The NCAA has agreed to strike down another old rule as part of a federal antitrust settlement, eliminating restrictions on prize money earned by athletes before they enroll in college. The move, revealed in a federal court filing on April 28, comes after years of athletes being forced to surrender money they earned on the court just to stay eligible inside the NCAA’s system.
Who Pays for Amateurism
Former Texas tennis player Maya Joint was forced to forfeit much of the $147,000 in prize money she earned at the U.S. Open in order to maintain her NCAA eligibility in 2024. North Carolina women’s tennis player Reese Brantmeier filed the lawsuit initially in 2024, and Joint later joined the case as a named plaintiff. The plaintiffs said in their motion to approve the proposed settlement April 28, "The proposed settlement is an extraordinary outcome for the Classes, and the injunctive relief obtained will positively impact future generations of student-athletes."
That language lands against the backdrop of a system that long treated prize money as a threat to its own control. Prize money previously was taboo in the NCAA because the organization wanted to preserve its notion of "amateurism" for athletes instead of allowing them to earn money like professionals. In Brantmeier’s case, NCAA rules restricted what she could earn before enrolling in college, allowing her to accept no more than $10,000 in prize money on a total annual basis for all tennis competitions during 2021, when she was in high school, as well as reimbursement for undefined expenses associated with such competitions.
After college enrollment, her complaint said the NCAA prohibits student-athletes from accepting prize money earned for their athletic performances except to cover "actual and necessary expenses." The rulebook, in other words, was built to keep athletes inside a narrow lane while the organization guarded its version of order.
What the Settlement Changes
As part of the proposed settlement, the NCAA agreed to eliminate restrictions on pre-enrollment prize money for athletes in all sports, not just tennis. The NCAA also agreed to pay a total damages settlement of $2.02 million, including a $10,000 service award to Joint and Brantmeier, plus $1.875 million in attorney’s fees and $425,000 in costs. Additionally, the NCAA agreed to pay up to $250,000 toward settlement notice and administration costs.
The damages class includes NCAA tennis players who voluntarily forfeited prize money earned at a tennis tournament since March 2020, according to the filing on April 28. Brantmeier’s initial antitrust complaint against the NCAA said she had to forfeit most of her $48,913 in prize money from the U.S. Open in 2021 because of an NCAA rule that restricted such prize money earned before and during college. She also was forced to sit out of NCAA competition in the fall of 2022 because the NCAA challenged some of the expenses she submitted for her participation in that same event.
The settlement does not become final on its own. A federal judge still must approve the settlement on a preliminary basis and then schedule a final hearing before final approval. The plaintiffs’ motion filed April 28 said, "Upon this Court’s final approval of the Settlement, the NCAA will be enjoined from reinstating the pre-college enrollment Prize Money Rules that existed prior to the Settlement."
How the Pressure Built
Starting in 2021, the NCAA was pressured into allowing athletes to receive money for their names, images and likenesses. In 2024, the NCAA agreed to remove restrictions on athletes who transfer to different schools after state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against the organization. Starting last year, the NCAA also allowed schools to share revenue with athletes directly under the settlement terms of a different lawsuit brought by athletes who challenged NCAA restrictions on antitrust grounds.
Taken together, the changes show a governing body that has been forced, piece by piece, to retreat from rules that kept athletes from earning money or moving freely. But the retreat has come through lawsuits, settlements, and court supervision, not through any voluntary surrender of power. The NCAA still needs judicial approval before the latest settlement takes effect, and the filing makes clear that the old prize money rules would be barred only after final approval.
For athletes who were made to give up prize money in the name of amateurism, the settlement offers compensation and a formal rollback of one more restriction. For the NCAA, it is another court-filed admission that the old control regime could not hold forever.