The Iowa Athletics Department has confirmed the beginning of participation in the NCAA House settlement, which will see allocation of funds to directly benefit Hawkeye student-athletes.
Following Judge Claudia Wilken’s approval of a $2.8 billion settlement to impact schools across the nation, Henry B. and Patricia B. Tippie Director of Athletics Chair Beth Goetz officially announced the news via email on June 10.
“This landmark settlement allows us to share revenue directly with our student-athletes, ensuring they receive benefits generated by their exceptional brand and built by their talents and hard work,” Goetz said in the email. “We are eager to embrace the new era of opportunity for Iowa Athletics and are committed to participating at the maximum revenue-sharing level.”
Plaintiffs representing nearly 400,000 past and present student-athletes, as well as the NCAA and the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, Southeastern, and Atlantic Coast Conferences, often collectively referred to as the “Power Five” conferences, agreed to the settlement, which was also the subject of a June 6 press release by Big Ten Communications.
“We look forward to implementing this historic settlement designed to bring stability, integrity and competitive balance to college athletics while increasing both scholarship and revenue opportunities for student-athletes in all sports,” Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said in the release.
While student-athletes will continue to receive existing benefits for their participation in college athletics, such as athletic scholarships and access to necessary training, academic, and medical resources, this settlement will allow institutions to begin sharing revenue from their athletic programs directly with student-athletes.
“With the approval of the settlement, Iowa Athletics will allocate a portion of its annual revenue to directly benefit our student-athletes,” Goetz said. “These payments will be in addition to the world-class education and other benefits that Iowa student-athletes receive.”
Flight Funds
Ever since name, image, and likeness provided a way for college athletes to get paid, schools have created NIL collectives. Collectives are a way for fans, alumni, students, businesses, or the general public to donate towards paying the athletes they watch.
With the House Settlement being approved, universities can now directly pay their athletes, and the University of Iowa jumped on the opportunity to create a new way for fans to donate through a donation portal called “Flight Funds”.
Flight Funds provide an avenue for fans to donate directly to the revenue-sharing budgets. Through Flight Funds, fans can donate directly to the following athletics programs: football, men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s wrestling. Donations may also be made to the general fund, which is then dispersed among the aforementioned programs at the hands of the athletics department.
“As a program, we are always working to compete at the highest level on the field,” Iowa head football coach Kirk Ferentz told Hawkeye Sports. “Flight Fund is a great opportunity for our fans to contribute directly to our program, which will benefit our student-athletes and all involved with Hawkeye football. Contributions to the Football Flight Fund will enable us to continue to attract and retain the highest quality prospective players to keep our program in a position to compete at a championship level.”
While the Flight Funds provides a way for fans to directly donate to whichever program they please, the NIL collective is not going away.
According to Hawkeye Sports, any NIL agreements through the SWARM collective that were signed before the approval of the House Settlement can remain in place and do not count towards the revenue sharing cap.
Revenue sharing is set to begin on July 1, 2025, when the athletics department will determine how to split the $20.5 million cap among its programs.