Why Kris Jenkins filed a lawsuit that could ‘blow up the House settlement’ if successful
The former Villanova star filed a suit against the NCAA and six conferences on Saturday.
Kris Jenkins wants money. Duh. It’s the main reason he filed a lawsuit Saturday against the NCAA and six major conferences.
The former Villanova basketball player, whose buzzer-beater won the Wildcats the 2016 national championship, wants more than that, though.
“You want your respect as a man, as a human being,” Jenkins said on Wednesday. “Obviously all the other stuff that comes with it. More importantly, to just continue to fight for what’s right.”
Jenkins is suing the NCAA and its biggest conferences — Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, and Southeastern — in New York district court, seeking damages for the name, image, and likeness compensation he was unable to receive while at Villanova.
“A lot of student-athletes were taken advantage of and kind of forced to do a certain thing,” Jenkins said. “Everyone knows it’s wrong. Even the NCAA. They may not acknowledge it, but settling the House case is letting everyone know that there’s some fault here. That’s exactly what that shows.”
The House v. NCAA settlement, which appears to be nearing approval, is at the crux of why Jenkins is filing his suit. The settlement left the Big East out of the lion’s share of back payments dating to 2016. Jenkins, whose career at Villanova ended in 2017, is in an “additional sports class” that would receive crumbs, compared to football players and men’s and women’s basketball players from the power schools.
“It just wasn’t beneficial for me to get my full value, my full worth,” Jenkins said. “The numbers and stuff that they were offering in the House settlement were definitely disrespectful and just alarming. It’s something that my team and I want no parts of.”
» READ MORE: Kevin Willard was honest about his task at Villanova. Villanova was honest about the pressure on him.
Jenkins is among a few hundred athletes who have opted out of the House settlement, which gives him and others the right to bring this type of lawsuit, even if it closely mirrors some of the claims made in the antitrust lawsuit filed by Arizona State swimmer Grant House and TCU women’s basketball player Sedona Prince in 2020.
Mit Winter, a former college basketball player at William and Mary who now is a lawyer with Kennyhertz Perry in Kansas City, said Jenkins’ suit is “almost a carbon copy of the House complaint.”
“I think we’re going to see these types of lawsuits for a while,” said Winter, who has an extensive background in the legal side of college athletics, including experience working on the landmark O’Bannon v. NCAA and Alston v. NCAA cases.
Jenkins’ suit also is a reminder that Judge Claudia Wilken’s expected approval of the House case is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to the future of college athletics. There will be lawsuits like the one Jenkins filed that take umbrage with the exact things House will certify, like salary cap restrictions, NIL collective and booster deals, and roster limits. Those arguments surfaced in Wilken’s court at the settlement hearing Monday in Oakland, Calif.
“Everybody knows that the rules that were put down were unlawful or wrong, and it’s just time for everyone to do what’s right,” Jenkins said.
If successful, his suit will provide Jenkins more than just money. It also seeks a judgment to void NCAA rules that limit payments athletes can receive for their NIL rights and services, directly challenging the House settlement terms.
“This lawsuit could basically just blow up the House settlement at some point,” Winter said.
Is that a likely result?
“It just depends, I think, on what happens with this lawsuit,” Winter said. “Are the NCAA and conferences going to say, ‘All right, we’ll settle with you, here’s X number of dollars if you go away and dismiss your lawsuit?’ That could happen. Or are they going to fight it, and is Kris going to try and litigate this for a number of years, which this type of lawsuit could potentially require?”
Jenkins, for now at least, plans to see it through.
“When you fight for what you believe in and fight for what’s rightfully yours, things will be uncomfortable,” he said. “My whole life, I’ve been comfortable being uncomfortable, and this no different.”
» READ MORE: Rebuilding Villanova into a perennial winner again is the primary focus of Kevin Willard’s ‘last job’
It is difficult to quantify exactly how much money Jenkins’ championship-winning shot was worth, although the 127-page filing makes an effort to. It says Jenkins’ shot, literally nicknamed “The Shot,” and Villanova’s championship victory were the reason behind William B. Finneran’s $22.6 million gift to renovate the now-named Finneran Pavilion and support the men’s basketball program. The filing notes how Villanova received an uptick in applications to the university. The campus footprint has greatly expanded since 2016.
The NCAA and Big East, the suit says, have benefited greatly from the shot and continue to use it in promotional videos.
“Mr. Jenkins’ shot remains the most-viewed moment in NCAA basketball history,” the suit says, pointing to a combined 10 million-plus views between two videos on the NCAA’s YouTube page.
“Everybody can see the value,” said Jenkins, 31. “Everybody knows the value.”
Jenkins, who played at Villanova from 2013 to 2017, had a brief professional career before a hip injury forced him to stop playing in 2020. He rejoined the Villanova basketball program in a support staff role in 2020 and has been around the program at times since then, including attending new coach Kevin Willard’s introductory press conference this week. Jenkins, who now lives in Florida, began broadcasting games this season and plans to continue pursuing a broadcasting career.
Jenkins has largely come to be defined by The Shot, but some might argue he’s just unlucky that it came when it did, a product of the time. College sports have changed, and there were different rules in 2016.
» READ MORE: What was Kris Jenkins’ title-winning shot worth? We just found out.
“I respect their opinion, and they’re always entitled to that, for sure,” Jenkins said. “But the House case goes back to 2016, which puts me in play. I didn’t come up with the year. This is what they decided on. So since they decided on it, I get to take advantage of it and get my full value, and we’ll have our day.”