Will an antitrust settlement actually settle college sports? Lots of questions remain
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Pete Thamel
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Dan Murphy
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Dan Murphy
ESPN Staff Writer
- Covers the Big Ten
- Joined ESPN.com in 2014
- Graduate of the University of Notre Dame
The NCAA board of governors and several power conferences have scheduled meetings for next week to vote on a proposed settlement of antitrust lawsuits that would reset the framework for the business of major college sports.
While sources indicate broad support for moving forward with the industry-shifting settlement, athletic department and university administrators are also worried about how effective the negotiated terms will be in creating a stable system. With formal decisions just days away, the chief concern of an industry on the precipice of a historic step is a simple one: Will these settlements actually settle the college sports landscape?
To settle the looming House v. NCAA lawsuit as well as at least two other major federal antitrust claims, multiple sources say the NCAA would pay more than $2.7 billion in damages to past athletes over the next decade. Power conferences would agree to a future system for schools directly sharing revenue with athletes, a permissive choice that’s projected to be in the neighborhood of $20 million per year for each school.
The settlement looms as a quintessential conflicted college sports moment — a bold step with an undercurrent of uncertainty and the new backbone of a multibillion-dollar industry that will forge ahead without key details determined.
Sources told ESPN it would take a minimum of six months, and likely longer, to hash out the unsettled details. Revenue sharing with players is not expected to begin until fall 2025 at the earliest.
“It’s not uncommon that in order to get something across the finish line, you have to agree to leave a whole lot of things unresolved,” an industry source said. “I think the settlement is a good thing, but there are implementation issues that are really significant.”
The list of lingering uncertainties is a long one, including Title IX ambiguity, lack of direction on revenue sharing, the future role of booster collectives and the potential for rosters to be radically reshaped.
At the top of the list of those significant question marks is a concern that the terms of the settlement won’t be sufficient to fend off future legal claims that the NCAA and its schools are violating the law by placing any caps on the way schools can compensate players.
Steve Berman, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the House case, said he believes he has devised a mechanism to solve this issue. Berman has proposed that future athletes — not part of the current class-action lawsuit — would be added to the class on an annual basis. They’d receive an opportunity to opt out of the class or object to the terms of the settlement.
This plan would not give the NCAA legal protection from future antitrust lawsuits, but it would make it much harder to create a large class of athletes suing the NCAA or its schools in the future. The potential financial damages for a case with one or few athletes as plaintiffs would be much smaller, and it would be much less appealing for a future lawyer to dedicate the time and resources to fighting a case that could take years to reach a conclusion.
“What plaintiff lawyer would take that case on behalf of one student?” Berman told ESPN. “It’s unlikely [a future student would sue] because these students are going to get a lot of money, and that lawyer would have to challenge an approved settlement agreement.”
Administrators are right to be cautious about Berman’s proposal, says Marc Edelman, a sports antitrust expert and law professor at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business.
Both Edelman and Berman compared the proposed solution to how the NFL handled a labor dispute in the early 1990s in a case called White v. NFL. Edelman, however, said a key difference in that case is that the NFL players agreed to recertify a previously existing players’ union as part of the settlement. Negotiating revenue-share terms with a players’ union — which does not currently exist in college sports — provided the NFL with protection from antitrust claims.
Edelman said it’s possible a judge would not approve a settlement that intentionally creates high barriers for future athletes to file lawsuits.
“If I were a judge, there are aspects of this settlement the way that it’s been reported that would be very concerning,” Edelman said. “…It may make a judge feel that this case moving forward does little if anything to obviate concerns about collusive behavior.”
Berman disagreed, saying the terms are fair to athletes because they can opt out of the settlement.
In addition to lawsuits brought by plaintiff attorneys, the NCAA is also currently being sued by multiple state-elected attorneys general. Settling the House case would not eliminate those threats, which are less dependent on providing lawyers with a financial incentive to pursue action against the NCAA.
