NCAA Accused of Unfairness in Appeal of $2.8 Billion Pay Deal

Objectors to the NCAA’s $2.8 billion player-pay settlement took the next step in their appeal, arguing that Title IX violations are unfair to female athletes.

“Rather than applying federal law, the Settlement intentionally excluded Title IX from its damages calculations, resulting in a grossly inequitable distribution in which over 90% of compensation is allocated to male student-athletes,” a group of four female athletes said in a brief to the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday.

The settlement’s distribution “perpetuates gender-based inequities in student-athlete compensation and violates both the fairness requirements of Rule 23 and the nondiscrimination mandate of Title IX,” the group, represented by Leigh Ernst Friestedt of boutique law firm Equity IX LLC, said.

The settlement, which would provide back pay to student-athletes and allow colleges to pay athletes directly, was approved June 6 by a federal judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Under the deal, schools in what had been the five most historically competitive NCAA conferences can share payments worth up to 22% of their average athletic revenue, which is projected to be roughly $20 million per school annually.

Over 10 years, the NCAA and the conferences will pay $2.75 billion in back damages to thousands of Division I athletes who played since 2016. In response, many universities began cutting programs and athletes, especially in Olympic sports that don’t generate as much revenue.

Damage Allocations

John Clune, an attorney with Hutchinson Black & Cook LLC, is representing eight student-athletes who are appealing on the damages allocation of the “athletic services compensation” and the “broadcast NIL” portions of the settlement.

Those objectors “will earn between $188 and $456 each from the settlement, in stark contrast to the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that class members competing in men’s sports will earn,” the Clune-led brief said Wednesday.

“The district court abused its discretion in granting final approval of the Settlement Agreement,” the brief said.

The court failed to consider Title IX in the damages calculation and also “failed entirely” to address these very Title IX objections that had already been raised in January, he said.

Jeffrey Kessler from Winston & Strawn LLP, who represents the district-court plaintiffs, and other settling parties have called the appeal off-base because it makes Title IX arguments that aren’t relevant to the antitrust issues in the deal.

Female Athletes’ Share

MoloLamken LLP is also representing objectors to female undercompensation as part of a larger appeal that involves antitrust and anticompetitive injury.

“Women comprise about half the settlement class but receive less than 10% of the settlement funds,” their brief, filed Oct. 25, said.

Their brief claims Dan Rascher, the lead economist representing the class, “incorrectly assumed” that conferences—not schools—would pay NIL compensation directly to student-athletes in the “hypothetical but-for world free of antitrust violations.”

Those three appeals focused on an alleged miscalculation of compensation for women, but there are other objectors.

Bradford Edwards LLP is appealing on behalf of K. Braeden Anderson, a former Division I basketball player and class member, who claims the deal understates pay-for-play value, relies on a notice procedure that failed to reach Black athletes adequately, and locks in a wage cap that the DOJ has warned perpetuates an illegal restraint.

Tyler Phillips, a former walk-on football player at the University of Arkansas, is appealing on behalf of himself and other “excluded objectors” over the damages allocation.

The NCAA is represented by Wilkinson Stekloff LLP.

The case is House v. NCAA, 9th Cir., No. 25-4137, appellant briefs filed 10/29/25.