NCAA and power conferences agree to settlement terms to pave way to allow schools to pay student-athletes

The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the five power conferences have agreed to settlement terms to pave the way to allow schools to pay student-athletes, the governing body for college sports along with the power conference commissioners announced on Thursday.

The settlement represents a turning point in college athletics, which have traditionally competed under the guise of amateurism that allowed a seedy underbelly of hidden payments and compensation to flourish. Untold numbers of college sports programs have been punished by the NCAA for their players being compensated in some way for their exploits on the field – from thousands of dollars being paid to star players under the table to a coach buying a recruit a hamburger on a visit.

As the business of college sports took off, the veil of amateurism had begun to seem absurd to many observers: Schools and conferences began raking in millions upon millions of dollars, coaches were preaching austerity and amateurism before leaving their players to take a new job with a massive pay raise and TV networks helped reshape the landscape of the sport to maximize their own profits. At the same time, the players on the field were being paid nothing even though they were the ones playing in the games that drove what had become a multibillion-dollar industry.

The House vs. NCAA lawsuit sought to change that.

Filed by Grant House and Sedona Prince, two college athletes, against the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences – the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast – the lawsuit focused on the eight-year, $8.8 billion extension the NCAA signed to broadcast coverage of the March Madness basketball tournament, as well as seeking back-dated damages for payments the suit calls wrongly withheld.

While an NCAA rule change allowed for players to be paid for the use of their name, image and likeness, often through sponsorships and advertisements, the suit argued the NCAA restricts how much student athletes can…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-power-conferences-agree-settlement-012407867.html

Author : CNN

Publish date : 2024-05-24 01:24:07

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