After nearly five years, what stands to be the most expensive and far-reaching legal case in college sports history on Monday reaches a potentially decisive moment. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken is scheduled to conduct a hearing concerning final approval of the proposed multi-billion-dollar settlements of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences.
The deal would include nearly $2.8 billion in damages that would go to current and former athletes — and their lawyers — over 10 years. The arrangement also would allow Division I schools to start paying athletes directly for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) starting July 1, subject to a per-school cap that would increase over time and be based on a percentage of certain athletics revenues.
However, those elements would be just part of a comprehensive reshaping of college sports that would occur under the settlement.
Among other changes:
▶NCAA leaders would seek to engineer rules changes eliminating longstanding, sport-by-sport scholarship limits and replacing them with a new set of roster-size limits. In the first academic year after final approval of the settlement, the roster limit in football, for example, would be 105. Some FBS programs have had many more than that. Rosters in other sports at some schools also stand to be reduced.
▶While athletes would continue to have the ability to make NIL deals with entities other than their schools, the settlement would allow the NCAA and the power conferences to institute rules designed to give the power conferences — through a new entity they are creating — greater enforcement oversight of those arrangements.
What is set to happen in settlement hearing, and why is Olivia Dunne scheduled to speak?
In her courtroom in Oakland, California, Wilken is scheduled to hear from lawyers representing the plaintiffs, primarily Steve Berman and Jeff Kessler, and an attorney representing the NCAA and the conferences.
She also is set to hear from 14 parties who are objecting to the settlement. In most instances, this will be through lawyers representing objectors or groups of objectors. Four objectors are scheduled to speak themselves, including LSU gymnast and renowned social-media influencer Olivia Dunne; Ben Burr-Kirven, who was an All-America football player at Washington and played in the NFL; and a current high school athlete.
Taken together, this group of 14 is intended to speak for the hundreds of objectors — out of roughly 400,000 current and former athletes covered by the cases — who filed written complaints with the court. Nearly 300 additional athletes have opted out of participating in the settlement and are pursuing a separate lawsuit.
Several of the groups of objectors set to be heard Monday also argued ...
