In a landmark move that will award more than $15 billion to athletes over the next decade, the NCAA, along with the ACC, Big 12 and Big 10, approved the settlement in the House, Carter and Hubbard antitrust lawsuit.

The SEC and Pac-12 presidents were scheduled to vote today.

The NCAA and all 32 Division I conferences will reportedly have to pay former players $2.8 billion in NIL salaries retroactively, and schools will be able to opt in to sharing up to $22 million per year with players by the start of the fall 2025 semester.

“This will be the biggest change in the history of college sports. Period,” Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane University, told Yahoo Sports.

The lawsuit, House v. NCAA, filed in 2020 by former Arizona State University swimmer Grant House, alleges that the NCAA's rules regarding name, image and likeness (NIL) violate “federal antitrust and common law.”

College sports leaders have been seeking a settlement for months to avoid the $4 billion the NCAA could face if it loses in court.

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Antitrust attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who leads the House legal team, told Sportico he would be “very pleased” if the settlement is reached and approved, arguing it would lay the foundation for a new college sports system that is “fair and transformative for athletes.”

Similar antitrust cases led by Kessler, the Hubbard and Carter cases, will also be consolidated into the settlement.

The vote marks a major shift in philosophy for an organization that has fought tooth and nail to protect the concept of “amateurism” until as recently as 2022.

“There have been big changes and incremental changes,” Feldman said. “The NIL era opened up a lot of possibilities, but having players share revenue with their schools would not only be groundbreaking, but would go against what the NCAA has been advocating for for a century.”