As the new school year begins, several student-athletes are taking the field thanks to victories in the courtrooms over the summer. Buoyed by a U.S. District Court decision in December 2024 granting a preliminary injunction against the NCAA from enforcing its "Five-Year Rule" rule, several other athletes filed similar antitrust suits against the NCAA to continue their collegiate careers.
The Five-Year Rule requires student-athletes to complete four years of competition within five years of full-time enrollment at a collegiate institution. The NCAA's definition of "collegiate institution" includes any college-level institution accredited by the Department of Education or unaccredited institutions that have intercollegiate athletics programs — including non-NCAA member institutions.
Student-Athlete Victories
In Pavia v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee granted a football player a preliminary injunction after finding the student-athlete was likely to succeed on the merits of his antitrust challenge to the NCAA including his time at a Junior College (JUCO), where he began his collegiate career, in calculating his eligibility under the Five-Year Rule. The court agreed with the student-athlete's argument that, with name, image, and likeness restrictions lifted after NCAA v. Alston, any NCAA rule regulating who can play is commercial in nature and subject to the Sherman Act's prohibition on agreements that unreasonably restrain trade.
Pending appeal of that decision, the NCAA granted a waiver for the 2025-26 school year for similarly situated student-athletes who transferred from JUCOs and exhausted their eligibility under the Five-Year Rule in the 2024-25 school year.
Other athletes have tested the boundaries of the Pavia decision and the NCAA's waiver. In April, in Elad v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey applied similar reason as the Pavia court in granting a football player a preliminary injunction where the student-athlete's JUCO seasons were in the middle of his collegiate career and the NCAA denied his waiver request.
In July, in Braham v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada granted a football player a preliminary injunction, applying similar antitrust reasoning to challenges of the Five-Year Rule and other eligibility rules after the student-athlete was unable to obtain a waiver without the support of his institution.
In August, in Martinson v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court of Nevada granted a preliminary injunction to a football player in his challenge of the Five-Year Rule's application to his time at a JUCO. In Robinson, et al. v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia granted four football players a preliminary injunction in their challenges to the Five-Year Rule after withdrawing from the NFL draft because they believed the NCAA waiver applied to them but only to have their waiver request denied. Expressly choosing to follow the decisions in Pavia, Elad, and Braham, the district court acknowledged that it was choosing "not to follow the reasoning of the majority and other well-intentioned district courts that have more recently found that the NCAA's eligibility rules are not commercial in nature."
Student-Athlete Losses
As the Robinson court noted, not every student-athlete's challenge to the Five-Year Rule has been immediately successful. In the spring, several baseball players sought to extend the NCAA's waiver for the 2025-26 school year to their pending 2025 seasons but were denied. Other student-athletes challenged the Five-Year Rule's application to seasons at the Division II level or non-NCAA four-year institutions but were denied. These denials largely determined that the NCAA's eligibility rules were not compensation rules, not commercial in nature, and therefore not subject to antitrust analysis.
In August, in three related cases, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found that eligibility rules are not tied to compensation or commercial transactions and denied a preliminary injunction to three football players. The court also found the players' delay in seeking an injunction undercut claims of irreparable harm.
Potential Circuit Split
The NCAA has appealed all of the preliminary injunctions granted this past spring and summer. In February, in Fourqurean v. NCAA, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin granted a football player a preliminary injunction challenging the Five-Year Rule and his time at a Division II institution. However, in July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court's preliminary injunction in a 2-1 decision, finding the student-athlete did not adequately establish his antitrust challenge.
The Sixth Circuit is scheduled to hear argument in the Pavia case on Sept. 16. The Third Circuit is scheduled to hear argument in the Elad case on Sept. 17. The NCAA filed its initial brief on Sept. 8 in the Ninth Circuit for the Braham case with a motion to expedite the appeal. The initial brief for the Robinson appeal in the Fourth Circuit is due Oct. 7.
With appeals across four circuits, there is a real risk of a split should any affirm the district court's decisions for reasons conflicting with the Seventh Circuit's Fourqurean decision. Should a split develop, these issues will almost certainly be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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