On January 8, Desirée Moore and Jillian Sprong published “A settlement that remains unsettled: Title IX challenges to House v. NCAA NIL settlement surge on” in Westlaw Today. The following is an excerpt:
Desirée F. Moore and Jillian E. Sprong of Venable LLP discuss the ongoing Title IX challenges to the House v. NCAA settlement and the implications for student athlete name, image and likeness compensation and revenue sharing.
In June, Judge Claudia Wilken of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved an unprecedented $2.8 billion settlement in the class action antitrust lawsuit House v. NCAA, a major development in NCAA antitrust litigation and ongoing debates about student-athlete compensation.
The House v. NCAA settlement marked a clear departure from amateurism in collegiate athletics by allowing schools to share athletics revenue with student athletes and awarding back pay to certain student athletes for name, image, and likeness (NIL) earnings.
Plaintiff class members began to levy Title IX-based challenges to the settlement almost immediately. Since then, plaintiff-objectors have continued to argue that the settlement runs afoul of Title IX's prohibition on sex discrimination.
As challenges proceed through the courts, there is significant uncertainty regarding the implications of Title IX in college sports for direct pay, revenue sharing, and NIL earnings.
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