Pitt Welcomes Revenue-Sharing Era After House Settlement

The long-awaited landmark decision in House v. NCAA landed in the late hours Friday evening as Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House settlement, ushering a new revenue-sharing era of college athletics.

It’s a major change in college athletics that will directly impact the University of Pittsburgh as the school will now be able to directly pay its student athletes.

Beginning July 1, Pitt will be able to share up to $20.5 million with athletes for the 2025-26 school year. Across college athletics, it’s expected that roughly 75% of the revenue-share money will be allotted towards football.

The future of college athletics remains ever-changing.

One thing will not change: Pitt’s unwavering commitment to winning championships and helping our student-athletes compete at the highest levels in the ACC and nationally.

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— Allen Greene (@AGreeneIV) June 7, 2025

Since Allen Greene took over as Pitt’s Director of Athletics in October, he and the rest of the athletic department have been preparing for the inevitable House settlement.

“Pitt athletics is definitely ready for this,” Greene said Saturday morning on 93.7 The Fan. “Big kudos to the team and university administration. One of the things that is a huge benefit to us here at Pitt is the alignment between our board chair, our chancellor, myself and our chancellor’s team. We’ve been able to have very transparent conversations about how we are preparing for the eventual approval of this settlement, which occurred last night. We’ve been strategizing for six months and even beyond, but really robustly over the last six months. I couldn’t be more proud of the team for helping put us in a strong position moving forward.”

There are three main components to the settlement: back pay to athletes — a 10-year agreement that includes $2.776 in back damages to players who missed on Name, Image and Likeness opportunities — revenue-sharing and roster limits, which will slowly be phased in.

Greene and Pitt have focused directly on the latter two components of the settlement.

“Upon my arrival late this fall, we were anticipating the House settlement being approved at some point in time. We took measures from the get-go to really evaluate our investments in where we were investing. We’ve redistributed our resources to help make sure we’re in the best position for future success. Sometimes, we have to look at things a little bit differently. We may have to have had to made some unconventional decisions. Every school is facing the same battle. It doesn’t matter what Power Four league you’re in. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the Big East or not, but if you’re going to participate in the rev-share, $20.5 [million] doesn’t just grow on a tree right outside people’s offices. We have to be very strategic with how we’re redirecting our resources to have the greatest impact,” Greene said.

While schools will now directly pay players, some of the burden still falls on the fans to help on the financial front.

“Specifically, this is unfortunately part of this new world order that we found ourselves in, things have become more transactional. Success has become more transactional and with that, there’s a greater expectation to contribute financially. As you and as your colleagues are out pounding the pavement in people’s offices, and for us sometimes on the golf course, but we’re going to ask people to come along on this journey with us. I enjoy having fun on Saturdays down at Acrisure Stadium. I know our fans do as well. This is the City of Champions and we like to win and we expect to win. It’s going to be a community effort. It’s going to be a team effort. We’re going to do our part to resource and allocate our resources appropriately, but we’re going to need the support of the Pittsburgh community, financially in particular, to help us pull this off. I’m really excited about the opportunity we have here at Pitt to really make a mark in this modern era of college athletics.”

For Greene, the one main takeaway out of the settlement is that Pitt is positioning itself to win championships and help its athletes compete at the highest level.

“There’s been three pillars throughout my career in leadership with regard to athletics that we’ve followed,” Greene said. “First is making sure that our student athletes are achieving academically. The second is that we are helping develop and creating productive members of society. The third is, we want to have a championship-caliber program. I would not be at Pitt if I did not think that was possible. We’re not going to have the most money — that’s part of who we are. We may have the most grit. We have to figure out how we’re going to leverage all that is uniquely Pitt and use that to our advantage. When there’s a will, there’s a way. We’re going to find a way to win at Pitt, and that’s one of the most exciting pieces of the job.”

There are still a lot of moving parts regarding the future of college athletics. One of those is the roster limits. Wilken recently pushed back on limits automatically being put in place. A provision allows for roster spots to be grandfathered in.

Expected roster limits include football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), men’s and women’s soccer (28), softball (25) and volleyball (18).

Also, there will be a new NIL clearinghouse established, named “NIL Go” that will monitor third-party NIL deals of $600 or more. Those deals must be approved by the clearinghouse and if not approved, a third-arty arbiter could deem athletes ineligible or result in a school facing penalties.