Decision In House Vs. NCAA
Means $$ For College Athletes

The time-honored cliches which capture the moment are neither comforting nor reassuring at this point, but here are two of them anyway.

You can’t put the genie back in the bottle or the toothpaste back in the tube.
Each seemingly hackneyed phrase may indeed be overused at this point, but they remain impactful when it comes not only to discussion of the transfer portal and NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) which have been part of collegiate sports since 2021, but now also concerning the entire landscape of what was once an amateur-oriented setting, with scholarships being the source of compensation, has changed perhaps forever with a landmark decision in the House vs. NCAA case on June 6 as U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that colleges can now directly pay players with funds from their athletic budgets starting July 1 and moving right into the 2025-2026 school year. 

House vs. the NCAA is a 2020 class-action antitrust case brought by former Arizona State University swimmer Grant House who argued - in part - that college athletes had the right to be compensated from money schools made through media outlets, including the broadcast of games and other competitions; and now the decision by Judge Wilken, along with other possible, future legal decisions, will certainly continue to have their impact in the ever-changing world of college athletics.   

The new ruling will - in concept - potentially affect all colleges, but the biggest impact will involve major colleges with big-time football and basketball programs who now have permission to use up to 20.5 million, or as much as 22 % of their revenue from TV, ticket sales and merchandise sales, to pay student-athletes.

If you thought that the impact of NIL and the transfer portal were still sinking in for many college sports fans - including the fact that the NCAA allows ‘student’ athletes to now transfer as many times as they wish - a more professional sports atmosphere simply continues to be reinforced.

Plus, there will also be funds put aside to pay past players of college teams from 2015 to 2024. Already, according to one report, 88,000 former college athletes have already filed claims to be included in the new NCAA revenue structure to be put in place. 

One key concern is how the latest legal ruling affects the future of some of the ‘non-revenue’ sports in a college’s athletic programs, and how might the House vs. NCAA decision deal with the complexities of Title IX, a 1972 decision that does not allow sex-based discrimination.

Whatever way those questions are going to be dealt with, it’s obvious that major college football and men’s basketball – which generate most of the revenue – will be paid in accordance with that money-making capacity.

One Power 5 conference school will reportedly pay its student-athletes with 74 % of its designated revenue going to the football program and 17 % to men’s basketball, 2 % to women’s basketball, 1,9 % to baseball and the remaining 5 % to the rest of the university’s sports.

Meanwhile, as the decisions regarding athletic department’s revenue in paying athletes gets into full gear, the additional impact of NIL funds are part of an additional, potential financial source through collectives and marketing companies for college and even -in a few select cases – high school athletes.   

This past December, during a press conference for the Big Jersey Basketball showcase at Caldwell University featuring a few of the top Catholic school hoops programs in North Jersey, veteran Montclair Immaculate coach Jimmy Salmon revealed that his prize player from the previous season, 6-foot-6 junior Cole Grandison, had received NIL money while transferring to Overtime Elite, a professional basketball league for 16-20-year-olds located in Atlanta, Ga., where schooling and other expenses are also funded.

Opportunities such as Overtime Elite are now there for 16- and 17-year-olds, and who knows what else could be next for at least the elite-level high school athletes? 

The impact in college hoops is already becoming overwhelming to comprehend with rosters changing in rapid fashion as a general lack of commitment to one’s school is now simply a fact of life.

Shortly after this past winter season’s ‘March Madness’ had ended, long-established major college hoops programs such as Indiana and Baylor had no players remaining on their rosters from the just-completed 2024-2025 campaign due to either an exhaustion of college eligibility or with those entering the transfer portal.

North Carolina, which has been one of the ‘Blue Bloods’ of elite college basketball programs, has just two remaining players on the roster from last season in current senior guard Seth Trimble and sophomore reserve forward James Brown.

Heck, even Michael Jordan, considered by some to be the greatest player in the history of the game, stayed for three years in Chapel Hill while playing college hoops for legendary coach Dean Smith.

