The Patriot Post® · The End of College Athletics?

The world of college athletics reached a settlement in three separate but related lawsuits against the NCAA last week.

The filings complained that athletes whom the public was tuning in to watch weren’t getting a cut of the billions in TV rights being paid by the networks. Now, not only will 14,000 current and former college athletes share a $2.8 billion settlement, but student-athletes will also be paid for their efforts by the university. This is in addition to the NIL (name, image, and likeness) payments that college athletes have received for the past three years. As Steve Berman, who serves as lead attorney for one of the plaintiffs, put it, “This landmark settlement will bring college sports into the 21st century, with college athletes finally able to receive a fair share of the billions of dollars of revenue that they generate for their schools.”

Our Brian Mark Weber was prescient several years ago in calling for the “shady tactics” involved in college athletics to be brought out of the shadows. But there are still a number of issues with the settlement — the largest of which is the burden it will place on the smaller-market “mid-major” conferences, who will pay for the NCAA settlement with a reduction in the revenue sharing that helps to fund their athletic departments.

“We believe over 95% of the damages are going to go to Power Five [i.e. major conference] football and basketball players,” said Big Sky Conference Commissioner Tom Wistrcill, whose teams play football in the lower-tier Football Championship Series that used to be known as Division 1-AA. “For non-A5 conferences to pay for that is disproportionate. We’re asking for a more proportionate structure because our student-athletes are not going to see the money.”

Indeed, the deal seems to be stacked in favor of the biggest conferences. As The Wall Street Journal notes, “The settlement agreement calls for schools to pay athletes 22% of the average annual athletic department revenue among schools in the top conferences. According to people familiar with the matter, that figure is roughly $20 million per school.” That figure, if true, would likely force the bottom-feeders out of the system unless it is adjusted accordingly for schools with lesser revenue, like the Ball States of the world.

This writer goes back to the days when the Big 10 actually had 10 schools and the NCAA basketball tournament had just 32 teams. Back then, the influence of money in college athletics was enough to get a team to forfeit games or even be banished for a season like Southern Methodist University’s football program was for the 1987 campaign. College athletes were compensated with free education, while non-athletes had to rely on academic scholarships, grants, or student loans.

So this settlement prompts several questions: Will athletes who get paid now have to compensate the university for their abortive education if they turn pro before they graduate? After all, they’re not only drawing a salary from the school for playing a (presumably) revenue-producing sport like football or basketball but also getting a scholarship that the class nerd who couldn’t pass a football or shoot a basketball is paying for with his student loans. (That is, unless they can convince Joe Biden to “forgive” theirs, too.) Or will it just be another excuse for tuition and fees to go up, saddling our awkward friend with even more student loan debt?

And what about those who participate in non-revenue sports? One of the main lawsuits was initiated by a collegiate swimmer — certainly a talented athlete, but not one who commands the attention of millions of eyeballs. The Journal also brings up the specter of Title IX. Aside from basketball sensation Caitlin Clark, how many female athletes actually bring in revenue? And where is the female equivalent to football, whose revenues often help fund all the other sports?

Perhaps this will become a fair settlement for the small percentage of elite athletes who actually find their way to Power Five schools to perform on Saturdays. “The settlement, though undesirable in many respects and promising only temporary stability, is necessary to avoid what would be the bankruptcy of college athletics,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins. Unfortunately, this writer suspects that stability will be very temporary and will lead a lot of fine colleges to dismantle their athletic programs due to the additional expense of paying their players.

Perhaps those schools will remember why they exist in the first place — as places of education. Of course, if they dismantle their DEI departments along the way, so much the better.