The NCAA board has voted to accept the no-confidence motion, sources say

The NCAA’s Board of Governors voted Wednesday evening to agree to settlement terms in the House v. NCAA and related antitrust case, sources told ESPN, joining three power conferences so far to move forward with a historic change in the way college sports are governed.

The Big 12 and ACC voted to accept the terms of the settlement on Tuesday, and the Big Ten joined them on Wednesday. The two remaining defendants named in the suit — the SEC and the Pac-12 — are expected to vote to approve the terms later this week as well. The NCAA’s board did not vote unanimously Wednesday, a source told ESPN.

The NCAA board’s vote was expected but perhaps more symbolic. The board’s vote in favor of a settlement that would allow schools to pay players represents a formal severance of a decade-long tether to unpaid unprofessionalism.

Terms of the settlement call for the NCAA to pay former athletes more than $2.7 billion over the next decade for damages related to the association’s name, image and similar restrictions, according to sources. The conferences also agreed to create a far-reaching system that would allow schools to pay about $20 million per year in permissive revenue sharing to athletes. These direct payments, an unprecedented paradigm shift in college sports, will likely begin in the fall of 2025.

With the settlement, the school and the NCAA avoid going to trial, where they could be on the hook for more than $4 billion in damages if they lose, which legal experts say is a possibility given the NCAA’s recent poor record in court cases. According to sources, the plaintiffs will agree to dismiss two other pending antitrust cases against the NCAA that could add the potential of billions of dollars in damages to an already daunting total.

College athletics leaders widely acknowledge that while the settlement of the House lawsuit is an important step, it will not solve all the legal and administrative problems that destabilized their former business model. While some university leaders are skeptical that the settlement will provide a clear path forward and other college sports leaders have taken issue with how the financial burden of settlement payments will be shared among conferences, sources told ESPN that an agreement is widely expected by the end of the week. Only a majority vote of the leagues is required to approve the current terms.

Sources indicated that it will take at least six months to sort out the details, such as how the Title IX law will apply to future payments and whether they can reduce costs in the NIL marketplace.

While the agreement is a major step forward, several steps remain before the cases are formally settled. Both sides must present a more detailed settlement agreement to Judge Claudia Wilken, and all Division 1 athletes will have several months to review the terms and decide whether they want to object or opt out of the class action settlement. This process will take several months to reach a conclusion.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.