Who is Grant House? Former Arizona State swimmer at center of NCAA NIL lawsuit, settlement

It appears that college athletics could be set for a seismic shift and a former Arizona State swimmer is right in the middle of it.

Earlier this week, ESPN and other media outlets reported that the NCAA Board of Governors and several conferences had voted to settle House vs. NCAA and other lawsuits against them.

House is former ASU swimmer Grant House, who brought an NCAA antitrust case against the college athletics governing body in 2020, which challenged the name, image and likeness rules (NIL) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC and Pac-12 also reportedly voted to approve the settlement.

Who is Grant House?

House, now a former ASU swimmer, brought the antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA in 2020, aiming for the NCAA to pay damages to current and former college athletes for what they could have made in NIL money prior to when it was allowed.

According to USA TODAY Sports, "the proposed settlement would end a case on behalf of plaintiffs led by former Arizona State swimmer Grant House. As part of the case, (Judge Claudia) Wilken in November 2023 granted class-action status to athletes seeking damages based on the share of television-rights money and the social media earnings they claim they would have received if the NCAA’s previous limits on NIL compensation had not existed."

Why did Grant House sue the NCAA?

House detailed his reasoning for the lawsuit to SwimSwam.com in 2020.

“The way the rules are right now, the NCAA puts college athletes who are shooting for the Olympics at a huge disadvantage to other athletes training to compete,” House told SwimSwam in 2020, a year before the NCAA restored publicity rights to college athletes. “Our ability to fund our Olympic training efforts are essentially squashed by the NCAA’s rules on name, image and likeness. While Olympic athletes in general rely heavily on endorsements and other image deals to afford the cost of competing and training, the NCAA shuts us out of that opportunity entirely.”

Why did the NCAA want to settle the case?

On3.com's Adam Luckett wrote: "The NCAA and its member conferences were going to be forced to pay over $4 billion in damages in retroactive NIL play if they were to lose this case — and losing seems likely at the moment. Part of the damages would include shares of broadcast revenue. Reaching a settlement means $2.8 billion in backpay to NCAA athletes over a 10-year period. Had a settlement not been reached, the backpay could have soared way past that $4 billion figure due to several antitrust lawsuits currently ongoing against the NCAA. The power conferences will pay 40 percent of the backpay due, and the remaining 60 percent will come from conferences outside the Power Five."

What does the settlement mean?

ESPN's Pete Thamel wrote that it "will chart a new course for college sports in establishing a framework for schools to share millions of dollars with their athletes in the future and create a fund of more than $2.7 billion to pay former athletes who were not allowed to sign name, image and likeness deals."

He continued: "The key parts of the settlement include the NCAA paying for more than $2.7 billion in back damages over a decade, about $1.6 billion of which will be withheld from schools. There's also roughly $20 million in permissive revenue sharing that is expected to begin in fall 2025. This revenue sharing will give athletic departments the direct ability to pay the players, a massive paradigm shift for college athletics. The point of the schools settling is to avoid even bigger damages later, which legal experts considered a likelihood considering the NCAA's poor record in court cases."

What impact will the settlement have now?

USA TODAY Sports detailed the impact the settlement will have in college sports.

"Multiple sources have told USA TODAY Sports they expect that the proposed arrangement will have a future impact of at least $20 million a year on the budgets of athletics departments that pay their athletes the maximum combined total that would be allowed under a cap that would be established, and then increase over time," Steve Berkowitz wrote. "Athletes also would continue to be allowed to receive money for activities connected to the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL), including – but not limited to – endorsements and personal appearances."

What about Title IX now?

Title IX is a federal law that says that male and female student-athletes at schools that receive federal funding must be given equal treatment and benefits.

"There is not a clear answer on whether Title IX applies to market-based payments to college athletes, whether those payments are for NIL rights or athletic performance,” Mit Winter, a college sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry and board member for the players’ association Athletes.org, told On3. “You’ll get different answers depending on who you talk to, and there are legal analyses going both ways.”

Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Who is Grant House? Former ASU swimmer at center of NCAA NIL lawsuit