NCAA, five major conferences have agreed to pay players as part of massive antitrust settlement

The reckoning has finally taken root. Major college athletes will finally get paid.

According to ESPN.com, the NCAA and its five major conferences do agreed to pay the players as part of a settlement in three antitrust lawsuits that systematically challenge the status quo of college football.

The argument, put simply, is that the NCAA is and always has been a tool to control labor costs by creating artificial barriers to paying players. Under the guise of amateurism, players received nothing, while everyone else associated with the sport was paid.

Yes, they received an “education” that many did not want and that sometimes conflicted with their primary purpose for being on campus. It was still far from fair value because the process made it impossible to determine this value on the open market.

Under the agreement, all Division I athletes starting in 2016 will be eligible to receive a portion of a settlement fund worth more than $2.7 billion. The deal also includes a revenue-sharing plan that will allow each school in the five major conferences to give players up to $20 million a year.

Like all class action settlements, this one will have to go through a formal approval process. This is expected to take several months, with revenue sharing starting in 2025.

These are just some of the many legal problems resulting from breaking fictitious barriers for paying players. It is still possible that other massive changes will be necessary to fully comply with legal requirements that have been brazenly ignored.

Frankly, regardless of the final bill, it still won’t fully remedy decades of exploitation that have not only prevented schools from paying players, but also (until recently) from monetizing their names, images and likenesses.

It’s still better than nothing. Especially after so many years of a college system that collectively sent players the same message referees sent to Spaudling: “You won’t get anything and you’ll like it“