After reading numerous articles around the world wide web about the $2.8 billion settlement between the NCAA and its five co-defendants (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and the now-defunct Pac-12), this is what we know at this point:

• Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) fundraising isn’t going away and is completely separate from the proposed settlement.
• The settlement does not address Title IX impacts or implementation details.
• The defendants didn’t advise their membership about the settlement until earlier this month. The DU athletic administration likely only learned about the high-level settlement details a few weeks ago.
• In the future, all four Power Conference members agreed to make direct payments to student-athletes in exchange for their participation in NCAA-sanctioned competition.
• The NCAA and its five co-defendants agreed to a tab of nearly $2.8 billion for back-pay over the next decade to more than 15,000 former college athletes who did not receive NIL benefits between 2016-21 and every Division I conference, including the Summit League, must pay-up.
• The Power Four will pay 40% of the $2.8 billion and represent 19% of NCAA D1 membership total.
• Midmajor conferences will shell out 60% of the payout, despite lower revenue streams in athletics. They represent 80% of D1 membership.
• Midmajor conference members with limited revenue sources (i.e., Summit League) may elect to not pay all/some of their student-athletes going forward.
• Basketball will be a major source of settlement funding with units (payouts to NCAA playoffs teams) determining conference exposure to the payout levels.
• The payout formula is based on men’s NCAA March Madness basketball revenue (past, present, and future media rights deals)  based on how many scholarships schools were awarded and how much revenue teams made from media rights for the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.
• Multibid basketball midmajors such as the BIG EAST, Atlantic 10, and West Coast Conference will be required by the formula to pay two to three times more than single-bid leagues like the Summit League. It is estimated these multibid conferences will be paying around $6-9 million annually as a result of this settlement.
• One-bid conferences in basketball, like the Summit League, could be docked between $300-400k per school each year, which will total around $3 million annually at the conference level.
• Since mid-majors don’t have the earning capacity of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC (i.e. football), they will have to look at developing new revenue streams or be forced to cut costs (i.e., cutting sports).
• The defendants, naturally, shielded their football revenue in the agreement in the 10-year back-pay payout scheme.
• Even without this deal, more than 90% of Division I athletic departments don’t turn a profit and the settlement comes on the heels of declining enrollment, rising operating and facilities costs. The settlement accelerates the complete transformation of D1 athletics as we know it and, unfortunately, will likely bring closer the demise of already weak institutions around the country.

Part 2 will discuss what this might mean to the University of Denver.