In first year of NIL payouts, 68 schools hit or came very close to $20.5M revenue-sharing limit

Exactly 68 schools — the same number of athletic programs in the four biggest conferences in Division I — reached or came within 5% of reaching the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap over the first season of a system that allowed the schools to pay their players directly.

Court filings by the College Sports Commission on Thursday showed that, in all, 319 schools opted into the arrangement outlined in the House lawsuit settlement that set the cap at 22% of the average of certain revenues at Power Four athletic departments. Of those, 307 doled out $1.77 billion in revenue.

The CSC redacted the identities in the filings of the 68 schools that went all-in, though it was widely expected that all Power Four schools would so they wouldn't fall behind in the growing hunt for talent.

In all, the CSC said it received reports about distributions to 34,915 student-athletes at 307 schools across 33 conferences and 45 sports. There are 365 schools in Division I.

The other main part of the CSC's job is analyzing third-party name-image-likeness deals that often took schools well beyond the cap, which was raised for this season to $21.58 million.

A bill that passed the Senate earlier this week would more than double that number — raising it to $48.8 million, with the extra designated as a “retention pool” targeted at keeping players on their current roster. The hope is the retention pool will bring much of the third-party NIL money back under the more easily navigable revenue-share cap.

Schools that opted into the revenue-sharing arrangement also had to adhere to other parts of the House settlement — most notably by abiding by roster limits that were reset as part of a deal that also removed the cap off how many scholarships schools could provide.

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