The recent $2.8 billion settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences is set to face seven appeals to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based on filings made by a deadline that passed the night of Monday, July 7.
None of the appeal notices were accompanied by a motion seeking to put at least a temporary stop to the going-forward aspects of the agreement, which included schools being allowed to pay athletes directly for the use of their name, image and likeness, beginning July 1.
Also, beginning July 1, schools that choose to make NIL deals with their athletes are no longer subject to sport-by-sport scholarship limits. But those restrictions have been replaced by roster limits, subject to exceptions for certain athletes who were on teams during the 2024-25 school year and recruits who had been assured of roster spots for the 2025-26 school year.
There were 73 valid, timely objections filed out of nearly 390,000 current and former athletes covered by the litigation while U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken considered whether to grant final approval to the settlement. She granted that approval on June 6.
Among the athletes being represented in appeals are current Florida State quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who is involved with two appeal efforts; former two-time national women’s lacrosse player of the year Charlotte North; former wrestler Sebastian Rivera, who won a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics and now is an assistant coach at Columbia; and former men’s basketball player Braeden Anderson, who now works as an attorney.
The full range of issues that will be argued in the appeals remains to be seen because the appeal notices followed a standard format and were not accompanied by a legal argument. But based on the objections that the appealing parties made to Wilken previously, they are likely to include:
The applicability of Title IX, the federal gender-equity law, to the settlement’s sport-by-sport allocations of damages money that heavily favors football and men’s basketball players.
Whether the settlement’s annual per-school cap on new benefits that can be provided to athletes, including the NIL money paid directly from the schools to the athletes, constitutes another illegal limit on athlete compensation.
The fairness of the damages allocations to walk-on athletes who sometimes ended up becoming more prominent than their teammates on scholarship, and to some athletes in lower-revenue sports.
The adequacy of the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ representation of the interests of athletes other than football and men’s basketball players and the adequacy of the notice and claims submissions process for athletes.
Other than the lawyers who filed the first notice of appeal on June 11, many of the lawyers for the appealing parties have either been willing to provide only brief and general comments about their planned arguments to USA TODAY Sports, or they have been unavailable for comment.
But Patrick Bradford, an attorney representing Castellanos and Anderson, said in an interview July 8: ‘This is a settlement that will pay kids less than the market would bear and say, ‘That’s OK.’ ‘ Bradford raised the possibility of pursuing the matter to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
Steve Berman, one of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, said in an email July 8: “We remain 100 percent optimistic of our chances of success and are disappointed that these objectors are appealing given the thoroughness and soundness of Judge Wilken’s decision. Most of the objectors have not appealed and we thank them for not joining in any effort to hold up payments to the student (a)thletes which is what the appealing objectors are doing.”
The appeals could significantly delay the start of payments of damages money to tens of thousands of athletes and to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have requested that they be awarded hundreds of millions of dollars from the total settlement pool. These payments are set to occur over a 10-year period.
As approved by Wilken, the settlement says that in the event of appeals of this nature, the NCAA and the conferences would begin making damages payments, but the money would be held in escrow — not paid to athletes or lawyers — until appeals are completed.
Initial scheduling instructions from the 9th Circuit for five of the appeals that were filed called for written arguments to be filed by various dates in September by those appealing and for responses to be filed by various dates in October. However, no scheduling instructions have been issued yet for two appeals.
Berman said plaintiffs will ask the 9th Circuit to consolidate the appeals, so they follow a single calendar.
According to the 9th Circuit’s website, oral arguments in appeals of civil cases occur approximately six to 12 months from the notice of appeal date, or approximately four months from completion of briefing.
The site said “most cases are decided within 3 months to a year after submission,” so even if the 9th Circuit chooses not to hold oral argument in this case, it’s unlikely a ruling will be issued before early 2026.
