A Medal of Honor winner.

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Angel Hernandez is officially retired. Thanks for the memories, king.

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Pete Thamel, ESPN

Nothing is easy in college sports.

And with the Power 5 conferences and NCAA board of governors voting Thursday to accept the settlement of three antitrust cases that create a new structure for the sport, the moment is layered in both historic change and looming ambiguity.

The more than $2.7 billion of back damages and a new revenue-sharing model that come with the settlement of House v. NCAA and two related antitrust cases mark a distinct pivot for college sports. Amateurism, long a fragile and fleeting notion in the billion-dollar college sports industry, is officially dead. College sports, long a fractured group of fiefdoms, came together in an attempt to save themselves, with the jarring sight of five power leagues and the NCAA together on a press release.

This is a necessary and important week for the business of college athletics, yet not a celebratory one for its leaders. It's a promising day for future athletes who are being compensated with revenue sharing expected to be more than $20 million per school.

And it's also a confusing week for the coaches and leaders on campus, who have no idea what the specific rules of engagement are moving forward.

There should be no trips to the chiropractor from self-congratulatory back pats for taking this step, as the business of college sports will remain messy. No one should be cheered for paying billions just to avoid paying additional billions.

The peace that NCAA and conference leaders hope they are purchasing with their billions in settlement money is seemingly tentative. While the settlement will make it harder for plaintiff attorneys to wield the threat of billion-dollar damages in the future, athletes will have options to keep challenging any restriction or cap on how they are paid. As the final yes votes were being collected this week, a separate federal case in Colorado -- Fontenot v. NCAA -- continued to march forward on its own track, leaving open the possibility that NCAA lawyers won't have time to catch their breath before fighting the next battle on capping athlete compensation.

The games on the fields and arenas of college sports remain wonderful, the television ratings in college football and the NCAA tournament for men's and women's basketball are all gangbusters. And the NCAA, behind decisive leadership from president Charlie Baker, appears to have bought increased relevance in the coming years by finding enough consensus to avoid a catastrophic financial loss from yet another court decision going against it.

But the reality of the culmination of votes on Thursday, which still need the approval of Judge Claudia Wilken, is that college leaders took the best bad option. Pay billions now and share the revenue or, lawyers predicted, lose a series of lawsuits, declare bankruptcy and start over.

How we got here is simple. As college sports roared from regional passion to national obsession through the 1990s and this century, NCAA leaders and college presidents clung to a business model that didn't pay the talent. (The coaches, not coincidentally, were compensated at significant levels because the players never commanded a salary.)

Just three years ago, the NCAA fought the notion of paying athletes a now-quaint $6,000 in academic-based awards all the way to the Supreme Court. So it's hard to overstate just how drastic the tenor change is surrounding college sports.

Somewhere along the way, as conference television networks formed, commissioner salaries boomed to $5 million a year -- for former Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, of all people -- and the television contracts rivaled professional sports', there was never a way to directly cut in the athletes. Until this week.

So what does this mean for college sports when revenue sharing comes as early as fall 2025? Where does this take us?

We've outlined the lingering questions that will need to be hammered out. Most of the decisions to this point have been guided by the NCAA, lawyers and commissioners, and there will be a point when the actual participants in the weeds of the sports -- the athletic directors and coaches -- have a voice in the process. Or at least they hope to.

Along with making it less financially appealing for plaintiff attorneys to challenge the NCAA in antitrust cases, college leaders are also hoping they can lay their new settlement at the feet of Congress as a show of good faith. In turn, they hope to spur some momentum for a federal law that gives them increased protection from lawsuits in the future. However, there are no guarantees the settlement will shake loose any votes on Capitol Hill, which has thus far been stagnant on NCAA-related legislation and will have most of its time occupied by November's election.

Without help from Congress, it will remain a bumpy road for the NCAA to enforce the kinds of rules it thinks are necessary to restore stability to college sports.

How does Title IX factor into the financial calculus? That looms as the biggest campus worry. How will rosters be constructed? Football coaches who have 130 players on their team -- 85 scholarships and 45 walk-ons -- are wondering if they need to cut a third of the roster with the expected inclusion of roster caps.

"This all is well intended, but I'll believe it when I see it," an industry source told ESPN. "There are three big issues looming that will determine how this goes: The Title IX strategy for the implementation of revenue distribution, enforcement issues surrounding residual NIL and how roster caps work."

