A federal judge on Friday ruled that the NCAA must temporarily suspend its name, image and likeness rules that prevent athletes from negotiating compensation with third parties, including boosters, granting a preliminary injunction that leaves the NCAA’s NIL rules in flux until the end of the lawsuit brought against the organization by the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia last month. The ruling delivers a significant blow to the NCAA’s attempts to stop universities and their supporters from paying athletes to play at their schools.
Judge Clifton L. Corker issued the ruling on Friday, writing that “while the NCAA permits student-athletes to profit from their NIL, it fails to show how the timing of when a student-athlete enters such an agreement would destroy the goal of preserving amateurism.”
The judge agreed that maintaining competitive balance is a legitimate endeavor, but spreading competition evenly to NCAA-member schools “by restraining trade” is “precisely the type of anticompetitive conduct the Sherman Act seeks to prevent.”
Earlier this month, Corker ruled that the states did not demonstrate the “requisite irreparable harm” that would require a temporary restraining order to be issued. In that decision, the judge did note that the plaintiffs were still likely to win the case.
On Jan. 31, the states of Tennessee and Virginia filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in a federal district court, challenging the organization’s ban on using NIL inducements in recruiting. The suit came the day after news broke that the NCAA was investigating the recruiting activities of University of Tennessee and Spyre Sports — a collective unofficially associated with Volunteers athletics — specifically around quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
The NCAA responded to the lawsuit by arguing that the states had no case for temporarily invalidating the NCAA’s rules, in part because Tennessee’s own state law bars NIL inducements in recruiting. The NCAA has also argued that the purpose of injunctive relief from a court is to preserve the status quo, and the NCAA’s rules are already the status quo.
The attorneys general argue that Tennessee’s state law, cited by the NCAA, does bar pay-for-play but allows recruits to have conversations with collectives about NIL opportunities, which is banned by the NCAA.
This story will be updated.
(Photo: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)
