Money, please!

The GIST: By tomorrow evening, the NCAA and the Power Four conferences will vote on whether to settle House v. NCAA, the ongoing lawsuit claiming the NCAA’s pre–NIL ban on student-athlete compensation violated antitrust regulations. A settlement would permanently change college sports’ business model, creating industry-altering shockwaves.

The details: Any settlement would likely see the NCAA owing damages (aka back pay) to Division I athletes who were barred from earning NIL money between 2016 and the 2021 NIL legalization. The current amount on the table? $2.7B. About $1.1B would come from the NCAA’s reserves, with the rest raised by withholding revenue distributions to conferences and schools for the next 10 years.

• More crucially, settling also means a new revenue-sharing model: Schools could opt to distribute up to $20M of their own revenue directly to athletes each year — which many predict will become required spending to remain competitive at the most elite level.

• This essentially kills the NCAA’s beleaguered amateurism model, but it doesn’t automatically make athletes official school employees (or grant them all the associated federal labor protections). There’s still lots of negotiating and lobbying to be done before that happens.

What it means: Even for Power Four programs with massive revenue streams, funneling up to $20M per year to athletes (not to mention losing NCAA–provided revenue) will require some major budget rearranging. And at smaller schools without powerhouse football programs, like those in the Big East and Big Sky conferences, that could mean cuts to sports and athlete resources.

• This could further deepen the disparity between major football schools and everyone else, making NCAA president Charlie Baker’s top-tier Division I proposal an increasingly likely scenario.

• As is, the proposed settlement isn’t perfect. But if the NCAA doesn’t settle and then loses at the January 2025 trial, the penalties could put the org out of business for good.

What’s next: Even after a settlement, there will be many unanswered questions, particularly regarding the impact of revenue-sharing on non-revenue sports and female athletes. No matter what happens, college sports will never be the same as it was.

The GIST: Focus up — softball’s natty is back in action with eight Women’s College World Series (WCWS) berths on the line in this week’s best-of-three Super Regional series. Only two take the diamond tomorrow on ESPN2, but they’re both tantalizingly spicy rematches. Welcome to the May-hem.

No. 15–seed Florida State Seminoles vs. No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners, 7 p.m. ET: It doesn’t get much better than a rematch of last year’s WCWS final series, when the Sooners stomped the ’Noles 5–0 and 3–1 to win their third straight ’ship. But Oklahoma is more vulnerable this season — they squeaked by Oregon in their Regional final Sunday — and nothing motivates like vengeance.

No. 11 Georgia Bulldogs vs. No. 6 UCLA Bruins, 9:30 p.m. ET: Speaking of vengeance, Georgia contributed to UCLA’s slow season start back in February, but the Bruins have since bounced back in a big way: They defied expectations by sailing through their super-competitive Regional, while the Bulldogs needed a Hail Mary to advance. This one’s definitely worth staying up late for.

🎾 Women’s tennis: No. 1–seed Mary Stoiana (Texas A&M) vs. Annabelle Xu (Virginia) — Today at 1:30 p.m. ET — ESPN+

• The women’s and men’s singles and doubles tourneys are raging in Stillwater, OK. If top-seeded Stoiana wins this third-round matchup, she’ll be one step closer to her second national championship in a week — and A&M’s third.

⚾ Baseball: No. 3–seed Kentucky Wildcats vs. No. 11 LSU Tigers — Today at 10:30 a.m. ET — SEC Network

• Reigning national champ LSU didn’t just upset No. 6–seed Georgia in the SEC Tournament’s first round yesterday — they destroyed the Bulldogs 9–1, possibly ruining Georgia’s shot at a high national tourney seed. Fellow top-seed hopeful Kentucky should be nervous.

⛳ Women’s golf: NCAA Championship final round — Today at 6 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

• Junior Adela Cernousek became Texas A&M’s first-ever individual NCAA champ on Monday, but it wasn’t enough to keep her Aggies in the team trophy race. Battling for that honor today? No. 1–seed Stanford and No. 6 UCLA. Let’s fore-king go.

👟 Outdoor track & field: East and West Preliminaries — Today through Saturday at various times — ESPN+

• Prelims are the first leg of the race to a national championship — think of them as track & field’s regional semifinals. The best individuals and relay teams from the East and West meets will book their tickets to next month’s finals, as long as they can keep their shoes on.

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