Big 12 bracing for “changing landscape” as result of House case settlement
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has underscored the significance of the NCAA v. House settlement, stating that the league is preparing for a “changing landscape” in its aftermath.
The landmark settlement, amounting to a staggering $2.8 billion, is set to reshape the future of collegiate athletics.
The Big 12, one of the Power Five conferences, took a proactive stance by agreeing to settle the class-action lawsuit brought by former college athletes.
The settlement, which could amount to schools paying as much as $22 million a year, still needs a judge’s approval before it can be finalized.
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“It’s going to be a changing landscape, but I also see opportunities in that changing landscape, and the work really starts now,” Yormark said after the league’s spring business meetings in Dallas on Friday. “I look at this as a reset for our industry.
“We’ve been discussing that reset for quite some time, so it’s not coming as a surprise and I think we’re well prepared for it.”
Under the proposed settlement, schools will compensate athletes through revenue-sharing. They could eventually allow athletic departments to work directly with those athletes to secure financial deals for their Name, Image and Likeness.
“We’re discussing revenue-sharing and obviously, we have a formula and we understand what those numbers could look like,” Yormark said. “We’re going to compete at the highest levels, and we’re going to continue to invest.”
Baylor president Linda Livingstone, chair of the Big 12’s board of directors, believes the settlement gives the league a framework for which to work.
“We can begin to plan for what we need to do internally as institutions and what the conference needs to do going forward that will allow us to function in that new world,” Livingstone said.
While the Big 12 begins preparations for an uncertain future, the league announced it had distributed a record $470 million this season. The boost came from money received from the College Football Playoff, bowl revenue and increased ticket revenue across all its championships.
UCF, BYU, Cincinnati and Houston are the new schools that joined the league this past year. Each of the four received approximately $18 million of the revenue payout. The new schools each receive half-shares of revenue until 2025-26.
The league will expand to 16 schools this August with the addition of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah while Texas and Oklahoma depart for the SEC.
Part of the adjustment for those four new members from last season comes financially as schools go from a Group of Five to a Power Five conference. As those athletic departments work to catch up, a new challenge emerges with the impact of the House settlement.
Yet, according to Yormark, none of those schools balked at agreeing to the deal, with all four voting unanimously to settle.
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“We’re all one big team here,” said Yormark. “We did a good job of educating all of our members on what the settlement would mean and candidly what the alternative was and we all rallied around the settlement and it gives us, to some degree, the ability to co-author the future and not be dedicated to what that future would look like.”
Livingstone admits plenty of details still need to be worked out.
“You’ve got to figure out where it’s coming from,” she said about the annual payouts. “That’s probably the biggest question that needs to be answered in a short window of time. We have 12 to 14 months before figuring out what we’re doing in the first year of allocation.
“Also, determining how you’re going to allocate that money and how you choose to distribute it between the different sports and between your male and female athletes because there’s uncertainty around Title IX.”
Matt Murschel can be reached at mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com