A federal judge is considering the approval of a $208.7 million settlement between “student-athletes and the NCAA and major college sports conferences.” The catch is that the judge expects lawyers to do a “better job of letting athletes know about the settlement.” As it stands now, about $6,700 is expected to be awarded to former “Division I football and basketball players who received athletic scholarships at well below the cost of attending school.” Wait, what exactly happened to warrant such a settlement?
A federal judge is considering the approval of a $208.7 million settlement between “student-athletes and the NCAA and major college sports conferences.” The catch is that the judge expects lawyers to do a “better job of letting athletes know about the settlement.” As it stands now, about $6,700 is expected to be awarded to former “Division I football and basketball players who received athletic scholarships at well below the cost of attending school.” Wait, what exactly happened to warrant such a settlement?
For those who don’t know, a lawsuit was filed against the NCAA, the Pac 12, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference by a former West Virginia running back, Shawne Alston, accusing the leagues of antitrust violations back in 2014. According to Alston, “the NCAA and its power conferences colluded to cap the financial aid given to players at a level below what it costs them to attend college, and far below what the competitive market would pay.” He claimed that during his time playing for the Mountaineers between 2009 and 2012, he had to borrow “more than $5,000 to cover the difference between his scholarship and what it cost to attend school.”
It wasn’t long before other athletes stepped forward filing similar complaints, and in December 2015, “Alston’s lawsuit was consolidated with others” and a U.S. District Judge, Claudia Wilken, “certified three classes comprising Division I football players, Division I men’s basketball players and Division I women’s basketball players.”
If granted final approval, the settlement, which was announced last month by the NCAA, will pay each of the nearly 40,000 student athletes about $6,763 for “four years of play in his or her sport if they played from March 5, 2010, to the present.” Wilken agrees the settlement is a good one, though she’s concerned that the “current class notice doesn’t give students who may not be on the list a way to find out if they’re eligible or, if they are qualified for a payout, a way to dispute the amount they are receiving.” That’s why she’s urging lawyers to do a better job notifying athletes, and it’s why she’s requesting that each athlete be sent “a breakdown of how their awards were calculated so they could dispute the amounts if necessary.”
Additionally, some leagues, like the PAC 12 Conference, have set up reserve funds to cover athletes who have been left out of the settlement for one reason or another. In a statement from Scott Cooper, who represents the PAC 12 Conference, he said:
“We had anticipated that the process would be one in which we would initially send checks out and there would be a second round in which we would pick up anybody who didn’t receive either the amounts they expected or claimed they were entitled to money that hadn’t been sent. So that was the purpose of the reserve.”
While the settlement is still pending final approval, the initial lawsuit has at least prompted the NCAA to make some changes. As of 2015, it changed its rules to “allow schools to offer full cost of attendance scholarships.”
Sources:
Student-Athletes Inch Closer to $209M Scholarship Settlement
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