The NCAA lost another legal battle Friday when a federal judge issued an injunction requested by the states of Tennessee and Virginia, barring the organization from enforcing its rules banning name, image and likeness compensation for recruits.
It was another blow to the NCAA's ability to govern college sports and more than 500,000 athletes.
Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane, said a congressional order could save the NCAA, although he noted that it was merely a district court injunction that the NCAA is expected to appeal. That would go to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.
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“There is no doubt that the NCAA has never faced more simultaneous attacks from multiple quarters,” Feldman said. “And things are moving quickly. And I think that’s why there’s so much serious discussion about how college sports needs to change and what those changes will look like.”
U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker in the Eastern District of Tennessee issued the injunction, which undermines a fundamental principle of the NCAA's amateur model for decades: Third parties cannot pay recruits to attend a particular school.
The judge wrote that the NCAA's stance likely violated antitrust law because Congress has so far been unwilling to grant the association an exemption. The judge said athletes with a limited window of time are hurt when they can't know their true value before committing to a school.
While maintaining competitive balance in college sports is “a legitimate and important endeavor,” distributing competition evenly among member institutions through trade restrictions is precisely the type of anticompetitive behavior that the Sherman Act is designed to prevent.
U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker.
The decision led to questions about whether boosters will suddenly open the floodgates with offers to potential recruits. Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weinberg said the Cowboys expected the decision, but “we are awaiting further guidance from the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA.”
The NCAA said it would review the ruling and talk to its member schools about possible policy changes. But the NCAA said “upending” the rules supported by its members would only worsen an already chaotic situation and weaken protections that protect athletes from exploitation.
“An endless patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear that a partnership with Congress is necessary to ensure stability for the future of all college athletes,” the NCAA said in its statement the same day as NCAA President Charlie Baker discussed the situation on Capitol Hill.
“I think in the end we're going to need Congress to do something,” Baker said. “Because people will draw a lot of conclusions from court decisions. And then there will be new ones.”
Helen Drew, a sports law professor at the University at Buffalo, said Baker did not name a specific bill for Congress. She also said this is all accelerating quickly after years of the NCAA doing virtually nothing.
“Why didn’t they look into it?” Drew said. “The model is falling apart.”
The attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia filed a federal lawsuit challenging the NCAA's NIL rules on Jan. 31 following news that the University of Tennessee was under investigation for possible violations.
They argued that since the NCAA lifted its ban on athletes cashing in on their fame in 2021, recruits are not considering opportunities when choosing a school – decisions that should not be restricted. The judge noted the NCAA's contention that allowing so-called NIL collectives – donor-backed companies – to make deals with recruits would blur the distinction between college athletics and professional sports.
“While the NCAA allows student-athletes to benefit from their NIL, it does not demonstrate how the timing of a student-athlete entering into such an agreement would defeat the goal of preserving amateurism,” the judge wrote.
Corker has made it clear that he believes the states will likely prevail in the long run.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said the injunction ensures athletes' rights are protected from the NCAA's “illegal NIL recruiting ban.” He said the larger fight continues.
“We will litigate this case to the fullest extent possible to ensure that the NCAA’s monopoly cannot continue to harm Tennessee student-athletes,” Skrmetti said. “The NCAA is not above the law, and the law is on our side.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares called the injunction an important decision for athletes who deserve freedom of negotiation and benefit from the NCAA and its member schools making millions.
“It’s only fair that they have more freedom over what they earn,” he said. “The NCAA has taken advantage of talented young athletes for too long.”
Joshua Lens, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas and a former college athletics administrator, called this lawsuit and the judge's order very specific. Lens said the NCAA can still enforce its other NIL rules. Whether this becomes a national precedent depends on the NCAA's response.
The NCAA is already not enforcing certain transfer rules following a federal judge's ruling in December.
“I think the NCAA will just pause for a minute in trying to enforce the so-called NIL recruiting ban,” Lens said.
The injunction helps the University of Tennessee, which is facing an NCAA investigation over possible recruiting violations. University officials declined to comment Friday, but the chancellor revealed in a scathing letter to Baker on Jan. 30 that the association accused Tennessee of violating NIL rules by intervening between athletes and a booster-funded NIL -Collective that supports volunteer athletes, agreements have been made. Donde Plowman called it “intellectually dishonest” for NCAA staff to pursue violation cases as if students had no NIL rights.
The NCAA's authority to regulate athlete compensation is under attack from various quarters and its legal problems are mounting.
The Tennessee case is one of at least six antitrust lawsuits the NCAA is defending as it also seeks antitrust protection from Congress. A National Labor Relations Board official ruled in early February that members of Dartmouth's men's basketball team were employees of the school and could vote to form a union, which the players plan to do.
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AP Sportswriters Cliff Brunt, John Zenor, Mark Long, Ben Nuckols and Hank Kurz contributed to this report.
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