Some college sports leaders say they are hoping a settlement that includes significant revenue-sharing money in the future will be enough of a show of good faith that Congress will provide them with an extra layer of antitrust protection to preserve parts of the college sports system. The NCAA and its conferences have been lobbying on Capitol Hill for a bill that would eliminate the threat of future lawsuits — including those that come from state attorneys general — for several years without making much progress.
Multiple sources — in the House and Senate and on either side of the political aisle — have told ESPN in the past week that a settlement this year is unlikely to spur any immediate action from Congress.
“We have to see what those details are,” said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), who has introduced multiple bills related to college sports in the past two years. “I’m skeptical, particularly in an election year; it’s just not the highest priority right now.”
Trahan — a former college volleyball player — said she is also skeptical of the motives of college sports officials who have told her they want an antitrust exemption to protect opportunities for women’s sports. She said after receiving those visits, she and her staff often check to see whether the school is currently compliant with Title IX laws that require equal opportunities in sports for men and women. She said she finds they are not complying with the law “a lot, more than I care to admit.”
College sports leaders are also uncertain about how Title IX rules could apply to the future revenue-sharing dollars. The terms of the House settlement do not include any detail about how schools would be required to divide that money, according to multiple sources. The NCAA and its leaders will not have clear answers on their Title IX obligations before voting on the proposed terms of a settlement next week.
And even once the settlement is approved, it appears to set up a landscape that remains unsettled.
While fans in Edmonton and Dallas are always singing about how they have friends in low places, only one of them has the high ground in the Western Conference finals. And that’s the Oilers after their 6-1 win Sunday in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.
With the series tied heading into Sunday, the objective for Game 3 was to gain a firm grasp of the conference finals, and the Oilers did just that by having five players with multipoint performances. As for the Stars, losing Game 3 left them trailing a series for the second time this postseason, with the only other such occurrence coming after Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.
Now that the Oilers are in control of the series, what does it mean for them going forward? What must the Stars do differently ahead of Game 4 for them to return home tied rather than a game away from elimination? Ryan S. Clark and Greg Wyshynski examine those questions while delving into what lies ahead for two teams that not only faced each other in the conference finals last season but between them have been involved in every conference final since 2020.
Edmonton Oilers
Grade: A
Much could change between now and whenever the playoffs end. But for now, the argument could be made that this was the most important playoff game the Oilers have had this postseason.
The Oilers have had numerous strong performances, such as Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round or their final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights in the conference semifinals. But what made the Oilers’ performance in Game 3 against Dallas arguably their most important was that they found a balance between being difficult in the defensive zone while not relying on a shutout to accomplish that objective.
The Stars finished with 37 shots, 13 high-danger chances in 5-on-5 play and scored only once. Connor McDavid has repeatedly stressed that the Oilers can play defense, and that has been made clear over their past five games. But Sunday proved they didn’t need Stuart Skinner or their defensive structure to blank an opponent to win. — Ryan S. Clark
Dallas Stars
Grade: C+
The final score doesn’t reflect the majority of this game, which Dallas coach Pete DeBoer can mine for positives among the many (many) negatives and some mitigating circumstances. Having Roope Hintz warm up but not be able to go because of the foot injury he suffered from a Darnell Nurse slash in Game 2? That’s deflating. Having the on-ice officials miss a delay of game call on Brett Kulak in the first period only to have Evan Bouchard open the scoring 10 seconds later? Also deflating.
So it’s to the Stars’ credit that they got to their game at 5-on-5 in Game 3 better than they have in any game of the series, at least before Edmonton ran up the score in the third. The results weren’t there and a loss is a loss — and a loss by this margin is difficult to stomach — but their second period and the performances from some of their slumbering depth players give the Stars at least a glimmer.
However, there’s no question Edmonton has this thing in well in-hand and the Stars have to find a way to solve Skinner, which is not something I thought I’d be writing at this stage of the postseason. — Greg Wyshynski
Three Stars of Game 3
Two goals and an assist for his seventh career multigoal playoff game. Hyman’s second goal was the Oilers’ fourth off the rush, the most in one game by any team this postseason. Hyman also was plus-5 Sunday.
