Bryan Bedford is CEO of the Bedford Agency and Recruit Route. Bryan has over 25-years of College Sports Recruiting Experience serving as Division I Recruiting Director at TCU and Division II Recruiting Director Southern Nazarene University as well as an executive at some of the leading sports video, recruiting evaluation and fortune 50 tech companies.
Earlier today, the NCAA and power conferences agreed to a settlement of three antitrust lawsuits (House, Hubbard and Carter). This agreement paves the way for expanded scholarship totals, roster caps, athlete revenue sharing and an enforcement system including arbitration. All of which will go into effect at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
I will break it down in more detail below. In the meantime, if we can help your school, collective or player personnel department in any way navigate this changing landscape of college recruiting and NIL please reach out.
What you need to know about today’s landmark settlement
Today’s announcement is comprised of a back-pay damages settlement of nearly $2.8 Billion to be paid to former D1 players over a 10-year period. 83% of the back pay will go to former football and men’s basketball players. Roughly $12,000 per year, per player.
Revenue sharing will now be allowed and most believe each school will have an annual “cap” of roughly $22 million (with the majority believed to be earmarked for college football) from the various TV agreements.
Roster Caps have been established in all D1 sports. Scholarships caps have also increase by over 750 total scholarships added across all sports. In the new model schools are permitted to offer a scholarship to each player on a sport’s roster up to the new roster limit.
The settlement includes lengthy language to reduce “pay for play” NIL deals. Compliance matters involving “true” NIL will now be presented to a “neutral arbiter” who will handle hearings and appeals.
For more information, please contact Bryan Bedford at 405.503.9284 or thebedfordagency@gmail.com
This week the Oklahoma Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (OIAAA) hosts its comprehensive training and educational set of workshops during its June 9-11th summer convention held in Oklahoma City, OK. In partnership with the OSSAA, Bryan Bedford, CEO of the Bedford Agency will serve as a guest speakers focused on the changing landscape of college recruiting and High School Name Image and Likeness during the two-day event, as the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association continue their efforts to educate coaches, parents and student-athletes on the changing landscape of NIL and college recruiting.
The College Recruiting and NIL Session is held at 2pm Monday June 9th at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City, in conjunction with Mike Clark, Associate Director of the OSSAA who will be sharing “OSSAA Helpful Hints and Tips for the Athletic Director”. A detailed OIAAA agenda can be found here.
The Bedford Agency works with High Schools and State Associations by educating, consulting, mentoring coaches, student-athletes and parents in the highly dynamic world of college recruiting and NIL. Bedford Agency clients include the OSSAA, Broken Arrow High School, Moore Public Schools, Norman Public Schools, Piedmont Schools, Bartlesville Schools.
Thrilled to announce that we’ve added 5 amazing 🤩 interns to the Bedford Agency | Recruit Route for the summer! Please welcome the following Sports Marketing/Management/Business interns who are excited to learn and work in the world of College Recruiting & Name, Image and Likeness!
Parker Cox Bartlesville, OK Oklahoma State University
Much has been written about the NCAA’s latest court case vs. House. The pending settlement, the evolution of the college model, revenue sharing and more. Let’s try to break down what all of this means, how it may or may not impact college sports, D1 sports, High School Sports and more.
In the House v. NCAA case the six defendants (NCAA and the Power 5 conferences) all of which have approved the terms of the House settlement. Many of the elements in the settlement are things you see in pro league collective bargaining agreements (Revenue Sharing being the largest element).
For the now Power Four Division I conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and SEC) the annual revenue sharing cap of $22 million for all of a school’s athletes is one. Note this revenue sharing is only for those four major conferences at the current time and doesn’t apply to Group of 5, FCS, Division II or Division III. It also should be noted that its no wonder the College Football Playoff continues to expand, opening up additional revenue for the Power 4 programs to help offset this additional annual cost for revenue sharing.
The revenue sharing now moves (partially at least) from a 3rd Party model (aka Collectives) to the role of the Universities. The revenue sharing enforcement mechanism that has recently come to light is another factor that likely will evolve but not finalized at this time. The NCAA already stated and now is reinforcing it will require athletes to report 3rd party #NIL deals to a central authority make sure the deals are “true NIL” for “fair market value,” and not “pay for play.” Note for High School athletes the NCAA has already stated that all deals over $600 must be disclosed at the time of signing a National Letter of Intent.
The obvious difference between the House settlement and pro leagues is that the House revenue sharing cap model that the NCAA has fought for. The enforcement of such a cap, and things like new roster limits (scholarship and walk-ons) were not collectively bargained in the House v. NCAA case. Because some of the items were not collectively bargained the NCAA and its member institutions remain vulnerable to antitrust attack from future college athletes.
Which is why the NCAA will continue seeking an antitrust exemption from Congress and its been clear if you have been watching closely that all the lobbying the NCAA and its members are doing is centered around the goal of securing an antitrust exemption from the Federal Government. (Note you may remember Ted Cruz, Nick Saban and others going to Capital Hill recently….that was to try to gain the trust to move the anti-trust exemption forward.
Speaking of revenue cap enforcement, the mechanism in the House v. NCAA case seeks to prevent 3rd party NIL deals from serving as “pay for play,” and as a way to evade the revenue sharing cap. This seems to admit the payments from schools to athletes themselves are “pay for play” despite being classified as Name Image and Likeness payments, which is very interesting. In my opinion, this should be concerning for the NCAA, especially if the antitrust exemption fails as it will have exposure by saying these athletes aren’t employees. This is worth watching closely as these new direct payments from NCAA Power 4 schools to athletes could make it harder to fight the employment issue in the courts.
While we have some level of closure we have a lot more open-ended issues with the House settlement, including those around Title IX, NIL Collectives and more. It’s going to be fun helping schools and others navigate this new world and all of the legal issues it will present. For now, we will be monitoring this closely. Note the House v. NCAA case applies to D1 (Power 4 programs) only. Any program outside of those four major conferences will continue to operate the way the have in recent years. This however will likely create an even larger gap in college sports, which will impact High School recruiting, player development and a host of additional items beyond this.
As always we continue to monitor this situation and advise our Recruit Route and Bedford Agency clients on be practices and insight into this new era of college sports. If we can help you, please reach out to us at bedfordagency@gmail.com or visit us at http://www.thebedfordagency.com
As the changing landscape of College Recruiting, NIL, Collectives and Transfer Portal evolves we continue to monitor the latest information to provide insights to our Coaching/AD clients as well as our clients that are part of the College Recruiting Process via our Recruit Route brand. One very important and interesting factor is the dynamics around roster value and how the market is starting to show a great deal of sophistication as they leverage Collectives to attract roster talent especially at the Division I Level.
A recent tweet by Jason Belzer who is CEO of SANIL shared tremendous insight into how per position value is created both based on talent evaluation, “stars” and overall recruiting rankings as a method of determining “value”. Think of this similar to how the NFL draft “slots” draft picks.
Via Student Athlete NIL
Next is the value by position that modern day collectives are aligned to. This chart gives you insight as a student-athlete or family on what the general range is based on position, need, importance and more.
Via Student Athlete NIL
Now let’s show you the same data for College Basketball and how Collectives are determining player value and spend.
Via Student Athlete NILVia Student Athlete NIL
Well, we hope you enjoyed these amazing charts! Tells you a lot about the changing landscape of college athletics. If we can help you in any way, please drop us a message or visit us at http://www.thebedfordagency.com.
