NCAA, 5 conferences agree to settle antitrust lawsuits brought by former college athletes: NPR

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

College athletics are about to change.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, has agreed to settle a major lawsuit. It was similar with the five largest athletics conferences in the country. They will pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle antitrust cases brought by former student-athletes. If an agreement is reached, schools will be able to pay their athletes directly.

INSKEEP: The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty is covering this story and he joins us very, very, very, very early. Good morning sir.

JESSE DOUGHERTY: Good morning.

INSKEEP: Who will get the $2.8 billion?

DOUGHERTY: The two point eight billion dollars will go primarily to former athletes, and within that group it will go primarily to conference football and men’s basketball players. This is the biggest class there. Basically, they filed a lawsuit over the use of their name, image and likeness in previous television broadcasts and the lack of compensation for it, so the damages come back from their appearances on television and playing sports over the years.

INSKEEP: OK. So you are reminded of the rules regarding name, image and likeness that have changed over the last few years. As part of this lawsuit, we concluded that colleges can simply pay athletes. How does this change college sports?

DOUGHERTY: Yes. So now schools will pay athletes directly, which is a seismic change in this landscape when you consider that for as long as the NCAA has existed, one of its sole goals has been to make sure athletes don’t get paid by schools. How this actually changes games in practice when you’re between the lines in the quarter field, I’m not sure it’s going to be too much, but it’s certainly going to change how athletic departments have to budget, how schools have to budget, how athletes get paid and how much money they will make on campus. So the changes are far-reaching and we are still learning what it will look like. It remains to be seen what the exact scale of this will be, but it certainly changes the fundamentals of the whole thing.

INSKEEP: Yes. One thing I’m curious about is the amount of money we’re talking about. I admit, there is a lot of money made in college sports. I wonder how this will translate into athletes. Will they receive millions of dollars like in the professional leagues, or will it be a nominal amount? I mean, what’s the point?

DOUGHERTY: I would think of it more as a salary, which is not as high as specialists, so there will be a capped amount of revenue share for the school, essentially. Right now it looks like it will be around $20 million a year, but that doesn’t just apply to the football squad. The same goes for many athletes on campus. So for athletes to make those six, seven figures – like the big money we’re seeing now, for example with NIL payments – it’s going to require big endorsement deals – potentially big booster deals. This revenue sharing money will simply equalize salaries across divisions and, in some cases, between athletics departments, depending on how they are implemented by schools.

INSKEEP: Oh, well, that raises a question for me. What happens to the lacrosse team, or any other team that doesn’t generate much revenue, or what happens to the athletes at Morehead State University in Kentucky, where I went to college and it’s not one of the big programs?

DOUGHERTY: That’s a great question, yes. In the case of the lacrosse team, schools will decide how they actually balance their budgets. We don’t know because it won’t really be a universal standard and for smaller schools this revenue sharing model will be optional. In large schools, schools will agree to this because it will be necessary to remain competitive, but in smaller, lower-income schools you will see a lot of school conferences where they say, “You know, we’re not going to do this, and we’re not going to participate in this revenue sharing model.

INSKEEP: Jesse Dougherty, The Washington Post. Everything very clear; Thank you very much.

DOUGHERTY: Thank you.

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