Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Is the NCAA-House Settlement GOOD or BAD for the Kansas Jayhawks? Plus RETURN THE 2018 FINAL FOUR!!!

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

There's a shake-up coming to the NCAA following the House Settlement: Will Kansas Jayhawks basketball dominate the new era of athlete compensation, and what impact will the new rules have on KU Football, Olympic sports and the entire College Athletics landscape?Derek Johnson breaks down the revolutionary NCAA deal allowing schools to pay athletes directly through revenue sharing. He explores the $20.5 million cap per school, potential impacts on KU's recruiting strategy, and how funds might be distributed across sports, as well as impact on coaches all across the Big 12 and NCAA. The discussion covers key figures like Bill Self, Lance Leipold, and the current KU Basketball off-season and how this could be both good and bad for KU.Johnson also makes a compelling case for the NCAA returning Kansas' 2018 Final Four appearance in light of these changes and back-pay to athletes going back to 2016 that would actually deem Silvio De Sousa eligible and extend KU's Big 12 title streak back to 14 straight.Tune in for expert analysis on how this landmark decision could reshape college athletics and KU's future success.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGEfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

The house settlement is officially passed in the NCAA. I'm going to tell you how it affects KU in all their sports, including KU basketball in this upcoming offseason, and why the NCAA should do the right thing and return the 2018 Final Four to Kansas. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here.

This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every episode of the show. We're free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're doing a little impromptu here. I'm on the road, funeral, everything's going well. So thank you for anybody who's reached out with that. That is why we don't have our normal equipment here. So apologies for that. But nonetheless, the house settlement has been officially passed by the NCAA or I guess guess the house versus the NCAA was the official settlement. So it's been settled. We'll go over the rules, how it impacts KU, how it

impacts the off season, some interesting kind of theories and ideas that I have that could come of this, either good or bad, and why it relates. Shout out to Kyle on this one. This should return the 2018 Final Four. Some good logic that a friend reached out to me about that I'm going to talk about on today's episode of LOJ, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. You can make every moment more of FanDuel. Right now, customers can get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins with FanDuel. Okay, so what is the NCAA versus house settlement? I guess bare bones here. This was basically something that was supposed to be agreed on or was going to be signed

off by the judge a month or two ago, ended up getting delayed a little bit and now it's being signed off. Basically this is the settlement that is allowing for the schools to basically pay the athletes themselves through revenue share. You might have been hearing about this of, oh, they can pay the athletes themselves through revenue share. You might've been hearing about this of, oh, they can pay the athletes themselves, we might not have known why. Basically, this was a suit that was brought together

by actually like past athletes to allow for this. And it basically gets backdated with some of the pay, and now it'll allow moving forward. So the agreement that was made is, it's a 10 year, $2.8 billion settlement that basically the schools are gonna have to pay for with the back dating of past athletes. And so schools are gonna have to chip in. And so that's part of this too.

It's not just the idea that you can pay these athletes or that you will be able to now and you can, it's also the idea that now you're gonna be back pained and that these different schools are basically on the hook. Like all these schools are on the hook to owe a certain amount of money to these past athletes to where, you know, you think about all the things that Kansas is having to juggle right now,

a new football stadium, NIL for their current rosters, right? Any other renovations that they're having or trying to, you know, keep Dan Fitzgerald on, stuff like that, right? There are so many things that they're having or trying to keep Dan Fitzgerald on stuff like that. There's so many things that they're having to juggle. This is just another thing they have to juggle, the revenue sharing, paying players, but also paying for the settlement and the back paying, the back dating, whatever you want to call it. So starting July 1st, so in about three weeks here, there's going to be a cap of $20.5 million per school.

Not entirely sure why they didn't just pick a round number. I'm sure they had some experts of a reason why it would be 20.5 million. Maybe they put on 0.5 and be like, well, hey, if you want to pay 20 to your big sports and then you have half a million, you can just view that as like you're, okay, that's for sure Olympics. I don't know how that works. But basically, like they said, it's called revenue share for that you can share up to 20 and a half million dollars with the athletes in addition to

scholarships and your other normal benefits like travel and giving free gear and yada yada yada, right, like housing, stuff like that, right. So basically, that allows for you to pay the athletes and their schools that are doing it in different ways, right? There are schools that how are they splitting up the money? What goes to what sport? What goes to another? What about schools that don't really have football?

