On June 6, a settlement was approved to end the House v. National Collegiate Athletic Association antitrust lawsuit. The settlement allows for the direct payment of student-athletes by universities, among other changes.
The settlement includes a $2.8 billion payout for student-athletes who competed in 2016–24 and were unable to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness, which is paid out over the next ten years.
As a university that opted into the settlement, the University of New Mexico faces an approximately $500,000 per year deduction in its NCAA distribution, according to UNM Vice President and Director of Athletics, Fernando Lovo.
“I'm excited. I think it's going to provide some clarity, some guardrails that, frankly, have been absent for the last two or three years in college athletics,” Lovo said. “And I'm hopeful that UNM will continue to be a leader when it comes to this in the post-house world, and excited (for) what the future holds.”
As part of the settlement, member schools face a benefit cap on what they can pay student-athletes. The cap is calculated by taking 22% of the average revenue that member schools receive from athletics — the cap for 2025–26 is $20.5 million.
“Obviously, here at UNM we're not going to be anywhere near that cap, simply because the disparate resources between Power Four schools and Group of Five schools, is just not going to allow us to go up to that cap,” Lovo said.
In 2025, the UNM Lobo Club received $11.1 million in donations, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
The settlement allows for the continuation of NIL payments and deals to student-athletes, though if those payments are from the institution, they do count toward the benefits cap. However, Third-party NIL payments, including those arranged or facilitated by the institution, do not count toward the cap.
The scholarship limits that universities used to abide by have now been replaced with roster limits, giving universities the ability to offer scholarships to all players on their rosters, but sets a limit of the number of players allowed to be on a team.
For football, the roster cap is 105, while the previous scholarship cap was 85, but teams were allowed to have as many non-scholarship athletes on the roster, as they wanted. During the 2023–24 season, the average Division I football roster had 121.4 players, according to ESPN.
UNM will be able to offer scholarships to student-athletes who were otherwise unable to receive them, and hasn’t been greatly impacted by the new roster limits, Lovo said.
“I think we've got a foundation for continued success. But the reality is that we got to continue to push, and we can't settle on one good year. We got to continue to push forward, and I know we've got the right leadership to do so,” Lovo said.
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Jaden McKelvey-Francis is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on X @jadenmckelvey
