How the House V. NCAA Settlement Impacts Gonzaga Basketball

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How the House V. NCAA Settlement Impacts Gonzaga Basketball originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
College athletics is officially in a new era after the long-awaited House vs. NCAA settlement came to fruition on Friday after approval from judge Claudia Wilken.
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The biggest change - and it is a seismic one - is the ability of colleges to pay student-athletes directly, which goes into effect on July 1.
Programs from the power conferences - defined as the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, and Pac-12 - are all participating while any other D1 schools can choose to "opt in" and must do so formally by June 15, after which a full list of participating schools will be made public.
Nov 15, 2024; Spokane, Washington, USA; Gonzaga Bulldogs guard Dusty Stromer (4) controls the ball against the UMass Lowell River Hawks in the second half at McCarthey Athletic Center. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-Imagn Images James Snook-Imagn Images
An official number has yet to be finalized, although early reporting indicates each school will have a maximum of roughly $20.5 million to spend across all their student-athletes per year. That number - which others have estimated is closer to $23 million - will rise by 4% each year and will be reevaluated every three years.
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It's important to note that number is the maximum and likely won't be spent by everyone, although it potentially creates an advantageous situation for Gonzaga.
Many schools are expected to roughly follow the following formula when splitting up their $20 million: 75% to football, 15% to men's basketball, 5% to women's basketball, and 5% to everyone else, which would equal about $15 million for football, $3 million for men's basketball, $1 million for women's basketball, and just $1 million for the school's 15-20 other programs combined.
So even if Gonzaga doesn't come up with a full $20 million each year, they will easily be competitive with programs that sit in the $2.5-$4M range. And once the Pac-12 media deal is revealed - with some reports expecting it to happen this week - fans will have a better sense of how competitive the Zags could be.
At the very least, Gonzaga should have a big advantage over their peers in the Pac-12 who will be feverishly raising money to make (or keep) their football teams competitive, while the Zags can spend a huge chunk of their money earned from the media deal on men's basketball. And even if they allocate more money to the olympic sports, that will help those programs compete right away in the Pac-12 and potentially out-recruit other big name programs.
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However, big name programs will still have ways to get their recruits more money through NIL deals from third parties, which are still allowed but will be more strictly monitored starting July 1.
The new NIL Go system, created by an independent body called the College Sports Commission, requires student-athletes to submit a form for every third party NIL opportunity worth more than $600 dollars. They will then evaluate each request based on "the deal's performance obligations, the SA's athletic performance and social media reach, the local market, and the market reach of his or her institution and program."
In other words, this group will try to prevent scenarios where a team pays a player $1M officially but has a third party offer the same player $4M to do a single social media post. However, as seen above, the language around this evaluation is kept quite vague and it won't stop big name programs from finding workarounds.
The next steps for college athletics could include collective bargaining between student-athletes, universities, and the NCAA, with direct employment a possibility down the line as well.
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Even with so much still to be determined, and some concerning downsides to the impact on olympic sports and smaller conference schools, it's not hard to see the positives of the House settlement for Gonzaga in conjunction with the move to the Pac-12.
Related: Pac-12 Media Rights Deal is Being Finalized as Schools Sign Grant of Rights and Membership Agreements
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.