not lose their roster spots, a sort of gradual means of implementing the settlement.
“One way of achieving that could be to modify the settlement agreement to ensure that no (athletes) who have or had a roster spot will lose it as a result of the immediate implementation of the settlement agreement,” Wilken wrote, as reported by the Associated Press. “Limits could be accomplished gradually by attrition.”
Nearly a month later, a revised version of the settlement has been filed with the court, according to multiple reports.
In the latest version of the settlement, student-athletes can indeed be “grandfathered in” on a voluntary basis school-by-school, Yahoo Sports reported.
Per Ross Dellenger, those eligible to grandfathered in include:
- Athletes who are currently on rosters.
- Athletes who were on rosters but who lost their roster spots this year — many schools in advance of the House Settlement proactively cut players.
- High school signees who had their roster spots eliminated.
According to The Athletic, which posted segments of the new version of the House settlement on social media, all student-athletes will hold rights to be grandfathered in, meaning they can transfer schools and remain eligible and would not count against teams’ roster limits.
Yahoo Sports reported that the onus would be on the individual schools to keep track of student-athletes who were grandfathered in.
“Those protected athletes would presumably roll off the exception list as their eligibility expires,” Dellenger wrote.
Schools grandfathering in student-athletes on a volunteer basis is viewed as a compromise by many — some argue it falls below what Wilken wanted — but the NCAA and conferences argue it goes further than what the judge asked for.
“Plaintiffs believes that these changes to the Settlement Agreement exceed the protections that the Court requested, including by ensuring that any athlete would have lost a roster spot (or a promised roster spot) for the 2025-2026 academic year will not be subject to roster limits for the durations of his or her Division 1 athletic eligibility at any school,” the settlement reads.
“... While Defendants insisted that the changes to the Settlement Agreement recognize that individual schools and their athletics departments retain discretion to independently determine which athletes will be on their rosters, that has always been the case; and it remains unchanged whether or not there will be roster limits.”
Steve Berman, co-lead counsel for the defendants, told ESPN Radio that he doesn’t expect those in support of the plaintiffs (the House side of the settlement) to be pleased by the revisions, but “I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal,” he said, “because it is designed to find roster spots for virtually all the individual athletes who objected.”
Berman was correct. Steve Molo, an attorney for one of the objector groups that were folded into the House Settlement, released a statement shortly after the latest version of the settlement was filed.
“While the NCAA and Class Counsel have acknowledged our objections to roster caps is valid, their proposed mushy modification doesn’t go far enough. Many, many student athletes have had something taken away from them. The fight will continue.”
What really matters, though, is how Wilken views the revisions and later Wednesday she issued an order that will allow the objector attorneys to file a response to the latest version House settlement, with a deadline of May 13. The NCAA and its attorneys will then have until May 16 to respond.
Yahoo Sports reported that if Wilken doesn’t approve the settlement in its latest form, it isn’t yet clear whether or not attorneys will be given another chance to revise the settlement agreement. If they are not afforded that chance, the lawsuit filed by Arizona State swimmer Grant House would go to trial and it would likely be years before the case is ultimately decided.
In the meantime, schools may just go ahead and implement the policies in the settlement anyway, Dellenger wrote, as many have already adopted the provisions in the settlement.
Add to that the fact that multiple states currently have laws that allow for schools to directly pay athletes — including Utah, as of Wednesday morning — and there isn’t a lot of reason for schools to not go ahead with their plans.
“What can the NCAA do about it?” one power conference athletic director said to Dellenger, with another adding, “We’ve all built our budgets going forward for (revenue) share. Those that don’t have state laws will get one immediately.”