Does that give them a big advantage in some of the other things? Or do they just not have as much money because they don't have football? So like, it's not really going to matter. There are those questions. There are the questions of how you, you know, salary cap out your team in terms of like, do you try to get a bunch of equal similar paying players, or at least for your starters, do you have like, okay, this, how much we spend on the starter, this,

how much we spend on the backup. There's a lot of kind of questions of how you do, especially in football, when you have as many open spots, there's 105 spots now with football. Do you use all 105? Do you use 90? Do you use 85? Like you've been before with scholarships. Those are all going to be interesting questions. And then do you pay the player do you use 85, like you've been before with scholarships? Those are all gonna be interesting questions. And then do you pay the player a set rate or going back to the Bengali Kamara commitment from KU,

they got him as a transfer over from South Carolina and Pittsburgh, they got him kind of at the end of the regular season, because he had already entered the portal by then. And there was kind of that rumor, that story that came out that he had already agreed to like a rev share and it was based on like a percentage. Like, is that how they're gonna do it?

To be like, okay, this is our salary cap. You will get 2% or whatever it is that you're offering you each individual player. You can still have NIL payments, right? Schools can still use their NIL to basically go above and beyond the salary cap. So like in theory, it's one thing to be like, oh, we have a salary cap now, but you really don't because still still NIL is going to be a thing. And that still is going to be a separator

for certain schools. So like, there's going to be certain schools that can use the full 20 and a half million. Other schools might only be able to use 8 million or 12 million, right? And then some of the schools that are going to use the 20 and a half million, not only are they going to be able to use the 20 and a half million, they're going to have another 10, 15, 20 million coming in in NIL that they can, I mean, this almost expands the ability for some of the big schools and some of the big paying schools to be able to open up their checkbook, so to speak. So I almost think it makes it the haves and the have nots. I think the distance gets even wider now.

Again, the back pay is part of this. This settlement gives kind of missed NIL opportunities for athletes who played between 2016 and 2024. I have no idea why it stops there. You know, what's stopping somebody from 2008 being like, why don't I get paid? I don't know what specifically in the legal, maybe we have like an attorney on the show or something,

I don't know. It also has certain roster limits as I kind of talked about with football, the roster limits are 105. So in the past, the scholarship numbers have been 85 for football, but teams have walk-ons that they're usually going over 100 people.

Again, how are teams gonna use that, right? You could almost view it as, hey, if we're a big school, let's use all 105. But if you're a smaller school, like if you're in Kansas' case, which isn't a smaller school, but it's smaller than like an Alabama or a Michigan or something, are you better off using, you know, 80 scholarships, 85 scholarships, what it has been on a given year and saying those extra

20 scholarships that we were going to give, I'd rather, you know, pay a little bit more for better players on our first 60 or whatever it is, right? Do you have certain schools say, hey, we're going to only have 75 scholarship players, but we're going to be able to pay more by not paying those extra 10, by not paying those extra 20,

that's going to add up and we're going to be able to get a better 75. Or do you have other teams who, you know, that'll be interesting to see how teams do it. In basketball, it'll be 15 to see how teams do it. In basketball, it'll be 15 for the roster limit. Now one thing that's kind of a part of this, which is nice, and this was part of the reason why the judge waited to sign off on things, was what was going to happen to walk-ons,

right? Where walk-ons going to basically just be like, sorry, you got to go somewhere else. And they did grandfather in, that was part of the thing of why the judge waited. They wanted to grandfather in the walk-ons to be like, hey, listen, like if you're already a walk-on, you shouldn't have to leave because of this new thing that's happening. So that's cool that they get grandfathered in,

they get to stay walk-ons and get to, you know, stay part of the team and stuff. The downside to that is because these schools and teams have been preparing for the walk-ons no longer to be a thing. A lot of them, they told before the off season, like, hey, go find another spot, go find another school to go to or move on from this sport, like go start your career in whatever you're doing.

