This makes very little sense on multiple levels.
(1) Without a federal exemption, any type of agreement to arbitrarily cap player earnings will run into the same antitrust issues as before. This goes down a rabbit hole quickly. If EA sports pays a royalty to all athletes to use their likeness in the new video game, wouldn’t that bust the cap? The ability to legally prohibit the rights of third parties to contract is extremely limited, and I’m not sure what ground they will try to stand on to do so.
(2) At the end of the day, the NCAA is going to have to prove that it is actually willing to go to the mat to enforce these rulings and pay the litigation costs for each instance some ornery booster takes them to court. If they wouldn’t do it for the blatant bag violations over the past decade, why should we think that they would be willing to do it now?
(3) I’m sure our administration will nonetheless find a way to make this more difficult than it needs to be, until enough alumni and donors make enough noise to force change. Would love to see the AD staff restructured to support these initiatives, or at the very least take those expenses and increase professor salaries.