If NIL remains outside athletic departments, as expected, who will police it? The NCAA's enforcement track record is nearly as poor as its legal record. Could there be someone -- perhaps a magistrate or special master appointed by Judge Wilken -- who is an arbiter of the interpretations of the settlement?

"You are going to need a new group to handle enforcement of NIL," another industry source said. "Not the NCAA, because the system is going to be completely different. An entity that looks like the NFL or NBA league office, because the issues that matter are different from the previous regulatory focus at the NCAA. It was all about amateurism. Now it's going to be much different, you effectively have a salary cap."

The problem with policing NIL is that separating deals based on endorsements from those that are thinly veiled payments for performance remains just as much of a subjective process as it has been during the past three years. It's unclear how any settlement terms will provide the tools schools need to shut down a thriving NIL market that is outside their direct control.

Athletic directors are facing the most significant decisions of their careers -- how do they find the money and slice it up? The only certainty is there will be unhappiness on campus, as the value of teams to their administrators will now include a dollar sign.

And that will come with much consternation, including the potential cutting of Olympic sports to help fund the roster of financial bell cows.

Be ready for a few months of ambiguity, as formal federal approval looms and then the real work of hammering out the details will begin.

Those are the questions being asked today by just about everyone in the industry. Coaches don't know how to recruit the Class of 2025, as the recruiting rules -- right down to how many players can be on the roster -- have yet to be determined.

Football players will go on official visits this month prior to their senior seasons and not know what to expect. Schools won't even know basic details like roster spots and available money.

So while history will come with the expected formalization of this settlement, the immediate future of what this looks like remains unclear. Which is fitting, as fixing decades of issues was always going to be a slog.

Because it remains true that nothing is ever easy in college sports.

By Bridget Reilly

Notre Dame had its statement ready in the wake of a bombshell NCAA settlement, and it wasn’t vague on its stance about potential athlete compensation.

On Thursday, the NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences came to an agreement to pay almost $2.8 billion to settle several antitrust claims.

It’s an agreement — which still needs a federal judge’s approval — that, in Notre Dame’s opinion, put the “great American institution of college sports” in jeopardy, as the ruling could potentially see millions being distributed to athletes’ pockets in a revenue-sharing plan directly from colleges.

“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 the university’s president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C in a statement. “To save the great American institution of college sports, Congress must pass legislation that will preempt the current patchwork of state laws; establish that our athletes are not employees, but students seeking college degrees; and provide protection from further anti-trust lawsuits that will allow colleges to make and enforce rules that will protect our student-athletes and help ensure competitive equity among our teams.”

The $2.8 billion settlement will be paid over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes, who have said that now-defunct rules have prohibited them from earning an income from endorsement and sponsorship deals going back as far as 2016.

The decision will create a professional sports-like compensation system that brings about a revenue-sharing fund that will allow schools to share as much as $22 million a year to their athletes.

Questions still remain around the deal, including how this will affect Notre Dame and their independence from NCAA conferences.


“Even though it was only because of the overwhelming legal pressure, the NCAA, conferences and schools are agreeing that college athletes should be paid,” said former UCLA football player Ramogi Huma, according to the Associated Press. “And there’s no going back from there.

“That’s truly groundbreaking.”

— With AP

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/28/nikki-haley-koch-endorsement-2024-gop-primary

Haley gets a big financial boost. She is gaining momentum but needs to separate as a clear number 2 vs. Trump.

David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer

NCAA president Charlie Baker wants state lawmakers to take steps to better protect student-athletes from harassment and coercion from gamblers and to combat threats to the integrity of the games as widespread, legal college sports betting takes hold in the United States.

The NCAA announced Wednesday that it will begin advocating for state laws to include increased penalties for bettors who harass student-athletes, mandatory reporting hotlines for gambling-related threats, a uniform minimum betting age of 21 and funding for the education of college students about the risks of betting.

The NCAA also is asking for input on what types of wagers are allowed at sportsbooks, citing prop bets on individual player performances as "especially vulnerable to integrity issues."

"The NCAA is making changes to help student-athletes make smart choices when it comes to sports betting, but given the explosive growth of this new industry, we are eager to partner with lawmakers, regulators and industry leaders to protect student-athletes from harassment and threats," Baker said in a release announcing the advocacy campaign.

The FBI has characterized threats by bettors to student-athletes as a growing issue, and betting scandals have popped up at multiple NCAA schools this year.

In May, Alabama fired its head baseball coach after he was linked to suspicious betting activity on a Crimson Tide game against LSU. Days later, authorities accused dozens of student-athletes at Iowa and Iowa State of betting violations.

