Having looked through the O'bannon opinion, I think that it is both limited and huge, but not for the reasons that people have been generally mentioning.
First, it does not
mandate paying players for anything. It says that the NCAA cannot
restrict the ability of schools and conferences to pay the players compensation for the use of their names and likenesses (while the original lawsuit was really about video game money, the court decision is all about TV money). They payment does not need to happen when the player is in school, and the NCAA can set an annual cap as low as $5,000 per player, per year. That would mean that each university could be out an extra $500,000 or so a year for football. I bet that this compensation will be organized on the conference level. Also, the compensation can be
deferred until graduation, so the player gets a check when they leave school. The compensation can be on top of a full cost of attendance scholarship.
I wonder about the intersection of Title IX and these payments. I think that a good argument can be made that Title IX does not apply, because this is actual
compensation, and not an opportunity to play and get a scholarship. Still, you never know what a federal judge is going to do when they get their hands on the inevitable federal Title IX lawsuit. Obviously if Title IX applies, the costs double. Another interesting thing is the fact that conference networks like the PAC-12 Network show things like women's soccer, volleyball, basketball, and such. So the women are on TV, although not on the huge revenue TV. As long as they show these games on the Pac-12 Net (and similar nets), I can't see how the conferences could justify cutting women athletes out.
One thing that this could to is bring back an NCAA football video game, or games. Right now the conferences have TV contracts that pay a set amount. So, if they
have to pay players to stay competitive, they are out that money--it is a zero sum game. They will want to add to the revenue stream, and a video game may do that (although I can't see it coming close to filling the financial hole that paying the players will create, it will be something).
Since none of the Big 5 are going to want to be at a complete competitive disatvantage recruiting-wise, I expect that each of the Power-5, and Notre Dame, will quickly establish trust funds to pay each eligible player the maximum $5,000 as soon as they are legally able to do so. Of course, this only elevates the advantage that the recent P5 autonomy vote created for recruiting into the P5. All other things being equal, it is hard for me to see many recruits taking a non-P5 school over a P5 school when the difference is not only a full scholarship versus a non-full one, but a check for $20-25k at the end of school (minus taxes, of course). This gives schools like CU a huge advantage over any non P5 school, and will result in a further separation between the talent of players playing in the P5 and the rest, as you will be unlikely to see competitive athletes go to the (now) lower tier, absent a reason that they really really really want to go to the lower tier school, like family ties, geography, or having enough family money not to care.
In the end, I think that this will solidify and straighten the distinction between P5 and non P5, and in 10 years they will really have to create a separate division. Personally, I would like to see a full-size 100-plus team Division 1 on an equal playing field, and I think that this P5 vs. non-P5 future will not be good for college football. That being said, I would rather see CU with the big boys than stuck in the Mountain West like CSU.
I don't know how many of you remember what may have been the
most asinine editorial in the history of the Denver Post, written in the midst of conference shake ups, and advocating for CU to join the MWC. Take a look at it. It was asinine then (we all knew it). It was boneheaded, thoughtless, and ignorant then (we all knew it). One can only imagine where we would be if the CU brass had been nincompoops enough to take it seriously.
