NCAA settlement might make college athletics more competitive

The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced a historic $2.8 billion anti-trust settlement in tandem with the five power conferences Thursday night, paving the way for colleges to directly pay student athletes for the first time. With amateurism virtually dead how could this new era of college sports affect overall competitiveness?

With most non-power conference schools already considerable underdogs in matchups against their power conference foes, for now they will have to adopt an enhanced David vs. Goliath complex as college athletics navigate the new landscape.

However, the NCAA's revenue-sharing plan under the settlement - in which as of fall 2025 each Power Five school would receive roughly $20 million to disperse among its athletes - could actually ensure a more level playing field for weaker athletic departments when taking on already well endowed programs.

Granted, the bulk of the revenue is likely destined for football and basketball programs, as it's still unclear how regulations like Title IX will factor into how a school distributes their share of the funds.

But for the sake of argument, mid-tier recruits could now be more inclined to choose smaller programs like an Arizona State – where there is a higher likelihood they could feature heavily on the team and possibly get a larger slice of the financial pie – rather than committing to a juggernaut like Ohio State before inevitably transferring after riding the bench behind top recruits. In such a case, the player could be netting little to no payday from the school.

While recently relaxed transfer portal restrictions amplify this dynamic already, smaller programs fighting over the blue bloods' scraps only have the size of their mostly booster-funded name, image and likeness (NIL) collectives to try and persuade potential transfers.

Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada, for example, recently sued Florida head coach Billy Napier and a prominent booster over a botched NIL deal reportedly worth $13.85 million. The Rashada case illustrates the current wild-west environment NIL has fostered ever since its approval by the NCAA in 2021.

Future cases like Rashada's could be avoided with schools developing clearer payroll policies for players and becoming less dependent on off-campus boosters to sweeten official offers to recruits.

The NIL era had already opened a Pandora's Box of issues for college athletes and how to govern cases like Rashada's, but now having revenue directly distributed to schools and further allocated to student athletes will at least establish a paper trail for the NCAA to follow in future instances of compensation disputation.

Eventually, athletic departments will have an accountability mechanism similar to how a professional team's general manager must balance a roster with a salary cap. Schools will also have to strategically pick and choose the rosters they want to invest in and bolster, naturally leaving them weaker in other areas that rival schools could take advantage of, leading to more on-field competition and parity.

Will there come a day when perennial powerhouses like Alabama, Clemson, Michigan and Oregon are replaced by the likes of Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Boston College and BYU? Probably not, but the chances are now a lot greater than zero.