Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten, said giving athletes the security of four-year scholarships was “the right thing to do.”
The one-year scholarship has come to be viewed as similar to an employment contract, while four-year awards are seen as more in the spirit of amateurism.
Lawyers involved in a class-action suit brought by former college athletes to reform N.C.A.A. head-injury policies said on Thursday they thought the agreement would be tweaked but ultimately accepted.
As the antitrust case heads to appeal, the N.C.A.A., athletic directors and university presidents are left to wrestle with what sort of change is permissible and what is not.
Several changes, including the N.C.A.A.'s decision not to ask student-athletes to sign statements allowing promotional use of their likenesses, come amid growing unrest over the amateur model of college sports.
Mark Emmert, the president of the N.C.A.A., is an unapologetic target of detractors as his organization faces legal challenges to its amateurism model.
Kendrick Payne, a former defensive lineman in college at California, watched the O’Bannon case unfold a few miles from where he works as a driver for a ride-sharing company.
A key front in the effort to reform the N.C.A.A. is medical coverage for college athletes, some of whom have become burdened with costs to treat their injuries.
