One last go around: House settlement on pause once again
Judge Wilken yet again sends both sides back to the drawing board.
April 7 marked the supposed final hearing for the pending House v. NCAA settlement that’s meant to usher in a new era of college athletics. Well, sounds like there is going to be one more hearing for old times’ sake.
Judge Claudia Wilken has delayed the settlement once again, this time imploring both sides to come to an agreement regarding the roster caps, per ESPN’s Dan Murphy. Judge Wilken has given the attorneys 14 days to come to a resolution that satisfies her objections, otherwise she will nix the settlement and send the House case to trial.
What’s the big deal?
Based on reporting during the now-penultimate hearing, Judge Wilken took issue with the roster caps that would be instated by the settlement.
But what are roster caps? And why do they matter here?
Currently, the NCAA does not have upper limits to the amount of athletes that can be carried on a roster. Instead, they limit the amount of scholarships that can be given out for a given sport. For example, in FBS football, programs are only allowed 85 full-time scholarships that can be split among as many players as the program sees fit. For reference, the FCS ranks cap out at 63 scholarships.
You can look up any FBS roster and see more than 85 players, so what gives? That, my friends, are walk-ons. Players that aren’t on scholarship but are still on the team. Some of these are recruited while knowing they wouldn’t be on athletic scholarship, often referred to as preferred walk-ons, but can access other avenues of funding like academic or outside scholarships.
Make sense? Good. Let’s get into why that matters.
The House settlement gets rid of that 85-player scholarship cap and replaces it with a 105-player roster cap. Meaning, programs can put everyone on the roster on full scholarships if they want and have the funding for it, but you can’t exceed 105 players on the roster.
That sounds great on the surface - more potential for players to get scholarship opportunities. But, if we dig a little deeper, we start to see some major problems. Namely, the fact that the average FBS roster has 128.2 players on it, according to Opendorse Director of Collegeiate Insights Braly Keller.
That means, on average, FBS programs will have to cut 23 players from their current roster by the time the House settlement goes into affect. Oh, wait, that’s July 1 of this year.
During the hearing, Judge Wilken pushed for grandfathering in current athletes so that no current athlete loses their roster spots due to the settlement. In my opinion, that’s the easy decision. But this is college athletics, and the easy solution isn’t always what happens.
Use Bluesky? Follow the Substack Sports Talk Bluesky List to get all your favorite content there!
Why can’t they just grandfather in the athletes like Judge Wilken suggested?
Easy answer: they can.
Harder answer: they can’t.
Why the difference? That’s because coaches are already trimming rosters in anticipation of the settlement’s approval. It’s estimated that over 1,500 FBS football players - mostly walk-ons - would be cut from their programs to make those roster caps.
Even further than that, entire programs are seeing their numbers dwindling. Yahoo! Sports’s Ross Dellenger reported in October that one SEC school had cut eight track runners over the summer. One men’s swimming team nixed all of its freshman committments. Those stories only grew as the settlement drew closer, with Dellenger retelling a teary-eyed meeting where Liberty’s track coach telling 16 distance runners they wouldn’t have a spot on the team for the next season.
Some players were told of their cuts with only weeks until the start of the semester, with all other rosters full or in similar situations.
Many of these student-athletes, especially in Olympic sports, aren’t here to make exorbitant amounts of money like you see in the Nico Iamaleava saga or in men’s and women’s basketball. They’re jockeying for extra grant-in-aid to meet their lofty tuition bills. They’re trying to get into a school that they always dreamed of competing at. They want to continue to compete while earning an education. Roster caps limit those opportunities.
So, yes. Grandfathering in these players would be for the best. On the surface, it’s the easiest answer. But tell that to all the players currently in transfer portal limbo or struggling with the thought of having to give up their sport with whatever scholarship money they received disappearing like an Infinity War Thanos snap.
What’s next?
Obviously, the two sides are going to put their heads together to either figure out a solution or not.
When Judge Wilken declined to rule on the settlement earlier this month, both sides declined to make any adjustments to their roster cap rules. Could Wilken’s threats of entirely killing the settlement change their tune?
According to Dellenger, there is some worry among leaders in the industry about the status of the settlement. “We’re playing chicken with a damn federal judge,” one high-ranking person told Dellenger.
Publicly, the NCAA is putting on a more positive spin, releasing a joint statement that claimed, “Our focus continues to be on securing approval of this significant agreement, which aims to create more opportunities than ever before for student-athletes while fostering much-needed stability and fairness in college sports.”
Co-lead council for the plaintiffs, Steve Berman, said in a statement, “We are pleased that the court has rejected all of the objections but the roster issue, and we will work hard to convince the NCAA and the conferences to address the court’s concerns. If we are unable to do so, then we are off to trial and we will return to fighting the NCAA in court with next steps.”
Right now, the onus will be on the NCAA and the conferences to make the necessary changes to their proposed roster caps. The NCAA, according to Sportico’s Daniel Libit, made the claim that changing the settlement this close to its proposed effective date would cause damage to schools and athletes. Judge Wilken dismissed that claim outright.
“Any disruption that may occur is a problem of Defendants’ and NCAA members schools’ own making,” Judge Wilken wrote in her five-page order. “The fact that the Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement should not have been interpreted as an indication that it was certain that the Court would grant final approval.”
So, the House settlement sits on the precipice of approval or outright denial. The NCAA can cave to her demands and find some way to grandfather in the existing athletes. Or, they can risk everything and take the case to trial.
Will it go to trial?
I think a full trial is incredibly unlikely, but if the NCAA doesn’t budge, that’s the only path forward.
To me, Judge Wilken threw down her ultimatum knowing it would spring the NCAA into some action to find releif for the affected student-athletes that would be cut under the rules of the settlement. Because, if they don’t, they stand to lose everything.
Taking House v. NCAA - and the similar antitrust cases of Carter v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA, which are included in the settlement - to court is a major risk for the NCAA. Just look at the damages paid out in the settlement - $2.8 billion. If the case goes to trial and the NCAA were to lose, they’d be on the hook for over $8 billion in damages. We’ve already talked about how the pending House settlement is stretching athletic departments, especially the smaller ones. Could the organization survive an $8 billion bill?
To go further, if the case was to go to court all these provisions in the settlement wouldn’t be instated. Programs would be left holding a grenade filled with explosive financial, roster-related and regulatory questions that could implode at a second’s notice.
There’s a lot at stake here. Possibly more than there ever has in this long winding House saga. Are we ever going to get off this ride? That’s up for the NCAA and its lawyers to decide. Are roster caps worth risking all this for? And could they actually be implemented in time to not continually damage the current athletes?
One thing’s for certain: this won’t be the last case the NCAA will face. It may not even be the biggest or the baddest. But right now, the NCAA is facing a point of no return.
Have any questions, ideas, article pitches, or information? With the new Substack features, you can directly message me! Hit the button below to send me a message, or reach out via email to griffin@sid-sports.com, or find us on your favorite social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Substack Notes and Bluesky.