The NCAA faces another legal hurdle to the House settlement

The GIST: Mere days after concerns about future implications derailed the House v. NCAA settlement, the NCAA faces yet another challenge in its battle to maintain amateurism and avoid bankruptcy — this time, with gender equity at the heart of the conversation.

The background: Central to the House settlement is the NCAA’s agreement to shell out $2.7B in back pay to former student-athletes who were banned from earning NIL money before July 2021. A chunk of those funds will be raised by reducing the NCAA’s regular distributions to DI conferences — meaning conferences and schools would essentially “pay for” the settlement via lost future revenue.

• As the settlement stands, the Power Four conferences are on the hook for 40% of the settlement payment, while the remaining 60% would be sourced from the 27 other DI conferences.

The latest: On Monday, South Dakota’s attorney general filed a new lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming that the back-pay plan places an undue burden on women athletes and non-Power conferences like the Summit League, home to the state’s two DI schools. The suit argues this makes them “responsible for a disproportionate share of the settlement cost.”

• The complaint states that the vast majority of settlement funds would go to the Power conferences’ former superstars, most of them male. It further claims that women would see less than 10% of the payouts, in violation of Title IX.

• Meanwhile, athletic departments’ lost revenue would (at best) affect women’s and men’s sports equally, meaning current women athletes would shoulder half the funding burden for a settlement overwhelmingly benefitting former elite male athletes. Woof.

Why it matters: This complaint takes last month’s objection to the House settlement lodged by current and former women rowers one step further. Even if House settles despite that objection, this separate suit threatens the NCAA’s payment plan, guaranteeing even more litigation over the equitable way forward. In other words, this party’s just getting started.