This article and its headline have been updated to include new details.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in a proposed multi-billion-dollar settlement concerning athlete compensation antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences are requesting a federal judge to grant them close to $525 million for legal fees and expenses, based on documents submitted on Tuesday.

Additionally, under the terms of the proposed settlement, the attorneys have asked for permission to request more funds annually from a judge or special master, potentially amounting to around $250 million more.

The vast majority of these funds would be distributed over a ten-year timeline. The litigation team is mainly headed by Steve Berman from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Jeff Kessler of Winston & Strawn LLP.

These filings come shortly after U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken provisionally approved the extensive settlement, which aims to reshape the landscape of college athletics. The agreement not only sets aside a $2.8 billion compensation fund for present and former athletes over a decade but also enables Division I schools to directly compensate athletes for the use of their name, image, and likeness, with a per-school cap that is set to increase over time.

The initial cap is likely to range between $20 million and $23 million for the 2025-26 academic year.

The settlement also proposes that Division I athletic programs providing these NIL payments will not have to adhere to the traditional scholarship limits, rather switching to limits based on team rosters. For instance, in the first academic year after the settlement is finalized, the football roster limit would be set at 105 players. Recent data shows that many Power Five institutions have rosters exceeding 125 players, as per YSL News Sports’ open-records analysis.

The additional $250 million sought by the plaintiffs’ attorneys stems from a provision in the settlement allowing them to claim 0.75% to 1.25% of the annual expenditures by Division I schools on NIL agreements and up to certain thresholds for new scholarships and academic achievement awards that emerged following the Supreme Court’s 2021 Alston ruling, which lifted NCAA restrictions on educational benefits for athletes.

If all 68 Power Four conference schools were to offer $20 million in a single year, it would result in a total of $1.36 billion, not accounting for any Division I schools outside the Power Four likely providing financial benefits.

Everything hinges on the final endorsement by Judge Wilken, who is slated to hear the case on April 7, 2025, in Oakland, California. A decision from her could also be appealed.

A prior college football case demonstrates the potential for delay: a settlement was tangled up in an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court that stemmed from objections regarding attorneys’ fees and costs, postponing resolution by around two years, even though the challenge ultimately fell short.

If there are appeals in the current case, the agreement stipulates that schools will still be permitted to begin payments to their athletes, and the new roster limits will take effect in the 2025-26 school year, but compensation money and plaintiffs’ legal fees will remain in escrow until all appeals are finalized.

While the proposed settlement’s damage pool stands at $2.8 billion, attorneys emphasized in their Tuesday filings that “expert and lay evidence suggests that this settlement is poised to raise benefits for college athletes by $20 billion or more” in the forthcoming decade. They characterized it as “one of the largest recoveries in antitrust history.”

Arguing for their fees, the plaintiffs’ legal team referred to this as a “bet-the-company” case that led to a “monumental settlement” set to “transform college sports” and offer student-athletes a chance to earn a similar share of revenues as professional athletes in the NFL and NBA.

On a technical note, the lawyers indicated their request represents 18.3% of the “cash common funds, before any valuation is placed on future benefits.” If the projected future benefits amount to $20 billion, their requested fee proportion would reduce to “3.2% of the total settlement value.” They noted that in states under the jurisdiction of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court, a common standard for attorney fees is around 25% of the overall settlement value, which includes California.