Notre Dame president calls on Congress to help after NCAA rev share settlement

A brand new era of college sports is bearing down on Notre Dame. The brunt of that arrival will land squarely on Notre Dame football, but the school and all of its athletics will eventually feel the effect of a brave new world set to arrive in the fall of 2025.

On Thursday evening, the NCAA and all the Power Conference programs as well as Notre Dame agreed to a settlement in House vs NCAA that is going to have far reaching implications on college sports. Chief among those is a revenue sharing aspect that will see schools paying their student athletes for the first time in history.

It's the kind of change to the landscape that the NCAA has been battling tooth and nail for decades. It's the kind of change that comes only on the heels of NIL becoming a reality and will effectively put to rest any talk of a player getting in trouble for someone buying a player a sandwich.

Also, on Thursday evening, Notre Dame's outgoing president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, issued a statement that he understands the settlement and all that comes with it is necessary for the survival of college sports.

Notre Dame president embraces brave new world brought on by settlement

"The settlement, though undesirable in many respects and promising only temporary stability, is necessary to avoid what would be the bankruptcy of college athletics," Jenkins wrote before calling for Congress to step in.

"To save the great American institution of college sports, Congress must pass legislation that will preempt the current patchwork of state laws; establish that our athletes are not employees but students seeking college degrees and provide protection from further antitrust lawsuits…"

Jenkins isn't saying anything that hasn't been said by Notre Dame administration members as well as others around college sports before. What his statement does seem to underline is that while this revenue share settlement is a short solve, it could lead to more problems quickly.