Bouchard scored his sixth goal of the postseason and these two were on the ice for the first two Edmonton goals. At 5-on-5 this postseason, the Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-1, and 5-0 in this series, when Bouchard and Kulak are on the ice.
0:48
Connor McDavid restores Oilers’ 2-goal lead
Connor McDavid finds the back of the net to restore the Oilers’ two-goal lead vs. the Stars.
3. Connor McDavid
C, Oilers
For all the talk about the lack of goals from the best hockey player in the world (which was odd because he had 20 points in 13 games and was a plus-7 entering Game 3 despite having only three goals), McDavid punched out a pair of tucks for his sixth career multigoal playoff game. Also, seeing McDavid with the puck barreling toward the net on a 3-on-1 is nightmare fuel for opponents. — Arda Ćcal
Players to watch in Game 4
Zach Hyman
LW, Oilers
To go from 16 goals last postseason to just three goals entering Game 3 of the conference finals is one way to assess Hyman. Another is to realize that he’s been the most physical player on a team that is among the tallest and heaviest in the NHL.
Hyman came into Game 3 leading the NHL with 99 hits. He remained physical Sunday by leading the way with six hits in a game that saw the Oilers continue their punishing style with 47. But to then see Hyman score two goals and finish with three points in addition to that physicality? It once again adds to the narrative that the Oilers might not only have more dimensions than last year’s team, they could be better than the team that finished Stanley Cup runner-up in 2024. — Clark
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Zach Hyman’s 2nd goal puts Oilers up 4
Zach Hyman taps home his second goal of the game to put the Oilers up 5-1 vs. the Stars.
This is the first two-game losing streak for the Dallas goaltender in the playoffs. A lot of what happened in Game 3 wasn’t necessarily on him — a Connor McDavid beauty and a Zach Hyman breakaway were among the Edmonton tallies — but outside of the third period of Game 1, he’s not been a difference-maker in this series. Oettinger came into the game leading the playoffs with 5.58 goals saved above expected, according to Stathletes. The Stars have been able to depend on him as a slump-breaker. But this is his third game with a save percentage south of .900 in the series. As the Stars try to build on some positives from this game, they need Otter to provide the foundation for it — and in the process, silence those “U.S. backup!” chants from the Oilers fans. — Wyshynski
Big questions for Game 4
Are the Oilers about to do to the Stars what they did to the Golden Knights?
Simply put, the Oilers are where hope goes to die. Teams in a championship window that have yet to win a title are always being judged on their evolution. What the Oilers did to the Stars a year ago in the conference finals by winning the last three games showed that they could close out a series after trailing. This postseason Edmonton has shown a calculated and methodical coldness when it comes to putting away opponents.
The Golden Knights won Game 3 on a last-second goal to create the belief they may have found an opening. They didn’t score again for the rest of the playoffs after being in the top five of goals per game throughout the regular season. Breaking out for six goals to open the series seemed to be a sign the Stars may have found an opening. Since then? They’ve scored only once in the last six periods while facing questions about what’s happened to another team that went from being in the top five in goals per game in the regular season. — Clark
Can Dallas make Edmonton uncomfortable at all?
Our colleague Mark Messier made this point between periods of Game 3: The Stars have yet to do anything to get McDavid or Leon Draisaitl off their games. That extends to the rest of the Oilers. Outside of an anomalous run of three power-play goals in the third period of Game 1, there have been precious few instances of the Stars carrying play for long stretches or putting a scare into Edmonton at 5-on-5.
They had that for a bit in Game 3 with a dominant second period: plus-14 in shot attempts, plus-11 in scoring chances and a 10-1 advantage in high-danger shot attempts. But they were digging out of a 2-0 hole, only managed to get one goal of their own on the board and then McDavid stuck a dagger in them with 19 seconds left in the second.
The Stars need a lead. They need zone time. They need to get their rush game going: Skinner had a .897 save percentage on shots off the rush entering the game. Edmonton is playing with a champion’s confidence. Dallas has to find a way to inject a little doubt into its opponent or this series is going to end quickly. — Wyshynski
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