NCAA House Settlement Leaves More Questions than Answers

A landmark multi-billion dollar legal settlement for the direct payment of college athletes by their schools has rocked the collegiate and professional sports worlds, potentially fundamentally altering the dynamic between athletes and the universities they attend¹. The House V. NCAA settlement, which combined three separate antitrust settlements alleging college athletes were not being given sufficient earning power, is only a first step in rewriting the college athletics rulebook, but its reverberations could be momentous. Still, it’s worth noting that this settlement, for all its grandiosity, leaves several unanswered questions. 

In essence, the settlement will force colleges to operate much like professional sports franchises, working to pay players within a certain salary cap². Although many expect this salary cap to begin somewhere around the $20 million mark, its floor and ceiling are still unknown³. Although in theory this salary cap should help to prevent exceedingly wealthy schools from attracting all of the most highly-touted players, it’s unclear how much the settlement will genuinely even out the collegiate landscape⁴. Indeed, the settlement does not provide clear regulations regarding scholarships, and it’s quite plausible that the nation’s richest schools will be able to provide far more scholarship incentives than their less affluent counterparts⁵. 

Additionally, how exactly money allocation within a school will look is unclear⁶. According to Title IX, which ensures that “[no person] shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”⁷. As the most popular programs, it is likely that men’s football and basketball will receive a disproportionate amount of this allotted money⁸. The question is whether or not, say, a women’s track team receiving millions less than their school’s football team–and thus female athletes on that track team earning far less than their male, football-playing counterparts–constitutes unequal treatment, and thus violates Title IX⁹. In fact, the settlement’s judge even refused to allow comments regarding Title IX from objectors. 

With legal challenges already on the horizon, the future of the House settlement is still unclear¹⁰. The decision’s ramifications are still up in the air. Keep an eye out for future articles discussing some of the long-term effects of this monumental decision. 

Henry Bartholomew is a guest author who periodically contributes to the UB Law Sports & Entertainment Forum.  The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University at Buffalo School of Law or the UB Center for the Advancement of Sport.

1. Dan Murphy, Judge OK’s $2.8B Settlement, Paving Way for Colleges to Pay Athletes, ESPN (June 6, 2025, 09:28 PM ET), https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/45467505/judge-grants-final-approval-house-v-ncaa-settlement. ↩︎
2. Id. ↩︎
3. Id. ↩︎
4. Id. ↩︎
5. Steve Berkowitz, What Does the NCAA Settlement Mean for College Sports? We Answer the Burning Questions, USA Today (June 7, 2025, 6:01 PM ET), https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2025/06/07/ncaa-revenue-sharing-settlement-questions/83221673007/ ↩︎
6. Id. ↩︎
7. Id. ↩︎
8. Id. ↩︎
9. Id. ↩︎
10. Murphy, supra note 1. ↩︎