USF says it is "well-positioned" when direct payments to athletes begin on July 1

USF is looking at the sweeping two-tiered settlement in the House vs. the NCAA with a certain air of aplomb.

While some Cassandras predict that allowing athletic programs to directly pay their athletes will lead to the collapse of civilization, the University of South Florida is taking the opposite approach.

“USF athletics has been preparing for this moment and is ready to meet the future of college athletics with confidence,” the university said in a statement.

Trustee chairman Will Weatherford tweeted it is “A NEW ERA in college sports."

He's right about that. It really is a new era, and starting July 1, athletic programs can pay their players from a pot that can reach about $20.5 million per school.

Programs don’t have to spend that much, but theoretically, the top figure basically becomes the salary cap. That amount will increase over the years.

It’s up to the school to decide how to divvy up that pool.

As part of the deal, the NCAA will pay roughly $2.8 billion to the athletes who completed their eligibility from 2016 to the present day. Former Bulls like Quinton Flowers, Marlon Mack, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, among many others, should benefit from this.

The same week the settlement was announced, Michael Kelly, USF’s VP for Athletics, left to become the athletic director at Navy.

President Rhea Law named USF Foundation CEO Jay Stroman as the interim athletic director, and it seems likely that his background in high finance is why he was a good fit for this.

An athletic director at a large school like USF spends most of their time raising money and pondering how to raise more. I spoke with Kelly about all this about a year ago, and it was clear his department was planning for this eventuality.

He had a good idea of how much the money pool would be, and you can be sure the coaches know which players will receive a substantial salary and which ones will earn less.

You may ask how NIL money players have already been receiving fits into this. It’s a good question.

The NCAA created the position of CEO of the College Sports Commission, which Bryan Seeley, a former executive with Major League Baseball, will lead.

The CSC will oversee and enforce rules related to player compensation and NIL deals. That could close a potential loophole where booster money could be used to spend well beyond the salary cap.

USF has 21 sports teams, and while no school official has said so out loud, it probably means athletes from so-called “minor sports” could get left out of the paydays.

It also likely means that if you thought the transfer portal was the wild, wild west, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Player A makes more than Players B and C.

Players B and C believe that’s not fair. Other programs promise to pay them more.

Bye-bye.

And then there’s the situation in the American Athletic Conference, where there is a wide disparity in revenues for several schools.

Presidents at AAC schools voted in March to require “at least $10 million in cumulative additional benefits over a three-year period, starting with the 2025-26 academic year.”

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported that AAC members who fail to reach that threshold could have their membership status reviewed.

Essentially Sports reported that Florida Atlantic, UAB, and North Texas have a lot of hat-passing to do. As of 2025, those three departments have contributed a combined $5,987,661 toward the AAC’s revenue-sharing rule.

By the way, Army and Navy are exempt from this.

That’s one less thing for Michael Kelly to worry about in his new job.