Thirty-five states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have launched betting markets since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal statute that had restricted sports gambling to primarily Nevada. Florida, Maine and Vermont have passed sports betting bills.

The NCAA disclosed in July that there had been 175 sports betting violations by athletic department administrators, coaches and student-athletes since the 2018 ruling from the Supreme Court. The violations ranged from small wagers of $5-$10 to players betting on their own schools or providing inside information, Baker wrote in a response letter to U.S. Congresswoman Dina Titus on July 12.

"Some states have great policies on the books to protect student-athletes from harassment and coercion and to protect the integrity of the games, but as more states pass or amend laws, more needs to be done," Baker said in Wednesday's release.

By Zach Braziller

The avalanche began three years ago, with the advent of Name, Image & Likeness (NIL).

It has snowballed on the NCAA from there, with unprecedented freedom of movement for student-athletes in the form of the transfer portal and now Thursday’s monumental settlement for nearly $2.8 billion that calls for paying damages to thousands of former and current college athletes who were previously prevented from earning endorsement money and, moving forward, revenue sharing for athletes in the form of roughly $20 million a year per school, if they so choose to spend that much.

How that will look exactly years from now is uncertain.

College athletes could possibly become employees of schools and there is the potential of unionization and collective bargaining on top of that.

But what is crystal clear is that the NCAA’s archaic model of amateur athletics, going back over a century, is no more.

“It’s the professionalization of the college sports enterprise,” St. John’s athletic director Mike Cragg told The Post in a phone interview. “What does that eventually mean? It’s too early to tell, or how that shapes up. I would not say this marks the day that professionalization started. But that’s what I believe has been evolving over the last several years.”

The NCAA had no choice but to settle, facing mounting losses in three antitrust lawsuits. So the governing body and its five power-conference leagues — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — settled with a multibillion-dollar agreement.

It will play former athletes going back to 2016, and enable current and future ones to be paid directly by schools for the first time.

The settlement still has to be approved by Judge Claudia Wilken, who is presiding over the antitrust cases.

The new revenue-sharing model is expected to begin in the fall of 2025.

In the meantime, what this new model will look like is unclear.

Schools will have freedom to use the money how they see fit.

Title IX, it should be noted, was not addressed in the settlement.

It is a federal law that requires institutions to offer equal opportunities for male and female athletes.

NCAA president Charlie Baker has said Title IX only refers to opportunities not financial compensation.

In other words, he doesn’t believe it has to be distributed equally to men and women.

As part of the settlement there will be a reporting mechanism in place that will require athletes to report third-party NIL deals that are not part of revenue-sharing profits he or she receives from the school.

The deal has to be “fair market value,” which will be defined at a later date.

But, this could be a way for schools and/or boosters to go above the $20 million they can pay players.

It’s unclear who would be enforcing it. But NIL isn’t going anywhere.

“The NIL space is somewhat ironclad because there would be lawsuit after lawsuit,” an NIL industry source said. “It has everything to do with who you are as an athlete and your value and your marketability. … Your value is really subjective.”

NCAA leaders are looking to Congress to pass legislation that shields it from future antitrust lawsuits, enabling it to reshape college athletics with player compensation rules and a declaration that college athletes are not employees.

Mike Aresco, former Big East and current American Athletic Conference commissioner, suggested that could also include reining in pay-for-play NIL deals and limiting player movement.

“The NCAA and the conferences are hopeful that by agreeing to this, it increases their chances of getting a federal law with an antitrust exemption. I’m still skeptical that’s going to happen,” said Mit Winter, an attorney for Kansas City law firm Kennyhertz Perry who specializes in college sports law. “It’s a big deal going forward, for sure.”

Said Aresco: “The wild west had more laws and regulations than we do. This isn’t the wild west — it’s worse than the wild west.”

Lesser revenue sports are likely to take a hit.

A high-ranking power conference executive predicted “carnage” for Olympic sports, with schools dropping those that don’t bring in money and upping the budget for profitable sports such as basketball and football.

“There’s going to be a lot of cuts on these campuses,” the executive said. “Sports are going to get relegated or moved down to Division III or club. To protect the money-making sports, other things are going to suffer.”

That, of course, is speculation for now.

There remains so many unanswered questions about this new college athletics model. It’s brand new, with so many potential directions it can go in.

There is one certainty, however: Amateur sports at the collegiate level is a thing of the past.

• Pete Thamel
• Dan Murphy

The NCAA's Board of Governors voted Wednesday evening to agree to settlement terms in the House v. NCAA and related antitrust cases, sources told ESPN, joining three power conferences thus far in moving forward with a historic change for the way college sports are operated.

