Fighting Roster Limits in House v NCAA settlement

Although, I still don't understand why athletes can't chose to train with the team on a volunteer basis? That wouldn't give anyone an unfair advantage since a poor school would have as much opportunity to have volunteers as a rich school, no? Sorry for being dense.

You are right in terms of what will probably happen - that football driven rules will be forced on all sports even if the same logic doesn’t apply to the other sports.

The rationale for roster limits to limit NIL bloated pseudo cheating in football just doesn’t apply to whether a state school wants to have an extra ten guys who run a 14:50 5k walk on and come to practices for a couple years to see if one of them pops off - or let a 14:50 guy run his junior and senior years off scholarship even if he can’t make varsity.

Tennessee was successful in developing their NIL program. Without roster limits, they would be able.to scholarship thise athlete is and pay them on top of that. They could stockpile the talent.

Because the law permits having them be paid via NIL.

How do you define "elite"?

Thanks for the info!

Does the ncaa exist in 10 years? Do we still have Men's track? Unfortunately I am worried it could be a no

Where this appears to be headed driven by SEC is that the top 64-80 schools will leave the ncaa to form the Power League. 2033 would be earliest convenient date. They would then have football playoff, basketball tourney, baseball world series, and Olympic sports competition only among themselves with elite recruits mostly going to this league, along with the big money. The SEC does not like the idea that they subsidize smaller schools.

The remaining 220+ current D1 teams would be the new NCAA d1. NCAa would continue just without the big brand name sports schools, and without many elite athletes. New NCAA will still be good and will be more a true student/athlete model, but less of a financial burden on small schools trying to keep up with athletic spending of power schools.

Are you talking about millions in NIL payments to XC? I really don't think Tennessee will be spending millions on XC. I'm pretty sure they are going to spend 95% or more on getting athletes for football and basketball where they are going to make money on the investment. I don't see them wanting to spend millions in NIL on something that won't give them any return. Any left over will go to baseball and women's basketball where they have been very successful.

There are athletes that have 4 year guaranteed scholarships.

This was a settlement that was crafted by Kessler, a lawyer that worked on the Alston case. He and his crony Berman saw how in the Alston case that the NCAA was found liable for anti-trust by restricting compensation. They saw a cash cow for them in the making. They had already done all the work to craft the settlement and then set about looking for patsy athletes to put their name on it. Watch House's interview. He said that he was contacted and asked to sign on. He has also stated that he has had little contact with the lawyers about the case. The lawyers are set to make a HALF A BILLION dollars from the settlement. House does not speak for the majority if any of the non-revenue athletes who were just fine with the status quo. Many have sent in objections saying this is not what they want. This class action is only to benefit the football and basketball players.

Unfortunately, many of those 220 remaining D1 programs are opting in to the settlement and therefore agreeing to the terms (roster limits) despite the fact they know they won't be able to pay the NIL money. They are just doing it for the optics. Totally crazy to me and terrible for non-revenue sports.

There is the possibility that the judge will not agree to the settlement terms. The decision will likely be made some time after April 7th.

If the judge doesn't agree then we will be back to the wild wild west of collectives and NIL free for alls. However, regardless of how the decision turns out there will still be roster limits and programs will continue to be cut across the board.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Tenn was already using NIL to have bigger xc rosters in 2023 and 2024. Sure most of the booster NIL went to football and hoops, but they directed small amounts to Olympic sports in quest to win Director's cup.

They weren't using NIL on top of scholarships, rather instead of scholarships once over the limit, in order to have a bigger roster receiving athletic aid.

With roster limits, NIL gets put on top of scholarship for existing roster, not to bring in extra athletes.

When my daughter was recruited for XC for Tennessee with that giant class for Fall '23 (coach lied to her about size he would recruit, about the indoor track being built, caring about the athletes, etc.) there was no discussion of NIL money. All that was discussed was scholarship and the benefits (Alston $, Summer classes paid, Summer stipend, free meals and free medical). NIL was not a factor. I don't know what 2024 was promised, but I don't think NIL was the draw for the Fall '23 recruiting class. While one young lady is with ON with a great NIL, only some have gotten small NIL deals, but nothing of great consequence that I would think to entice runners to go there and hoard talent.
As I said before, Tennessee and other P4 schools are going to sink the lion's share into football and men's basketball to make sure they get those high dollar recruits. There will be little to no trickle down to the non-revenue sports.

I think the NCAA would be against having roster limits outside of the settlement. With the settlement, they are protected from being sued over the roster limits. Roster limits are another form of anti-trust because members are colluding and limiting the demand for "labor" by agreeing to limit the number of persons they will "hire". Now, don't come at me with the employee argument, I'm just saying these are the same arguments that are being made for athlete compensation (revenue sharing and scholarships) that are being argued in the settlement.

I don't think this settlement will be the end to the wild west. It will just continue and guarantee that whole sports will be eliminated or decimated to funnel more funds into paying the football and basketball players or schools to pay the back damages $. Cal Poly just cut their whole swimming and diving team and University of Virginia cut their diving team. The collectives are going to continue to funnel crazy money to athletes and the NCAA won't be able to control it at all. Honestly, who will seriously determine what a fair market value will be? I see many more lawsuits in the future arguing the athlete's fair market value wasn't determined correctly.

I think much of what you say is correct except the part about roster limits not being implemented without the settlement. There will these limits regardless. The ncaa is controlled by the sec (your conference) and the b10... and they want limits.

as for the rest of what you say, i agree. this settlement won't solve the anti-trust issues, there will be other suits brought, and that is why the judge may not approve the settlement.

unfortunately, the only potential solution to this is for congress to pass carve out laws for college sports and that isn't happening.

what college sports is facing now was caused both by conference realignment and by student athletes. we are a capitalistic society (not saying that's bad).

i liked college sports the way they were before but no one is putting the genie back in the bottle.