Ohio judge grants injunction to thwart NCAA eligibility rules

CINCINNATI (CN) — The NCAA’s new eligibility rules — which allow student-athletes to compete in five seasons over a five-year period — are arbitrary and likely violate 2022 high school graduates’ contractual rights, according to a state court judge.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Wagner, who heard arguments in the case on July 1, granted 24 basketball players’ motion for a preliminary injunction Thursday.

The basketball players sued the NCAA in June and challenged new eligibility rules that effectively eliminated medical “redshirt” waivers.

These waivers were typically used to gain an additional year of eligibility when a player sustained a serious injury or otherwise sat out for a year, but the new regulations eliminate them and give high school graduates five calendar years to use five years of eligibility.

The case centers largely around college athletes’ newfound ability to earn lucrative name, image and likeness, or NIL, contracts from universities and corporate sponsors, a point not lost on Wagner.

“The court is under no illusion that academics play a role in the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief,” he said in his opinion. “Plaintiffs are seeking to take part in a $1.3 billion organization, from which they claimed they have been arbitrarily and capriciously excluded. The plaintiffs do not get five years of intercollegiate competition, but students immediately before them and all students after them will get those five years of intercollegiate competition, without having to redshirt.”

The NCAA lambasted Wagner’s reasoning in a statement released shortly after the ruling was handed down.

“The court’s decision today is wrong, and we will immediately seek all avenues for reversal, including a stay of the court’s order pending appeal,” the NCAA said. “The court disregarded over a century of precedent and substituted its own judgment, on a limited factual record, for the collective expertise of the nation’s leading higher education institutions.”

In the statement, the NCAA also urged Congress to intervene with legislation to “restore stability, uniformity and fair competition in college athletics.”

Wagner pointed out in his opinion that roster spots are currently available for the players who filed the lawsuit, meaning no harm will come to innocent third parties.

“Plaintiffs are not asking to take a player’s roster spot or to add an additional roster spot: Plaintiffs want the opportunity to compete for a currently available spot on the roster,” he said.

Wagner emphasized any harm to the NCAA is also “doubtful” because “the ‘product’ is still being produced.”

“The NCAA claims to value competition,” he continued. “However, it is unclear how these rules, arbitrarily enforced against these plaintiffs, promote competition. Defendant argues that allowing these plaintiffs an additional year of intercollegiate competition will harm other players, but defendant also modified the bylaws to now allow players who have played professionally to play at the college level, thereby making a mockery of the concept of student athletic competition.”

Ryan Downton of the Texas Trial Group, one of the attorneys representing the players, released a statement after Wagner’s ruling.

“The court appropriately found that the NCAA arbitrarily excluded the high school class of 2022 from a fifth season of competition,” he said. “We remain concerned that the NCAA is attempting to prevent student-athletes from exercising their constitutional right to hold the NCAA accountable in court — even going so far as to ask Congress to take those rights away.”

Included among the plaintiffs who are now eligible to play in the upcoming season are Javon Bennett, Chevalier Emery Jr., Filip Borovicanin, Malik Messina-Moore, Jalen Quinn, Savannah White, Donovan Brown, Christian Henry, Ziare Wells, MJ Collins Jr., Kolby King, Cristian Carroll, Shawn Phillips Jr., Caden Powell and Josh Reed.

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