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00:00 This is the biggest settlement that has ever happened in the history of the NCAA.
00:03 We bring in Darren Heitner, our legal analyst, to talk about it.
00:07 Darren works regularly on IP law and is as involved in this space as any, understands
00:15 NCAA rulings.
00:16 And Darren, this is obviously evolving.
00:18 A press conference doesn't mean that we've settled terms, but it seems like we are approaching
00:25 the runway, I would say, on possibly settling a few of the antitrust cases that you and
00:31 I have talked about on this very show for the last two months.
00:35 So we can start in a number of different ways, but let's just start with the fact that they've
00:41 actually gotten somewhere in terms of settling these cases and preventing future legislation
00:48 against them.
00:49 Is that correct?
00:51 That is.
00:52 The NCAA and the power conferences have come a long way in a very short amount of time.
00:57 Now the main case, a case that many people may have heard about recently, is House v.
01:02 NCAA.
01:04 That was actually initiated four years ago, so this matter has been pending for quite
01:09 a while.
01:10 But in the recent past, the federal judge certified a damages class, and it basically
01:17 took the number of plaintiffs from three to over 14,000, and the potential damages in
01:23 excess of $4 billion.
01:25 That's what really caught the attention of the NCAA, the power conferences, and the member
01:30 schools, where they felt compelled to start proactively engaging in settlement discussions
01:37 with the plaintiffs' counsel.
01:40 And again, it was a matter of a couple of weeks, really, where leaks started, and then
01:47 you had an actual meeting of the minds in terms of what a settlement will look like.
01:53 There are still a lot of details that need to be worked out.
01:56 The judge still needs to confirm the settlement.
01:59 This is going to take some time.
02:00 There may even be some athletes who decide to opt out and complicate things.
02:06 But we've come a long way.