And that kind of sucks that those kids were kind of left out to dry, but it is cool that the ones that still are around that are getting to stick around are guys that are gonna get grandfathered in and be able to finish out their careers if they're still around. Now, going back to the NIL stuff,

the other big part of this is the third-party NIL deals. There's basically a vetting. It's, I forget if it's Clearinghouse is the name of it, which basically is a third-party like, they're going to be looking out over the NIL deals. You sign an NIL deal, you go through this process called like clearinghouse, and basically you are set up in a situation where they're going to review it and they're going to see is this proper market value.

Now, I don't know if they're going to review like, did you get underpaid? I don't think they're going to care about that. I think it's more going to be is this egregious? Did you get overpaid, right? Did somebody get a $2 million NIL deal when based on whatever process they have, I don't know if their social media, their presence, their accolades, their stats, yada yada, what school you're at, right?

You should only be getting $400,000. And so, and are they going to have like a zone there where it's like, well, we think market value is 400. So realistically we understand sometimes it can go above that a little, but you can't get $2 million. You can only get $600,000. I question the legality of that. Are they going to actually, like, what happens if a player gets their NIL deal

stricken out and they just say, okay, well, I'm going to sue? Because it's the US, it's free market, baby. If somebody's willing to pay me that, then they should be allowed to, right? Is that just, are they just gonna get sued and then it's gonna go away, or is it something that's actually going to matter? If it is something that's going to matter, I think it could have a big impact on something

that like we're seeing right now with the KU basketball off season. So I wanna talk about the next as well as how are these schools gonna split up the money? This is Lockdown Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. And over at FanDuel, the NBA playoffs are in full swing, the NHL playoffs are in full swing, we're in the finals of both, and every night delivers highlight-worthy performances, major momentum shifts, and can't-miss moments.

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I don't know, quality stuff like that, but we're getting through it and on the road. I will be back later this week. So don't forget to check out Lockdown College Football and Lockdown College Basketball as well, because they'll be talking plenty about this and the impact on kind of the wide ranging scope of the country as well.

So one of the big questions with this for me is how the whole clearinghouse situation is gonna work, right? Let's go down the road first. If it works well, if it works well where, you know, they are able to put limitations on, okay, how much NIL are you getting? Are you getting overpaid or not? That's going to scrunch together, I think, the haves and the have-nots, right? Instead of it getting further apart, or maybe not even the haves and the have-nots, like the

schools that can really pay. And then do we get back to a situation where in recruiting, it feels like right now in recruiting, the two things that matter the most, number one is money, number two is role, right? For some kids, those are switched, right? It's role then money. And then the other things like facilities, school legacy, all those things matter, but those are minuscule now compared to the top two.

Do we get to a point where if this clearing house is saying, hey, this is your estimated value, this is what you should be getting, that allows more schools to basically get to the point of bidding? Because it's not just, hey, every other school is offering one million, but this school came in with the big offer of two million

and nobody else can match it. You know, a situation like that, that would no longer be allowed here. So then you would have more schools that would in theory be in the running for recruitment. And then there's other things like, how's the coach? How's the scheme? How's the school campus?

Do I fit with the other players? Do I like the campus? Do, you know, I don't know, do I like the scheme? How is the school campus? Do I fit with the other players? Do I like the campus? Do, you know, I don't know, do I like the facilities? Those things would start to matter more because if everybody is basically at the same number now where it's a more reasonable number, as opposed to the Wild West of just who has the most oil money, who has the richest billionaire, then those things start to matter more than they currently do right now. And that could be a good thing. But again, under the guise of what happens if the first player that gets denied

goes to court and sues and the court says, hey, this is America, like if somebody wants to pay me $2 million to come shoot a 15-second commercial for them, like I'll gladly do it. That's going to be a terrible return on investment for them. They're not going to get $2 million worth of value out of that, right? It would be stupid for them. But in the fair market, if somebody is willing,

if a business is willing to do that, that's just what we do. Like it is the free market here in America. So what is going to stop somebody from suing and this? I don't know. I don't have the answer to that because it would be one thing to be like, okay, we have a players union, they signed off on this agreement. And so if they signed off on the agreement, that's just part of this. But there's not a players union. There's not a collective bargaining agreement. So what is going to stop somebody from doing that? That is kind of my big question with all this. But again, in theory, if it does

