House Settlement Deadline Is Today As College Power Brokers Try To Find Solution

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken threw college power brokers a surprise curveball when she made approval of the House settlement contingent on making sure the settlement’s roster limits don’t adversely affect current athletes who could lose their scholarships.

Wilken made approval of the settlement contingent on making sure these athletes, or class members to use the legal term that refers to them, keep their roster spots. The judge gave the NCAA and the power conferences two weeks to propose a solution, and today is the deadline.

The roster limits issue is the last significant hurdle that must be cleared to gain final approval for the House settlement, which will set the rules by which college athletics will play by going forward..

What set all of this in motion was the premature implementation of the rules the House settlement was going to create. When preliminary approval of the House settlement was granted in October – with the proviso that objectors had six months to file briefs in opposition to parts of the settlement – schools began to execute their plans for when the roster limits that the House settlement created came into effect for the 2025-26 athletic calendar.

In the past, the basis of college roster positions were based on scholarship limits. Each sport had a limit, but schools could add as many athletes as they wanted so long as it didn’t affect their scholarship total.

The House settlement eliminates that model in favor of roster limits. Scholarship limits were removed, but in their place, each sport was given a hard cap in terms of how many athletes could participate on a given team.

Many sports – football, swimming and cross country to name a few – had many walk-ons who would have put them over the agreed upon roster limit. Many athletes in multiple sports have been cut from their teams since then as schools tried to fall in line with the roster limit and give those athletes time to find a new place to continue their athletic careers.

Wilken found that side effect of the settlement to be unacceptable.

“Because the settlement is not fair and reasonable to the significant number of class members whose roster spots will be or have been taken away because of the immediate implementation of the settlement agreement, the Court cannot approve the settlement in its current form,” Wilken’s ruling said.

What will the NCAA and power conference schools – the parties bound by the House vs. NCAA case – do in response to Wilken’s concerns?

Yahoo Sports has reported that the proposal that could be filed would give schools an option to grandfather student-athletes back on to their rosters with the roster limits phased-in as those grandfathered athletes run out of eligibility.

Under this reported proposal, those athletes would carry their grandfathered status to another school. This is a solution proposed to deal with the reality that many student-athletes who were told their roster sports were eliminated have already moved on to new schools.

The question is whether Wilken sees this an “optional” exercise or as a “mandatory” matter upon which the NCAA and power conference schools must agree.

All along, Wilken has expressed concern about the effect the roster limits have had and will continue to have.

College sports power brokers had hoped the House settlement would be in effect by now. Preliminary approval was given in October, and many assumed that an April 7 hearing would lead to final approval after objections were heard from class members to the settlement.

However, Wilken raised concerns about the roster limits portion of the settlement and proposed that affected athletes could be “grandfathered” on rosters, with the roster limits phased in as those athletes ran out of eligibility.

The NCAA and power conference schools refused to amend the House settlement to include a phased-in approach to roster limits. On April 23, Wilken admonished the NCAA and power conference schools for their refusal.

Wilken also criticized college programs for jumping the gun on implementing House settlement-related changes before final approval was granted.

“The fact that the Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement should not have been interpreted as an indication that it was certain that the Court would grant final approval,” Wilken said. “One of the factors that courts must consider when determining whether to grant final approval of a settlement agreement is ‘the reaction of the class members’ to the agreement.”

Indiana is directly affected by the House settlement as it is bound to the agreement as a power conference school. Power conference schools are defendants and helped to create the rules that the House settlement proposes to make permanent.

Disapproval of the House settlement could be disastrous for the NCAA and the power conference schools.

If the House settlement is not approved, the original cases that were bound together by the settlement would go to trial. Most expect the NCAA would lose.

If the NCAA and its schools lost the House case, they could be on the hook for $4 billion, which would be trebled by antitrust laws to $12 billion. That’s not an expense the NCAA and its schools can absorb without profound impact on college athletics.

The House settlement makes the financial hit less severe. The NCAA and its member schools instead agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement paid to former college athletes.

The settlement also dictates that 22% of power conference school revenue be dedicated to revenue sharing and that scholarship caps be replaced by roster limits. Most believe the athletic department spending cap will be approximately $20-million-to-$21 million per power conference school.

The settlement also creates a clearinghouse that would grant approval of all NIL deals over $600 based on “fair market value.”

If the House settlement is finally approved, it will be fully implemented by July 1.