Thousands of former college athletes will be eligible for payments ranging from a few dollars to more than a million under the $2.78 billion antitrust settlement agreed to by the NCAA and five power conferences, a deal that also paves the way for schools to directly compensate athletes while attempting regulate payments from boosters. Details of the sprawling plan were filed Friday in federal court in the Northern District of California, a little more than two months after the framework of an agreement was announced.
The deal must still be approved by a judge. “College athletes will finally be able to share in the billions of dollars their compelling stories and dynamic performances have generated for their schools, conferences, and the NCAA,” the filing said. “This is nothing short of a seismic change to college sports following more than four years of hard-fought victories in this case.
” The full term sheet includes guidelines on roster caps for individual sports that will replace scholarship limits; how the new financial payments will be monitored and enforced to ensure compliance by schools; how third-party payments to athletes will be regulated; and how nearly $3 billion in damages will be doled out over the next 10 years. Those payouts will vary drastically and are determined by sport played, when, how long and what conference an athlete competed in. While Division I athletes across all sports will be eligible to collect damages, the majority of damages is expec.