One of the young men who left the Tar Heels after two seasons for the transfer portal was West Orange native and talented point guard Elliot Cadeau, who is now headed to play his junior year at the University of Michigan.

Cadeau, who conducted a well-attended 1-day summer youth camp at Montclair State University in 2023, is part of the modern age of highly-sought-after young players who experienced both the limitations of covid-19 during their high school days and now the amazing financial opportunities presented with the recent, landmark House vs. NCAA legal case in addition to NIL and the accompanying transfer portal.

Cadeau is a notable player among many who can now reap the benefits of both advertising dollars - as he had a part in a hotel commercial before he even had arrived on the UNC campus for his freshman year – while also attracting the financial rewards available from what has been described as the ‘collective’ out there – especially for college basketball and football players - with donors and boosters helping to bolster the funds available for attracting very talented young men and women in the transfer portal.

Individual branding is a big part of the life for the better college players as well, and all the power to them. In Cadeau’s case many North Jersey kids have been able to enjoy his exposure events with a positive twist such as the 1-day summer youth basketball camp sessions that were offered the past two years at both Montclair State and Livingston High School.

One key factor for schools such as North Carolina, Michigan, Duke, Auburn, Alabama and endless others in the power structure is who has the funds to pay the going rate for top players in the portal, and for how long will that money last during the process?  

The bigger college sports programs still have more money for new players than mid-majors in Division I, which will likely lead to more seasons to come where events such as the NCAA’s March Madness men’s basketball tournament may have few - if any – ‘Cinderella-type’ stories with unlikely underdogs, such as coach Jim Larranaga’s George Mason University team making the Final 4 back in 2006.

The culmination of the 2025 Final 4 saw four No. 1 seeds (national champion Houston, Duke, Auburn and Alabama) survive and advance into last season’s final weekend.

And, how are high school parents and their sons and daughters with aspirations to be a Division I athlete going to be able to successfully navigate the current much more complicated college sports recruiting scene?

Perhaps a scholastic baseball star might be thinking about the possibilities of playing for a Division I college such as the Virginia based James Madison University or the University of Richmond. But, those schools may in turn be thinking more about what transfers they might lure from a Florida State or a Coastal Carolina.

Many current major college basketball coaches may not even think that much about the next high school senior they might be able to attract to their schools as they continue to instead concentrate much more on attracting the best college experienced talent that comes out of the transfer portal.

A very different-looking major college sports landscape has been established and other than elite Division III opportunities out there, such as in the New England Small College Athletic Conference with academic-oriented schools such as Middlebury, Williams, Amherst and Trinity, all major college (Division 1-A in football) and even smaller Division 1-AA programs are going to continue to be affected to some degree at least by the transfer portal.

All one has to do is log on to ‘X’ - or Twitter, as some still call it - and see announcements such as those from former Caldwell football all-state linebacker Julian Casale, who announced this past winter that he was entering the transfer portal after thanking 1-AA Monmouth University where he began his college days as a freshman last fall after graduating from Caldwell in 2024.

Casale may now be returning to Monmouth in the fall to continue his education and perhaps continue his college football career with the Shore area-based university.

Because there are so many experienced, multi-year athletes already in the college portal, current red-shirt freshmen or incoming freshmen may have fewer available slots at the Division I level, and that trend will continue.

In general, looking at college sports today, constant roster turnover and a professional college atmosphere appear here to stay – at least at the major college level- and those old enough to remember can only relish some of the fond memories of allegiance to one’s college alma mater where you may have even been friends with one of your college’s senior sports stars.

Now, those college sports stars might be at three or even four different colleges in four years, and that’s even if they stay around long enough to accomplish those musical chairs where the old-time notion of allegiance to one’s college has gone by the wayside - apparently forever - in this ever-changing landscape of movement through the NCAA portal system where additional financial gain could now be in the works for some, but without the charm of what was once a much more appealing world of college sports.

Immaculate's Kole Grandison (left) benefitted through the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) when he went to Overtime Elite in Georgia before the 2024-2025 scholastic basketball season, leaving the Montclair Catholic school after two seasons playing with the Lions. (Sideline Chatter photo)