work out that way, maybe it helps a team like KU who seemingly has a good amount of money invested in the roster already, but there are limitations still, right? We're seeing that right now. Kansas has their open scholarships left and they're struggling to fill them. They're struggling to find maybe an impact player because the cost of it is a little bit beyond where maybe they can go. And so if this is a thing, like especially with Kansas having to pay for the football stadium and yada, yada, yada,

does it allow them to, you know, like right now, I feel like, I feel very solid that Kansas probably has a top 15, maybe top 10, like paid roster will when it's all said and done, but it doesn't feel like they're one of the top two or three, probably doesn't even feel like they're one of the top five. Does this allow that to be a more equal field where therefore they can, you know, emphasize more on, okay, again, you know, let's say you missed out on Darien Williams. Let's say you were offering two or two and a half million, and let's say NC State was able to come in with, you know, three million or something like that. Are you now in a situation where with the clearinghouse, you know, what if the value is two million

and now you're able to get that kid if you're Kansas because now both schools are offering the same again and you're able to say, oh, but we have the Kansas legacy, we have Allen Fieldhouse. So that's how I think it could impact future KU basketball off seasons in theory, we'll wait and see. Now the other big question for me is how is the money going to kind of be split up?

And this is going to be different for every school, right? Going back to the idea of certain schools in like the Big East, if you don't have a football team, if you're Creighton, right? If you're St. John's, are you able to use $20 million to get the best basketball roster there is? Then again, those schools are, you know, they don't have football for a reason.

And so if you don't have football that's driving up more interest, like do you even have the 20? Maybe those schools are only gonna have 10 million to give out. Still, you know, if a majority goes to basketball, that could help those schools. For bigger football schools, is this going to be a problem? Like we've seen Nate Oates and Alabama do so well there,

but is this going to have an impact on them, right? Because now that there's that salary, are we going to see more of it being directed to football? And then how does this affect like coaches, right? If you're a coach, I think you're going to see more of it being directed to football? And then how does this affect coaches? If you're a coach, I think you're going to see some coaches where they make coaching moves that you would view as lateral moves, or you would view as like, oh, why'd they take – I feel like traditionally the job he just took is worse than the job he was at.

But the reason why I think you'll see that is like, let's say you're a basketball coach, right? Let's say you're a basketball coach at an SEC school. And the SEC school says, hey, like, we're going to give most of our money to football, we're going to give a little baseball and whatever. We're going to give basketball, you're going to get $4 million of our revenue share per year to figure out a roster plus NIL, right? And all of a sudden, another school comes calling that again, we view to be typically a worse school in basketball, but they say, hey, we're willing to give you 6 million of our revenue share budget. A coach might say, okay, I'm taking the job because I want to build a better roster. So that'll be a very interesting kind of spin. And I think how all of this affects it. How is KU gonna do it?

I think KU is in a unique position where, now you almost have to view it the opposite way, right? I brought up the basketball example there. Do you have to be worried that if, you know, all these majority, these other schools are giving a majority of it to football, is it gonna piss Lance Light pulled off if you're not and you're giving something to basketball?

The flip side to it is because KU basketball has such interest and has such big donors already with NIL, can you make it work in a way if you're Travis Goff where you say, hey, we are going to give a majority of our NIL to football. We're still going to give a little bit to basketball just to give you a baseline if you're Bill South and if you're Kansas, and the rest you should be able to make off NIL. It's harder to get a big NIL donation for KU football than it is to get a big NIL donation for KU basketball. That just seems to kind of be a fact.

And so if that is true, use the NIL to go over the top for basketball, use a majority of the rev share to go in football. And then I would like them to throw at least a little bit on some of the Olympic sports, right? You got great volleyball facilities, you got a great coach, you got a great coach in Dan Fitzgerald that has started to build something for KU baseball. Use those things to your advantage, right? And I think the money can go a long way in some of those sports, right?

