NCAA Data Shows Schools Made Direct Payments of Nearly $2 Billion to College Athletes During First Year of House Settlement

Today, the Defendants in House v. NCAA filed a report with the District Court detailing the compensation and benefits that college athletes received from D-1 schools during the first year of the new compensation system created by the House settlement. The results are extraordinary.

Nearly $2 Billion in Direct Spending by Schools, Spanning Nearly All of Division I

In the 2025–26 academic year, 307 schools (85% of Division I) reported spending a combined $1.976 billion in direct compensation and new benefits for athletes that are now permitted under the settlement. That spending is happening across Division I, not only at the largest programs:

• 297 schools shared revenue directly with their athletes, totaling $1.77 billion.
• 252 schools spent more than $500,000 in new compensation and benefits.
• 198 schools spent more than $1 million.
• 103 schools spent more than $5 million.
• 73 schools spent more than $10 million.

Combined with the $355.24 million in third-party NIL spending reported by the College Sports Commission as of July 1, 2026, college athletes received more than $2.3 billion in new compensation and benefits during the 2025-26 academic year. 

A Major Expansion of Athletic Scholarships

The settlement also ended the NCAA’s longstanding limits on the number of athletic scholarships available to college athletes. The newly reported data shows that many schools moved quickly to add to these new scholarships. In the first year of the settlement, 235 schools reported spending at least $163.5 million on new athletic scholarships. That figure likely understates the full increase in new athletic scholarship spending because the settlement only requires schools to report the first $2.5 million in new scholarship spending. 31 schools reported spending at least that $2.5 million.

The result is that thousands of athletes now hold new scholarships that NCAA rules did not allow before the settlement.

A Historic Shift in College Sports

“For decades, college athletes generated billions of dollars and were barred from sharing in it,” said Jeffrey Kessler, Co-lead Class Counsel. “This first-year data proves that the settlement has transformed the market so that Division I athletes can now share in revenues at a comparable percentage to that enjoyed by NFL and NBA players when all compensation and benefits are considered.” Co-Lead Class Counsel Steve Berman added “with nearly $2 billion in direct payments and benefits going to athletes at hundreds of schools in a single year, the monumental shift in college sports that we spent more than a decade fighting for is paying immense dividends to the athletes who are the backbone to the big business of college sports.”

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