Lyon's recent letter to the Faculty has some pertinent information:

"After considering the various trade-offs, I decided that we will participate in this new revenue-sharing model in order to provide our teams with the necessary investments and resources they need to excel. I have also decided that our campus contributions to the new revenue-sharing pool must be matched by incremental philanthropic support donated specifically for this purpose. To motivate and inspire this level of philanthropy, particularly in this transition year, I have committed to match gifts to our revenue-sharing pool up to a maximum of $6m for football, $1.5m for men's basketball, and $500k for women's basketball. The amount allotted to each team is a direct function of the revenue each currently produces, consistent with the revenue-sharing principle in the House Settlement."

Also, I thought that the $20M figure represents distributions from NCAA (presumably, mostly from March Madness TV revenue) to each participating university.

The problem now is that this will require the same amount of donations year after year after year. And schools that have several large donors, and that can also create other NIL deals outside the university that can meet the NCAA criteria, will easily dominate.

I will be switching my own donations over to the School of Public Health where real students are still actually trying to get a Cal degree.

No, the NCAA and Conferences (not sure about schools) will pay the back settlement over 10 years. Not sure how that will work for individual past Cal athletes

GameDay said:

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Also, I thought that the $20M figure represents distributions from NCAA (presumably, mostly from March Madness TV revenue) to each participating university.

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Please excuse me for being so ignorant on this issue, but let me ask a simple question. Does this ruling mean that there is a universal cap for all universities of $20.5 million to pay players. And is there an "over and above NIL" amount exceeding the $20.5 cap that can still be funnelled to players as well? Simple mind here would be appreciate a response from anyone.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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Please excuse me for being so ignorant on this issue, but let me ask a simple question. Does this ruling mean that there is a universal cap for all universities of $20.5 million to pay players. And is there an "over and above NIL" amount exceeding the $20.5 cap that can still be funnelled to players as well? Simple mind here would be appreciate a response from anyone.

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The $20,5 million cap will apply to all schools on payments to athletes by the schools themselves. As I understand it, there will also be an NCAA clearing house to review any other outside NIL deals over $600 to see if they are for "valid business purposes" and are not related to "recruiting". But recruits will already know where the money is going to be, and how will it be proven that athletes who endorse a business and do commercials for it are not doing so for "valid business reasons".

Lyons has also said that women's basketball donors will now have to come up with $500,000 per year in matching donations. We have only met that level once in the past five years when the Rivera family made a large one-time contribution.

2024 $613,000
2023 $163,000
2022 $176,000
2021 $198,000
2020 $183,000

If we climb on this ferris wheel now, we are going to exhaust a lot more spending before eventually being forced to form a West Coast Ivy League, at least for sports other than football.

We now need 500 season ticketholders to each pledge $1,000.
I'm in!

Each school can raise $20.5 million and spend it how they want. Were St. Mary's College to raise $20.5 million, it would likely spend the bulk on basketball and rugby -- so you can expect some weird names dominating Olympic sports -- if of course this lasts for more than a minute.

Any payouts above that $20.5 million that are more than $600 must be justified in front of a new college committee. But there's no way any such committee can oversee all of the payments that will go to players across the country. (Alabama football will continue to drop bags of cash in apartment rooms, offer golden handshakes, and Bama will not be alone. And no one will be caught.)

Oh, and the limit on payouts is blatantly illegal barring some kind of collective bargaining agreement.

What it means for Cal women's basketball? Almost nothing, I think, as all P4 women's programs will start with close to the same base amount of their $20.5 million. The elite programs will spend more than that, maybe a lot more, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Of course if Cal decides to spend less of that $20.5 million on women's basketball than other schools -- and there are legitimate arguments to do just that -- then the women's team will be at a significant disadvantage.

Congress may be on it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/06/09/ncaa-antitrust-protection/