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A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the NCAA from enforcing its bans against recruits signing monetary agreements with support groups, dealing a significant blow to the NCAA’s attempts to block colleges and their supporters from paying athletes to let them play in their schools.
The notion of amateurism has long been a founding principle of the NCAA, but Judge Clifton L. Corker said a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia had enough merit to prevent the college sports regulatory body from imposing restrictions on prospects signing names. Advertising, image and likeness (NIL) offers before joining programs. The court order applies to all athletes in all states and takes effect immediately.
The court order is not a final ruling in the case, but the judge’s decision will almost certainly open the floodgates for more recruits to sign NIL agreements across the country without fear of repercussions. Since NIL laws in several states went into effect in 2021, the NCAA has attempted to defend and enforce its own policies, which aim to restrict the use of NIL agreements to induce recruits to sign with a particular program, and the fundamental idea that college athletes should not be paid based on their athletic performance.
“The NCAA’s ban likely violates federal antitrust law and harms student-athletes,” Corker wrote in his decision.
NCAA spokesperson Saquandra Heath said in a statement that the judge’s decision will further complicate the rules landscape for college sports.
“Reversing rules overwhelmingly supported by member schools will aggravate an already chaotic university environment, further diminishing protections for student-athletes from exploitation,” Heath said. “The NCAA fully supports student-athletes who earn money from their name, image and likeness and is making changes to provide more benefits to student-athletes, but an endless patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear that it is necessary to partner with Congress to provide stability. for the future of all college athletes.”
Currently, NCAA rules allow enrolled athletes to sign NIL agreements with both individual boosters and collective boosters, which are groups of boosters that pool resources before signing contracts with athletes. The NCAA does not allow prospective athletes (high school athletes or transfers) to sign such agreements, believing it to be a recruiting incentive.
On January 31, the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia jointly filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in a U.S. district court, challenging the organization’s ban on using NIL incentives in recruiting. The lawsuit came a day after it was revealed that the NCAA was investigating the recruiting activities of the University of Tennessee and Spyre Sports Group, a collective unofficially associated with Volunteers athletics, specifically around five-star prospect Nico Iamaleava , who eventually enrolled at Tennessee in January 2023. .
Tom Mars, an attorney who worked with the Tennessee class on the case, said the importance of the order cannot be understated.
“With this being the first domino to fall, what happens in the other pending antitrust cases now seems almost inevitable. And the NCAA lawyers should know that,” Mars said.
The NCAA previously responded to the lawsuit by arguing that states had no reason to temporarily override NCAA rules, in part because Tennessee’s own state law prohibits NIL incentives in recruiting. The NCAA has also argued that the purpose of a court’s injunctive relief is to preserve the status quo, and NCAA rules are already the status quo.
Earlier this month, Corker had indicated that a temporary restraining order may not be necessary, but said the states were likely to win their case against the NCAA. Corker wrote in Friday’s court order that “while the NCAA allows student-athletes to benefit from their NIL, it fails to show how the timing of a student-athlete signing such an agreement would destroy the goal of preserving amateurism.” .
The judge agreed with the NCAA in its assertion that maintaining competitive balance is a legitimate endeavor, but said that spreading competition evenly among NCAA member schools “by restraint of trade” is “precisely the type “anticompetitive conduct” that antitrust law attempts to prevent.
Friday’s court order is another crack in the foundation of the NCAA, which has been fighting for its future on multiple fronts and in countless courts in a legal environment that has been friendlier than ever to its rivals.
In the wake of a setback at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, the NCAA has faced multiple lawsuits accusing the organization of violating federal antitrust laws. They are still working their way through various courts. The governing body of college sports has also faced cases that have challenged its rules individually.
In December, attorneys general from seven states, including Ohio, challenged an NCAA rule that prohibits athletes from playing immediately after transferring multiple times. After receiving a temporary restraining order to prevent the NCAA from enforcing the rule, the NCAA agreed to convert the order to a preliminary injunction, allowing all multiple transfers to play without sitting out until the end of the academic year.
The NCAA is also the subject of an unfair labor practice complaint and charge under the National Labor Relations Act, a case that raises the question of whether athletes should be characterized as employees. A hearing is scheduled for next week in Los Angeles.
As NCAA attorneys continue to defend the organization’s long-standing business model, Friday’s order creates an entirely new legal environment in the recruiting space. Athletes and their representatives can now meet and sign collective agreements without fearing an NCAA investigation or potential loss of future eligibility. Although the preliminary injunction is temporary, it will likely lead to dramatic increases in NIL agreements that are presented in front of high school recruits and players in the transfer portal to entice athletes to sign with a particular school. Before Friday, NCAA rules allowed coaches and groups to share information about a prospect’s potential earning power, but they could not sign contracts with prospects before they signed up. That is no longer the case.
The NCAA has tried to use its dilemmas in the courts and statehouses for several years to pressure Congress to implement federal laws to protect the operation of college sports. NCAA leaders want protection from antitrust scrutiny, uniformity in NIL laws and a firm statement that athletes are not employees. There have been numerous legislative proposals and a double-digit number of hearings, but no bill has made it out of committee.
Several senators and representatives have said publicly that cleaning up the NCAA’s mess is not a top priority.
(Photo: Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)