NCAA Judge’s Settlement Demand Yields Advantage for Athletes

A federal judge is forcing the NCAA to change its $2.8 billion antitrust deal if the organization wants final approval, a move that would allow student-athletes who are part of a settlement class to keep their spots on college teams.

Judge Claudia Wilken of the US District Court for the Northern District of California in an order last week said she would reject the deal if the NCAA doesn’t address its current limits on team rosters. The settlement aims to resolve claims from athletes who say the organization prohibits them from using money earned from their names, images, and likenesses.

At issue is a provision in which the NCAA replaced scholarship limits with roster caps as part of a deal announced last year by the organization and its Power Five conferences to settle antitrust claims and provide back pay to thousands of Division I athletes. It includes a revenue-sharing model in which colleges would directly pay student-athletes starting this summer.

Wilken gave preliminary approval to the deal last year but expressed concerns at a hearing earlier this month about the roster limits, which would shrink team sizes and result in athletes being cut from teams they already play on.

The NCAA has argued for limits on rosters because spots aren’t currently guaranteed and restricting them opens the door to countless additional scholarships.

But the deal is “not fair and reasonable to the significant number of class members whose roster spots will be or have been taken away,” Wilken said in her five-page April 23 order, giving the parties two weeks to consult with a mediator about potential modifications to the settlement agreement.

The roster limits are “tremendously unfair” to many athletes who are part of the settlement class, said Steven Molo, founding partner of litigation firm MoloLamken LLP who represents a group of students impacted by the limits. Some schools are already cutting roster spots in anticipation of the deal, he said.

“They’ve worked so hard to get to these positions at an elite level and now they are being told, ‘we have to cut you because there are only so many roster spots,’” Molo said.

The roster limits in any form are an antitrust violation because they are a restraint on the labor market at the college level, Molo added.

“If a student-athlete is good enough that Ohio State wants to recruit them to have them be on their team, then Ohio State should be able to have them on their team,” Molo said. “There shouldn’t be some sort of artificial limitation on it.”

The NCAA in a statement last week said it is closely reviewing Wilken’s ruling.

“Our focus continues to be on securing approval of this significant agreement, which aims to create more opportunities than ever before for student-athletes while fostering much-needed stability and fairness in college sports,” the NCAA and defendant conferences said.

After considering the NCAA’s response, Wilken could decide within days whether to give final approval of the deal or send the case to trial, said Jeffrey Kessler, an attorney with Winston & Strawn LLP who represents athlete plaintiffs in the case. He said he didn’t think Wilken’s concerns about roster limits would be the issue holding up approval of the settlement.

“Now we know,” Kessler said. “It means the NCAA and the conferences will now agree to fix this. And if they don’t, we’ll go to trial.”

NCAA’s Next Move

Michael Lowe, a litigation partner with Troutman Pepper Locke, said he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which the NCAA doesn’t make a fix that satisfies the judge.

“She told them what she was thinking, they ignored it, and she basically stuck to her guns,” said Lowe, who represents a Division I conference that is not a party in the settlement litigation. “Now they have to come back with something if they want to have any chance of getting this approved.”

Wilken in her order provided a clear blueprint for getting the deal final approval, with the option of gradually implementing the roster limits so current class members won’t lose their spots.

“One way of achieving that could be to modify the settlement agreement to ensure that no members of the Injunctive Relief Settlement Class who have or had a roster spot will lose it as a result of the immediate implementation of the settlement agreement,” Wilken said in her order. “Limits could be accomplished gradually by attrition.”

Cal Stein, also a litigation partner with Troutman Pepper Locke, said the judge is “very clearly signaling” there is a path forward to getting the deal approved.

She made clear that the use of roster limits is not a “per se” violation of antitrust, he said.

“It does not appear to me that she views these roster limits and the athletic spots that they’re going to take in the future as per se problematic,” Stein said. “Her problem is that it is not fair to the current class members.”

The student-athletes are also represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Wilkinson Stekloff LLP represents the NCAA.

The case is In re College Athlete NIL Litig., N.D. Cal., No. 4:20-cv-03919, order 4/23/25.