Marcus Freeman reacts to passing of House settlement: ‘We all were pretty confident’
The NCAA House Settlement passed late last week following a long, drawn-out process, and institutes will now be able to directly pay their student-athletes. Programs like Notre Dame will be greatly affected by the decision.
Following the settlement’s conclusion, Fighting Irish football coach Marcus Freeman has released his first public statement on the matter. He joined the “Golic & Golic” show on FanDuel Sports Network on Monday to reveal his perspective.
“I think we all were pretty confident that this was going to happen, we just didn’t know when,” Freeman said. “I think one of the biggest questions was, are they going to make us get to a 105 (roster size) immediately, or are they going to kind of grandfather some of those guys that have been on our roster into the upcoming season? And so when heard on that, found out that she was going to be able to grandfather those that are on the roster, and you didn’t have to make immediate cuts, I think that was a decision that we needed to know so we can move forward.
“But as far as being able to pay the players, have a salary and salary cap, and what kind of the compensation would be. I think we were all planning for this to happen.”
Overall, the fallout from the approval will see schools be able to share $20.5 million with athletes beginning July 1. Football will receive 75% of the allotted amount, followed by men’s basketball (15%), women’s basketball (5%) and the remainder of the institution’s sports (5%). It’s expected that power conference football programs will have between $13 to $16 million to spend on rosters for the upcoming season.
Moreover, the NCAA will have to pay $2.776 billion in back damages over the next decade to former college athletes who had competed after 2016. The roster limits that Freeman mentioned, as well as new NIL clearinghouses were all a part of the settlement as well. Clearinghouses, such as ‘NIL Go’ are there to provide framework to facilitate deals between college athletes and third parties.
These sweeping changes to the NIL landscape will be implemented on July 1, and will set forth a new era in college athletics. Only time will tell how this impacts the Fighting Irish’s football program, and athletic department as a whole. However, it’s clear that Freeman and company were preparing for the approval. Now that it’s here, Notre Dame’s leaders will be tasked with keeping the Irish at the forefront of those efforts.
