Could college athletes really start getting paid directly by their schools, ending decades of acrimony over the issue? The NCAA, along with the five largest college athletic conferences, announced Thursday an agreement to settle three antitrust suits brought by college athletes over having been deprived of financial gain by only receiving scholarships in exchange for their play. Here’s how it all could work. If approved by a California judge, the NCAA would pay out more than $2.7 billion in damages over the course of 10 years to current and former athletes that now form the so-called class of plaintiffs represented in the suit. That group consists of 14,000 players who were enrolled as student-athletes from 2016 to 2020. The settlement would also institute a 10-year revenue-sharing plan that would guarantee active players, collectively, up to 22% of their schools’ share of media broadcast and ticket sales. Reported estimates suggest that…
