Three seasoned players who hoped to play an additional year beyond their NCAA eligibility lost their bid for an injunction on Monday, as a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif., reasoned that college sports eligibility rules fall outside the scope of antitrust scrutiny.
It’s the latest decision in what has become a series of conflicting court rulings about whether relatively older college athletes suffer the kind of legal injury that antitrust law ought to remedy. These players have been denied the chance to play another season to earn NIL income and better position themselves for a pro league draft, but they are excluded based on rules that attempt to link the ordinary academic progress of a college student with the student’s athletics eligibility and that try to insulate college sports from morphing into something akin to minor league sports.
Would-be University of San Diego Toreros linebacker Jagger Giles, would-be UCLA wide receiver Kaedin Robinson and would-be USC Trojans lineman DJ Wingfield recently sued the NCAA. They have all played at multiple colleges and argue that they should be able to keep playing past the NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule. The NCAA’s policy limits athletes to four seasons of intercollegiate competition—including JUCO competition—in any one sport within a five-year window. Giles, Robinson and Wingfield insist they’re part of a labor market for D-I football, which reflects the opportunity to sign NIL deals and, with the House settlement, receive revenue shares.
U.S. District Judge James V. Selna disagreed with the trio. He noted that antitrust law governs rules that concern commercial activity, such as a rule that limits NIL opportunities, education-related compensation or some other topic “where an economic exchange is at the heart of the rule.” Selna reasoned that NCAA eligibility rules are likely a “true” eligibility rule, meaning one that’s not about compensation and thus isn’t within the reach of antitrust law. The judge wrote that the five-year rule “does not regulate any sort of labor for in-kind compensation” and instead has a “simple” purpose: capping the number of years that athletes can participate in college sports.
Selna also wasn’t persuaded by the fact that other college athletes, including Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia and Rutgers cornerback Jett Elad, have thus far succeeded in bringing extremely similar lawsuits. Those decisions were in other federal circuits and therefore don’t bind Selna.
To that point, the limiting role of jurisdiction in the U.S. legal system has played an instrumental role in the growing list of eligibility cases brought in recent months. According to data provided by the NCAA, 31 eligibility lawsuits have been filed, and most have come up short. Specifically, judges denied preliminary injunctions in 16 lawsuits and granted them in five. In addition, three lawsuits were voluntarily dismissed and seven are still pending at the trial court level. Unless and until the U.S Supreme Court weighs in on this topic, it stands to reason these types of player lawsuits will continue to be brought and continue to yield mixed outcomes.
Meanwhile, Selna identified other deficiencies in the players’ legal arguments. He said they failed to provide sufficient analysis on the relevant market for antitrust scrutiny, including by failing to offer “information about how many players attended JUCO before transferring to a D-I institution and are affected by the Five-Year Rule or how many players receive NIL contracts.” The judge also pointed out that “the NFL could be a substitute buyer” of these players’ services—meaning if they declared for the NFL Draft instead of trying to keep playing college football—which would be relevant in an antitrust analysis.
The players can appeal Selna’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In a statement, the NCAA said it “stands by” its five-year rule. The association added that “partnering with Congress is essential to provide clarity and stability for current and future student-athletes” in light of legal outcomes differing “from case to case.”