On October 7, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval to the largest, most transformative antitrust settlement in intercollegiate athletics history.  Popularly known as the House Settlement (the “Settlement”), its terms remove National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) scholarship limits and provide $2.8 billion in retroactive name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation to both current and former NCAA athletes.  But more importantly, the Settlement allows schools to disburse up to $20 million annually to athletes as part of a historic, new revenue-sharing model—effectively abolishing NCAA amateurism.  Analysts estimate that intercollegiate men’s basketball and football athletes will receive roughly 90 percent of the Settlement funds, which raises far-reaching Title IX concerns.

This Essay asks whether the court properly excluded Title IX concerns when preliminarily approving the multi-billion-dollar Settlement.  In response, this Essay references Judge Guido Calabresi and Professor Sir Philip C. Bobbitt’s framework from their seminal book Tragic Choices to explore the egalitarian conflict within the Settlement classes, whose legal interests initially converged for antitrust purposes but later diverged as Title IX issues arose.  This Essay concludes that although the Settlement properly excluded Title IX concerns, it is imperative that more appropriate legal authorities expeditiously address these concerns.