On the Diamond

Ohio State catcher Jasmyn Burns committed to Texas Tech softball. Burns hit .455, had 25 home runs and 72 RBI last year for the Buckeyes. Combine this along with the news that NiJaree Canady signed a new deal with the Matador Club and per her agent, she absolutely wanted to stay at Texas Tech:

“Nija Canady is the most electrifying player in softball. She’s box office and she goes out every day and competes,” Shelby told ESPN. “The decision to stay at Tech was not difficult. This program has taken care of her. They have showed how much she is appreciated. The entire staff, her teammates, the school in general have been great. Tonight she is playing for a national championship and she is making history. Everything she wants from this game she can get here at Texas Tech.”

guns up for my next chapter!! can’t wait to start this journey. AGTG!! ❤️🖤 #wreckem pic.twitter.com/nzn4vkzLkj

— Jasmyn Burns (@BurnsJasmyn) June 7, 2025

House vs. NCAA

The House Settlement was approved yesterday (maybe on Friday) and this is supposed to solve all of the problems, right? Remember, this was supposed to be a settlement where the schools would pay players based on a cap and NIL deals would be approved by Deloitte.

Buckle up.

CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer has a good breakdown and he predicts that the chaos will continue (as do I).

“All these rules are … very arbitrary and are not bargained with the players,” said Darren Heitner, a sports attorney with a large presence in the NIL space. “Until the NCAA decides to treat the players as employees or a unit to bargain with, they’re going to be stuck with challenges on their anti-trust law.”

/snip/

The NCAA doesn’t have an anti-trust exemption that protects it from those challenges. Artificially placing a cap on someone’s salary is generally considered anti-competitive in America. That won’t change under the rules of the House Settlement even if a governor on compensation makes sense for the overall competitiveness of the sport.

And if you are curious, I believe that Texas passed a law in the most recent legislative session that said that prevents the NCAA from penalizing schools for paying players, much like Tennessee.

/snip/

That’s the thing about the House Settlement. Yes, it transforms the way college athletics operates and pushes it toward a near professional model. But the key word there is “near.” The NCAA is still operating a business based on the principle that its labor force isn’t technically labor. Athletes are not employees of the school. They lack the ability to collectively bargain.

The Athletic’s Justin Williams has more on the House Settlement and how the deal with Deloitte will likely not work out as expected:

A number of sources questioned whether athletes will even report their third-party deals, or do so accurately. Others suggested that deals getting challenged by the clearinghouse — or the fact that they have to be disclosed at all — could spark more antitrust legal action from collectives. Other sources were outright dismissive.

“If you tell a booster or business owner they can’t give a star player $2 million, there will be lawsuits,” said the personnel director. “There’s no enforcing this. Fair market value? F— Deloitte. This is going to get even crazier.”

A legit enforcement arm with some teeth — perhaps in the form of suspensions or ineligibility — might change that sentiment, and multiple athletic directors suggest that if the clearinghouse merely serves as a minor deterrent to egregious pay-for-play payments, it will be better than pre-settlement circumstances. But others think the undertow of NIL and collectives is too strong to turn back now.

“There are a lot of rich people that can’t buy a professional sports franchise, but they can give a ton of money to their alma mater,” said a power conference administrator. “And if you’re telling millionaires and billionaires what they can and can’t do with their money, you’re probably going to lose that battle.”

/snip/

From a legal perspective, the lawsuits and court battles won’t stop in the wake of the House settlement. A number of states already have NIL laws that contradict the settlement, and the Johnson v. NCAA case regarding athlete employment is still ongoing.

From a competitive perspective, the dollars going up means the competitive imbalance will too. This isn’t a new problem in college sports, but a settlement negotiated with heavy input from the power conferences isn’t going to change that, regardless of how well the clearinghouse works.

“It’s going to separate, even more, the haves and the have-nots,” said an administrator.