If you were to divvy out, say, I don't know, $500,000 for KU soccer, you'd probably get some absolute studs, you know what I mean? So I don't know what the number is. I don't know how they split it up or how they will. But I do think you need to use NIL to bolster basketball and use a majority of the rev share on some of the other stuff. But you still want to at least some going to basketball so that it, you know, has a kind of baseline there. I want to finish up here. We've kind of gone over all the details here. And I'm going to tell you why it means that KU should bring back their 2018 Final Four. Thanks again for joining us on Locked on Jayhawks. And again,

don't forget to make this show your first listen every day. You can find us anywhere. Here your podcast. So shout out to Kyle on this one who reached out to me and was like, they should bring back the 2018 Final Four. And I was like, what do you mean? What does this have to do with it? And going back to the back paying thing, right? Players are getting paid dating back to 2016

because they've basically lost NIL opportunities, that you weren't there when the NIL era was allowed. And that lost money, you get some sort of something for it. I have no idea how much it's going to be. But if we go back to the premise of why did KU have that big 12 title that, or I don't know if the big 12 title went away. Did it? I think it did. I think it lowered the streak technically by one. It did it? I think it did. I think it lowered the streak technically by one. But regardless, the final four, it got taken away.

And if you go back to the premise of that, it was Silvio de Sosa playing while technically he should have been ineligible because of payment. But couldn't you now just make the argument if you were Kansas, if you took this thing to court, and maybe this is part of it, right? Going back to the idea that Kansas has already so much money that they're having to work in different buckets, right? The football stadium, rev share, paying out this settlement, maybe they just don't have the time and resources and they're like,

maybe we'll get to that later. Maybe we'll, you know, let's get through all this stuff first, and then we'll go to court with the NCAA and talk to them about it, you know, in 1520 years from now, and try to get that resume. I don't know, I don't know. Or do you try to do it now? Right. But point being, if we have basically said, the NCAA lost in court, essentially, I guess it's a settlement. So, you know, whatever. But if we were basically saying that those players deserve

to be paid and are getting paid now tangibly, then that is no longer illegal for Silvio de Sosa to have made money, because theoretically he would have just got an NIL payment where it would have been above the board instead of below the board stuff. So theoretically, by this logic of basically saying, this is all legal now, those players get paid, there is no way that should be disallowed. They should return the 2018 Final Four to Kansas. They should return the Big 12 Championship and extend the streak out to 14 to Kansas. They need to. But the question is, the NCAA is so tied up with other things, they're

probably not even thinking about this, to be completely honest. And honestly, if you're Kansas, I mean, Kansas already has enough scholarships to fill, as is. Last thing they need is to be like, you know what? You should waive the punishment to us too. We should get our scholarship back. The counter to that, I'm like, no, you can keep the scholarship. We don't need to fill another scholarship right now. We don't need to devote more NIL money to that, I'm like, no, you can keep the scholarship. We don't need to fill in another scholarship right now.

We don't need to devote more NIL money to that. They'll be fine with 14 scholarship players instead of 50. But they should return the final four. And I do think it would be something where it would probably take kids is taking it to court. But I think now that you have this legal precedent, is that what the lawyers and attorneys say? Anyway, now that you have this case to kind of point to, I think you would have good grounds to be able to kind of win that suit. But again, going back to the idea that Kansas is busy with other things, Kansas is busy with their money and other things,

and lawyers and attorneys, especially for something like this, is going to cost a lot of money. That maybe you kind of have to wait on that. But do the right thing, NCAA. I know, I'm sure, you know, the higher-ups in the NCAA. I know, I'm sure, you know, the higher ups in the NCAA are watching this right now and like, you know what? You're making a good point there. We're gonna do that for you. So in the case that they don't,

maybe we get a little bit of a legal suit for Kansas. But again, it wouldn't shock me if that ends up coming a little bit further down the line. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page, where you can like and subscribe to the show.

We'll be back at you to talk a little more, I guess, NCAA red tape stuff. Not even NCAA red tape stuff, like actual governmental red tape stuff that could prevent KU from strengthening the roster overseas. We'll be back with that coming up later in the week. This is Locked on Jayhawks. See you next time.