The Big 12 and ACC voted to accept settlement terms Tuesday, and the Big Ten joined them Wednesday. The remaining two defendants named in the lawsuit -- the SEC and Pac-12 -- are expected to vote to approve the terms as well later this week. The NCAA's board did not vote unanimously Wednesday, a source told ESPN.

The NCAA board vote was expected but perhaps looms more symbolically. The board voting in favor of a settlement that would allow schools to pay players represents a formal severing of a decades-long tether to unpaid amateurism.

The settlement terms state the NCAA will provide more than $2.7 billion to former athletes over the next decade for back damages related to the association's name, image and likeness restrictions, according to sources. The conferences also agreed to create a forward-looking system that will allow schools to pay roughly $20 million per year in permissive revenue sharing to athletes. Those direct payments, an unprecedented paradigm shift in college sports, would likely begin in fall 2025.

By settling, the schools and the NCAA avoid going to trial, where they could have been on the hook for damages in excess of $4 billion if they lost, which legal experts considered a likelihood considering the NCAA's recent poor record in court cases. According to sources, the plaintiffs will also agree to dismiss two other pending antitrust cases against the NCAA that could have potentially added billions of dollars in damages to an already daunting total.

College athletics leaders have widely acknowledged that while a settlement in the House case is a significant step forward, it will not solve all of the legal and governance issues that have destabilized their former business model. While some university leaders are skeptical that the settlement will provide a clear path forward and other college sports leaders took issue with how the financial burden of settlement payments would be shared among conferences, sources have told ESPN that an agreement is widely expected to arrive by the end of the week. Leagues need only a majority vote to approve of the current terms.

Sources have indicated it will take at least six months to sort through details, such as how Title IX laws will apply to future payments and whether they can curtail spending in the NIL marketplace.

While the agreement is a major step forward, several steps remain before the lawsuits are officially settled. The two sides will have to present a more detailed settlement agreement to Judge Claudia Wilken, and all Division 1 athletes will have multiple months to review the terms and decide if they want to object or opt out of the class action settlement. This process will take months to reach a conclusion.

ESPN's Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.

Player profile

• Position: Forward/Center
• Height: 6-9
• Weight: 220
• Class: Sophomore
• Hometown: Abia, Nigeria
• Prev School: NBA Academy Africa

Sophomore Year in 2023-24

• Played in 20 games for the Cardinals
• Averaged 6.9 minutes per outing, scoring 2.4 points and pulling down 2.2 boards on average
• Missed seven ACC games due to ankle injury
• Had season-high eight points, six rebounds and two blocks against UMBC in season opener on November 6

Freshman Year in 2022-23

• Appeared in five games after joining the team during conference play, averaging 4.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks
• Shot 42.9% from the field and made his only 3-point attempt
• Missed last six games of the season with an ankle injury
• Tallied six points, six rebounds and four blocks in 20 minutes at Pitt on Feb. 7
• Had the most blocks by a Cardinal since Malik Williams at Seton Hall on Dec. 1, 2018, and was the first Louisville freshman to block at least four shots in a game since Chinanu Onuaku against Savannah State on Nov. 24, 2014
• Made his college debut with eight points, five rebounds and a block at Notre Dame on Jan. 28
• Competed for Team Africa in the 2023 GLOBL JAM event in Toronto, Canada, in July 2023

Before Louisville

• Joined Louisville roster in January 2023 and is immediately eligible.
• Joined NBA Academy Africa in Saly, Senegal, in May 2021 and enrolled full-time in March 2022.
• NBA Academy Africa – one of four NBA academies around the world – is an elite basketball training center in Saly, Senegal, for the top high-school age prospects from across Africa.
• Was one of 12 NBA Academy prospects chosen last year to participate in the Basketball Africa League’s Elevate program. The BAL, a professional league launched by FIBA and the NBA, aims to provide an opportunity for the next generation of African prospects to showcase their talent on a global stage.
• Averaged a double-double last season for BC Espoir Fukash out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, highest of any BAL Elevate program player in the league.
• Competed in 2022 NBA Academy Games, a series of exhibition games featuring top prospects from outside the U.S., including from the league’s four academies located in Australia, India, Mexico and Senegal, competing against each other and elite select teams in front of NCAA coaches and NBA scouts; led NBA Academy Africa to a first-place finish in the tournament.
• Participated with NBA Academy Africa in the National Prep School Invitational in Providence, R.I., in February 2022, as well as the Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas in December, followed by an exhibition game at the G League Winter Showcase.

