MORGANTOWN — Over the weekend, there was another big step and potential change for the future of college athletics. Judge Claudia Wilken approved a deal between the NCAA, conferences and athletes that changed/fixed many aspects of college athletics.
The main result of the ruling was that colleges are allowed to directly pay athletes. There are stipulations and guardrails, though, attempting to tame the Wild West of college athletics.
The first was the revenue-sharing budget, which is around $20 million. The universities can distribute the money to each sport as they please, and it doesn’t have to be even.
The other is that each NIL deal over $600 has to be reported to an organization called NIL Go. They decided whether or not to pass the deal through. Former MLB executive Bryan Seeley will be the CEO of the new College Sports Commission, which will govern the financial and nearly all aspects of the future of the NCAA. The NCAA will remain organizing and running the tournaments, but that’s it.
The most interesting part of the new ruling is the rough $20 million cap each year for contract spending, and how each school will opt to use it. This helps and hurts schools in a couple of ways.
The first is that small schools might suffer because now schools can spend $20 million without issues, whereas the small schools can’t afford to fund $20 million a year for athletes. But it works both ways because the bigger schools are now capped, so they can’t spend $20 million on just one roster.
The biggest issue with this ruling is for schools that are competitive in multiple sports, like West Virginia.
West Virginia shouldn’t have an issue funding the $20 million, especially with the support of ESPN’s Pat McAfee, Arizona Diamondbacks’ owner Ken Kendrick, and numerous other promoters. The Mountaineers are also a part of the Big 12 media deal. The problem appears in how the money is split.
Most experts believe schools will use 70%-80% of the budget on football, 15%-20% on basketball and the rest on the other sports.
The Mountaineers are one of the schools that have a big football program and a competitive basketball program, where fans want to see both have success. West Virginia and athletic director Wren Baker will have to decide if it wants a more competitive football or basketball team each year.
Baker released a statement over the weekend about the new ruling and how WVU will tackle this new era.
“West Virginia University Athletics has been working and planning for this day for a long time to best position our department for long-term success,” Baker said. “While we will have further updates soon, I want to let Mountaineer Nation know that our tradition and place on the national stage is at the forefront of our decision-making process.”
Seventy percent means roughly $14 million on football, leaving $4 million to build a basketball roster. 80% means $16 million on football and just $3 million on basketball. One sport is always going to be impacted by the spending of another.
Indiana’s Curt Cignetti talked about this issue before the ruling was passed when Indiana hired former WVU coach Darian DeVries and needed to fund a new roster.
“I’d like to have signed a few more [transfers],” Cignetti said. “But when we hired Darian and he lost his whole roster, money got a little tight.”
Other schools, that are only dominant in one sport, don’t have this issue and can dump as much money into a sport as possible. It doesn’t seem fair, and there’ll be lawsuits to follow this ruling because of this imbalance.
West Virginia’s a victim of its own success in this case. Now with the success of WVU baseball and women’s basketball, money will have to be put aside to ride the momentum of those programs, too.
This might be a step in the right direction, but it still creates issues. Baker and WVU have tough decisions in the future on where the direction of athletics will go.
“It’s a new day in college athletics,” Baker said. “WVU will be strategically positioned to continue competing at the highest levels.”
Simaj Hill flips commitment to WVU
WVU stole a commitment from James Madison’s 2026 recruiting class Monday afternoon.
Three-star JMU defensive back pledge Simaj Hill announced on social media that he decommitted and is committed to the Mountaineers to further his athletic career. Hill becomes the fifth defensive back commitment for the Mountaineers in the class of 2026.
On April 15, Hill committed to JMU after receiving an offer from the Dukes just four days before. A month later, West Virginia reached out and offered the three-star, which sparked the eventual flip. He took a visit with the Mountaineers last weekend.
Hill is a Philadelphia native and is ranked as the 49th-ranked player in Pennsylvania, according to 247Sports. He can play both corner and safety, and adds to an already beefed-up secondary for the future.
In the 2026 cycle and Rich Rodriguez’s first full recruiting class, Hill is the eighth player added and the first Pennsylvania player. The highest recruit in the class is still athlete Jyron Hughley, who committed in early April.
