Judge Claudia Wilken just paused a proposed $2.8 billion settlement, not because it fails athletes, but because walk-on athletes are omitted.
The NCAA’s plan to limit roster spots as part of the House vs. NCAA settlement might hurt “walk-on” athletes. In a case born from Alston v. NCAA, where the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that scholarship athletes deserve better compensation and educational benefits, we’re now holding up progress to ensure all roster players are treated equally.
Graphic courtesy Sportico
The judge doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what it means to be a teenager trying to hit deadlines and free throws while balancing a 6 AM weight room, 8 AM class, and nightly film sessions. She doesn’t know what it is like to be booed at a night game and then … on your way back to campus, pray the airport wi-fi works so you can read an assignment/write a paper, and be on top of your game in a morning midterm.
Walk-ons aren’t the ones at risk here. Scholarship athletes are, many of whom are Black and from working-class families—don’t have that luxury. For them, a roster spot is not a “participation ribbon.”
The court legitimizes a false equivalence by centering the discussion around “access” for walk-ons. It erases the lived reality of who actually powers college sports—the revenue-driving athletes who perform under immense pressure, for free, in a billion-dollar economy.
In doing so, the court betrays a deeper flaw: detachment. Judges may understand the law, but that doesn’t mean they always understand the lived experience. In this case, it’s the burden of young athletes who carry team hopes on their backs, wake up sore, keep their grades up, and manage the psychological weight of being commodified and discarded depending on their box scores.
That burden isn’t theoretical; it’s physiological, emotional, and existential, made heavier when the people tasked with protecting you mistake privilege for vulnerability, and access for oppression. If we’re going to fix college sports, we must start by valuing those whose sweat keeps the system running. That means ensuring roster limits don’t become a smokescreen for trimming scholarships, cutting costs, and pushing out those who can least afford it.
So, the primary issue here isn’t democratizing the settlement; it’s protecting those in the arena. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, the credit belongs not to the critic but “to the man (sic) who is actually in the arena.” In this case, we’re talking about a kid lifting weights at dawn in the gym, pivoting to take two exams during the day, and then suiting up for a 7 PM tip.
We need justice in House vs. NCAA, and that starts by recognizing who’s carrying the load.