Mixtape

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Stats

Dear Ezra,

I am sure that making the decision as to which college you wish to bring your talents is a difficult one. This is an exciting time and there are many great options. I am sure that you have the support of a great family and friends to guide you in this process. On behalf of this fan, though, I believe you would be the perfect addition to the Seton Hall Pirates. (But who wouldn't want an athletic, versatile big man that can attack the rim, run the floor, rebound, and play defense?)

(1) You'll have the opportunity to play for Coach Sha, a proven winner, a great developer of players, and, above all else, a good man. Coach Sha, a Seton Hall University Hall of Fame inductee, bleeds Pirate blue & white. He coaches for the love of Seton Hall, not the "next job". He took an undermanned St. Peter's to the Elite Eight, beating Kentucky and Purdue along the way. He took Seton Hall to an NIT championship over a highly regarded Indiana State squad. He is competitive and you will have to earn your minutes but know that you will be treated fairly and with respect.

(2) We've already added some dogs to this team that have been overlooked before. Scotty Middleton, Prince Aligbe, Chaunce Jenkins, Gus Yalden, just to name a few. If you want to work and get your hands dirty, this is the place to be.

(3) The Big East will challenge you. It's one of the most physical conferences in the nation. It also boasts the national champion and NIT champion.

(4) We are a passionate and loyal fanbase. If you join the Pirates, you instantly become part of our Seton Hall Family.

(5) There are many opportunities in the New York/New Jersey area for you to give back to the community and you will be inspired by the Seton Hall basketball legends who have contributed in so many ways. Jerry Walker leads the way in that regard. Another power forward like you, Jerry has spent his career helping the underprivileged children in the area.

(6) Time is of the essence. Seton Hall has one scholarship left. I would love for that to be you, but there does come a time when you have to do what's right for the players already on the team and move on.

Please feel free to join PiratesCrew if you have any questions of me or the fanbase.

Thank you for your time, Ezra.

[The views expressed here are those of Hall Berry]

Player profile




We'll start where we always begin, with Jerry Carino......

1. He’s a cousin of Raymond Felton​

Hoop-heads certainly will recall Raymond Felton from his days as an All-American point guard and NCAA champion at North Carolina whose long NBA career included two stints with the New York Knicks. Jahseem’s uncle Jalek Felton was a coveted backcourt recruit who played one season at North Carolina. So the bloodlines are there.

In a notable family twist, his father Michael Felton hails from Jersey.

“My dad is from Trenton, and growing up I always heard about historic runs Seton Hall had in March Madness," Jahseem said.

2. He was a middle-school prodigy​

Ranking middle-school basketball players is a sketchy and controversial endeavor, but those who do such things have had Felton high on their national radar since he was a young lad growing up in Charlotte. He currently is rated three stars by Rivals, 247Sports and On3 and is a consensus top-150 prospect for 2024, with On3 ranking him highest at No. 120.

He also fielded scholarship offers from N.C. State, South Carolina and Wake Forest and visited all three schools. For Seton Hall, assistant coach Rasheen Davis was the lead recruiter.

Felton took an official visit to Seton Hall Oct. 13-15 and had a conversation with head coach Shaheen Holloway that made an impression.

"My parents are always honest with me, always straight up; going there, it was like seeing family," he said. "(Holloway) said, ‘Listen, I’m not going to promise you minutes or promise you anything. If you come here and work you’ll get the minutes you deserve, and I will promise you a four-year education.' I can’t wait to come there and put that work in.”

3. Versatility a strength​

Scouting reports on Felton’s game stress his versatility. He is listed by various recruiting services as a shooting guard, point guard and combo guard.

“I’m a big combo guard – a dog on offense and defense," he said.

The North Carolina-based Phenom Hoop Report, which ranks him as the No. 10 Class of 2024 prospect in the hoops-rich state, wrote this about Felton in August:

“He is a 6’5 strong and physical guard that can really mix it up well, plays with a smooth feel and pace, and was able to help run the show. Felton was able to score in a variety of ways, whether it was creating and knocking down shots from the perimeter, making strong moves to get to his spots to score, or finishing strong through defenders and around the basket."

HS Mixtape (junior year)

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Words from the coach....

"I'm excited to add these two student-athletes to our program," Holloway said. (Jahseem Felton AND Godswill Erheriene) "These are two young men that we targeted in the recruiting process and we knew that they could help us right away. They come from great high school programs and great families."

