Sorry about its length but it is a cut and paste from the Post and Courier.....
NCAA's $2.7 billion settlement will mean less money for The Citadel, CofC, CSU
The NCAA’s recent $2.77 billion antitrust settlement will mean less revenue for mid-major schools like College of Charleston, The Citadel and Charleston Southern.
While The Citadel and College of Charleston officials don’t have an exact dollar figure, they are coming to terms with the knowledge that less money will be coming from the NCAA for the next decade.
C of C expects to see between $150,000-$200,000 less each year from the NCAA beginning in 2025, while The Citadel expects its payout to go down around $275,000.
For programs that are struggling to make ends meet, the loss of NCAA revenue will have an impact on their respective bottom lines.
“We are limited in the way we can generate revenue,” said Citadel athletic director Mike Capaccio. “We’re talking almost $3 million over 10 years, so, yes, that’s going to have an impact on our athletic budget.”
In 2023, College of Charleston received $496,705, or about 2 percent of its revenue, from the NCAA, according to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
The Citadel received $753,575 a year ago.
Between institutional support, student fees, corporate sponsorships and ticket sales, The Citadel generated about $20.1 million in revenue during 2023; College of Charleston had $21.3 million in revenue.
“There are so many factors at play right now, it’s hard to say what the dollar amount will end up being,” said College of Charleston athletic director Matt Roberts. “It’s going to affect everyone across the board. Every member institution is going to be faced with some tough decisions in the coming months and years.”
The lawsuit originally targeted the schools in the Power 5 conferences — Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern — as well as Notre Dame.
But coming up with the money to pay for the settlement will be divided up between hundreds of other Division I member schools in the form of smaller annual payouts from the NCAA.
That revenue flows largely from the NCAA's lucrative TV contract for the men’s basketball tournament, which generates as much as $1 billion a year, and its other championship events.
The tentative settlement includes the NCAA and conferences paying $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes who say now-defunct rules prevented them from earning money or endorsement deals dating to 2016.
The deal will also provide a framework for an estimated $20 billion more in revenue sharing with current athletes over that same period.
The settlement's terms have not been finalized, and they still must be approved by the court.
The NCAA will reportedly pay off about 40 percent of the $2.7 billion in damages, and its member institutions will handle the remaining 60 percent. The power conferences alone will account for 24 percent, or about $660 million.
For schools like Clemson and South Carolina, that works out to between $1-2 million reduction in NCAA distributions each year.
There were 351 Division I programs in the NCAA last year, but only 134 played football at the FBS level with 69 schools playing in Power 5 conferences. The Citadel plays in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision), which has 129 football-playing members.
“The settlement doesn’t seem fair to programs like ours that didn’t have anything to do with what happened in the past,” Capaccio said. “Every dollar is important to us. It seems like we’re paying for the sins of the past that didn’t involve us.”
While Roberts admitted that he doesn’t like receiving less annual money from the NCAA, he understands the logistics of everyone having to pay.
“It’s a small price to pay, in my opinion,” he said. “We have all to share in this process to protect our current and future status. Asking everyone involved to participate in the settlement is the price of doing business.”
Roberts contends that once the settlement is finalized, Division I athletics as we know it will remain largely intact. It will also shield the NCAA and the schools from litigation for at least a decade.
“March Madness will continue to include every Division I program as will the rest of the championships that the NCAA does such a great job with,” Roberts said. “It allows programs like ours to still have a seat at the table and also provides some blanket legal protections and gets us out of this cycle of litigation.”
The good news for local athletic directors is that they have time to figure this out.
There will be a monthslong process where athletes can opt in or object to its framework. It's expected this paradigm shift won't truly take shape until the 2025-26 academic year.
“There are a lot of questions and not many answers at this point,” Roberts said.
Jon Blau and David Cloninger contributed to this report.
