Baker: Settlement helps NCAA prevent ‘bankruptcy’

Andrea AdelsonJun 10, 2025, 06:48 PM ET

Close

• ACC press reporter.
• Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
• Graduate of the University of Florida.ORLANDO, Fla.– NCAA president Charlie Baker told hundreds of collegiate athletics administrators throughout a keynote address Tuesday that the current multibillion-dollar House settlement approval creates”a far better future”for the company, one that” includes choices, instead of insolvency. “Baker made his first public remarks

  considering that Judge Claudia Wilken authorized the deal between the NCAA, its most effective conferences and attorneys representing all Department I professional athletes, as he attended to the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Sports convention. Your Home v. NCAA settlement, reached last Friday, ends 3 separate federal antitrust claims, all of which declared the NCAA was unlawfully limiting the earning power of college athletes.In front of a standing-room-only crowd, Baker told the assembled group,”No one in this room requires to hear me say that this is among the most significant modifications ever in college sports. I hope you also understand that it’s a far much better future than virtually every other alternative that might have remained in front of us.”Blame whoever you wish to blame. But the easy fact is clear: College sports’ cumulative failure

  or hesitation to change years ago put the whole enterprise at risk. Is the settlement disruptive? Very much so. However it is a chance for the D-I community to spend for back damages over ten years, instead [of] triple that quantity at one time. And it produces a future that comes with choices, instead of personal bankruptcy. “Editor’s Picks 2 Related As an outcome of the settlement, the NCAA will pay almost$ 2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to professional athletes who contended in college at

  any time from 2016 through the present. In addition, schools are now allowed to pay professional athletes approximately $20.5 million in earnings sharing beginning in 2025-26. Throughout a brief media schedule with press reporters after his public remarks, Baker stated he was at a wedding in Indianapolis when the settlement was authorized.

  He examined his phone to see whether one of his children had called and saw the news alert. He then began walking the space to spread out the news to other NCAA officials at the wedding event. “I ran around as the Pied Piper and informed everybody,”Baker said.”It is one of those things where I’ll always keep in mind where I was. “Schools have until June 15 to choose in to participate in the settlement, though Baker stated there has been discussion amongst conferences to push that go back to July 1 as they start to go through a 50-page FAQ document that has been dispersed to them.In his remarks to the group, Baker acknowledged,” Change of this scale is going to be hard, and the shift will be rocky. Nobody gets whatever they want in a settlement. … College sports need stability as we update.”Indeed, schools have actually been preparing to pay players for more than a year and should choose about whether to completely participate in the$ 20.5 million wage cap, how to come up with the extra financing and how to divide the cash among their players. Michigan, for example, recently revealed a 10 percent athletic department staffing reduction as a result of the settlement.Asked about schools needing to make monetary choices like this one, Baker returned to his remarks about schools having choices.” I’ve spoken to a great deal of schools in D-I, at every level. They all get the fact that it’s much better to be able to choose than to

  have actually choices made for you, which is sort of what the option was, “Baker said.He likewise noted the Power 4 conferences, for the most part, have actually said they have no present strategies to get rid of sports, and thinks the removal of scholarship limits is a positive.”A great deal of the people who are forecasting what’s going to happen here, good for them, but the bottom line is, we do not understand. And, and I think it is very important to let this play out and then make modifications if individuals require to.”