A talented guard with New Jersey roots – his father hails from Trenton – Felton attends Combine Academy in Charlotte, N.C., a team that is currently ranked as the No. 17 high school basketball team in the country according to ESPN. Rated as a four-star recruit by On3 and the No. 24 combo guard in the class of 2024 according to 247 Sports, Felton averaged 17.5 points per game on the Under Armour circuit and 20.5 points per game in the Peach Invitational Tournament on the AAU circuit.

"Jahseem is a big point guard at 6-5," Holloway said. "He can shoot it, handle it and can get to the basket. Overall, he has a great feel for the game."

At the time of the signing (late October '23) it was expected that Felton would get major minutes at both guard positions. But now with the 1-2 (and 3) positions the strength of the current roster the question is where with the 3 star player fit in? Holloway as is his want will start with a clean stales regarding PT. But will the inexperienced young guard carve out the minutes he wants?

continued.....

RIP

Morgan Spurlock, 'Super Size Me' Director, Dead at 53 from Cancer https://www.tmz.com/2024/05/24/morgan-spurlock-dead-dies-super-size-me-director-mcdonalds/

Pete Thamel, ESPN

The ACC has joined the Big 12 as the second named party in House v. NCAA to vote to settle that case and related antitrust cases, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.

With those votes formalized, a path is underway to forge a new era in college sports. There will be four more votes this week: three more from the Power 5 leagues and one from the NCAA board of governors.

The ACC presidents voted in person in Charlotte, North Carolina, at their meetings Tuesday evening.

Big 12 presidents and chancellors voted virtually Tuesday afternoon to unanimously approve, with departing members Texas and Oklahoma abstaining. The 12 continuing members from this year's conference all voted to pass.

The settlement is widely expected to pass, which will chart a new course for college sports in establishing a framework for schools to share millions of dollars with their athletes in the future and create a fund of more than $2.7 billion to pay former athletes who were not allowed to sign name, image and likeness deals.

Sources have consistently indicated to ESPN that there is little resistance on the conference level, and the NCAA is also expected to pass the settlement measure. (The Pac-12 will vote as a full 12-team league, as currently constructed, as it was when the House v. NCAA case was filed.)

Sources said Big 12 presidents and chancellors were briefed in recent days on a 13-page term sheet that contains the settlement language.

The key parts of the settlement include the NCAA paying for more than $2.7 billion in back damages over a decade, about $1.6 billion of which will be withheld from schools.

There's also roughly $20 million in permissive revenue sharing that is expected to begin in fall 2025. This revenue sharing will give athletic departments the direct ability to pay the players, a massive paradigm shift for college athletics.

The point of the schools settling is to avoid even bigger damages down the road, which legal experts considered a likelihood considering the NCAA's poor record in court cases.

Leagues need only majority votes to approve the settlement, and the detractors in conferences aren't believed to have enough momentum to sway to a no vote, sources told ESPN.

But there's still an aura of uncertainty hanging over the landscape, as school presidents are meeting both virtually and in-person this week.

On campuses, school officials are meeting and scrambling to figure out how to adjust to the new paradigms. Schools in bigger leagues need to find nearly $20 million to budget for athletes and figure out how to divide it. Smaller leagues are adjusting on how to cover costs, as the NCAA is withholding varying money from schools in all levels of Division I to cover the costs.

There's no clarity on Title IX's role in revenue sharing, how roster caps will work and what enforcement of NIL will look like. (NIL is expected to continue to exist in addition to the revenue sharing.)

Sources have indicated it will be at least six months until these details are worked out, likely longer. There also are expected to be several other steps before Senior District Judge Claudia Wilken can approve the settlement. All Division I athletes have the opportunity to object to the terms or opt out of the class.

Wilken also needs to hold a preliminary hearing to review the terms of the settlement. Later, she would need to consider any arguments presented against it before formally ruling on the settlement. This all projects to take months to unfold.

There are also expected to be continued asks to Congress to work toward more narrow exemptions from future lawsuits. The industry belief has been that Congress could be more willing to help college sports, as opposed to saving it, now that there is a structure moving forward that includes revenue distribution for the players.

The lawyers in the House case and two other related cases -- Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA -- are veteran antitrust lawyers Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman. Kessler has been at the forefront of the sports labor movement for several decades, including the O'Bannon v. NCAA case in 2014. Berman has also been involved in several antitrust cases against the NCAA, including the Alston case that the Supreme Court upheld in 2021.

ESPN's Dan Murphy contributed to this report.