Arizona Wildcats Receive Memo Disclosing Initial Revenue Share Cap: Report
As a member of a power conference, the Arizona Wildcats received an internal memo providing them with information on a key piece of the House vs. NCAA settlement earlier this week, per Yahoo Sports.
The memo was distributed by the four power conferences to its membership and detailed what the initial revenue-sharing figure would be for each school, assuming it opts into that opportunity.
The initial figure is $20.5 million.
Earlier this year, Arizona Wildcats athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois said that the athletic department had every intention of sharing revenue with student-athletes, should the House v. NCAA settlement be approved. It received initial approval in early October and is moving toward full approval in April.
The initial revenue sharing figure is a bit below some projections of $22 million and is by no means final. The cap will be 22% of Power Four (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) revenues in the previous year. That revenue is expected to increase by 4% each season.
This memo came a few days after the NCAA provided an internal Q&A memo to all members about the settlement which made clear that schools do not have to share revenue (the opt-in or opt-out scenario) but clarified that schools cannot opt-into revenue sharing on a per-program basis.
For example, a school like Arizona cannot decide to share revenue with men’s basketball players and not women’s basketball players. The Wildcats must share revenue with all student-athletes if they choose to opt-in.
Schools may also distribute the revenue however they see fit. But, Yahoo reported that many schools are planning to use the formula used to determine the back damages in the House settlement, which would allow 90% of revenue to football & men’s basketball.
The Wildcats, like other schools, are looking for every way they can to generate revenue. As part of that, Reed-Francois recently announced the creation of Arizona Sports Enterprises, which is designed to elevate revenue streams.
The House v. NCAA settlement is actually a combination of three different cases brought by current and former student-athletes that will change the face of college athletics if it is ultimately approved.
It will allow for $2.75 billion in damages will be paid to thousands of college athletes over 10 years as part of restitution for their inability to access things like Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities.
The new settlement won’t prohibit student-athletes from leveraging NIL, but they will need to report any deals valued at $600 or more, per the NCAA internal memo.
The settlement also caps scholarships and, in some cases, expands them for certain sports through roster limits.
Those limits will exist for all sponsored sports, with the most notable being 105 for football, 15 each for men’s and women’s basketball, 34 for baseball, 25 for softball and 18 for volleyball.
