(02-17-2019 06:54 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  So much depends on what the new cost of doing business is and who can/will do it

There’s the very real possibility that most schools can’t afford all the sports they do now and would shrink down based on their priorities

Someone like Virginia might be very willing to sacrifice FB to keep Basketball, baseball and lacrosse while someone like Boise might be willing to sacrifice all its other sports to keep football (not that I think the NCAA would let them) which brings up another point. How does Title IX work in this brave new world? There’s no more athletic scholarships if you’re just paying players. So if you have 120 FB spots do you have to have 120 female sports slots? Or do you just have to find them equally? That makes FB a very expensive prospect to most? You would probably see the allowed number of players in FB drop drastically so schools could afford say just a FB team, WBB and maybe Wsoccer or softball

All of which the concept of pay for play will have many cans of squiggly worms to address and resolve. Title IX requires equivalency in the number of sports offered, but not the number of overall athletes. Pay for play offered to just football (85 people in FBS right there) and the men's basketball players will not fly. I expect the judge has received the briefs on this matter and related, much of which may be external to the parameters for the decision, but are auxillary factors to the impact of the decision.
College student athletes sign grant-in-aid scholarships. It is a contract of sorts for promised revenue for educational costs in exchange for sport participation. Student athletes have broke them; some colleges have reneged on agreements. Pay for play will be salary, and variations will develop, just as it does for pro sports.
It will be very messy because college governance is way more decentralized compared to pro sports organizations such as the NFL and the NBA. If a player of legal age did not sign a contract to receive salary/added benefits, and knowing the conditions there-in, but still plays, then later claims entitlements not promised, that is what spearheaded the original dispute. Is every former player or their beneficiaries everywhere going to sue for prior compensation that was never promised or contracted? It's completely unrealistic. Regardless of how much the school and coaches profit from the player's services, player entitlement of a portion of that revenue, as an ad-hoc process has very shaky, at best, legal grounds. However, the contention is to allow pay for play, for those that choose so, as a valid and authorized mechanism going forward. I expect this will happen in some fashion, but the technicalities in delivering such will become complex and further controversy will ensue. Even pro sports don't have distributions all refined and consistent as much as they try.