NCAA Athletes From Class of 2022 Can Get 5th Year of Eligibility: Federal Ruling

Thousands of athletes who thought their NCAA playing careers were finished may have just gotten another year of eligibility.

On Friday, Colorado district court judge Charlotte Sweeney granted a preliminary injunction in a proposed class action called Wisne v. NCAA. The injunction requires the NCAA to grant a fifth year of eligibility to athletes who graduated high school in 2022, but who had already completed four years of eligibility by the end of this season.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after the NCAA announced a new “age-based” eligibility policy in June. The new rules, effective immediately, allowed players five years to complete five seasons (starting on their 19th birthday or when they enrolled in college, whichever occurred first), but stated athletes from the class of 2022 who completed four years would not be eligible for a fifth year.

The decision set off a cascade of lawsuits, first in state courts and applying specifically to the athletes who filed the cases. Wisne, however, took a different route, arguing in federal court that the NCAA’s decision violated federal antitrust laws. All the lawsuits argued players would lose valuable NIL (name, image, and likeness) opportunities among other educational benefits if they were denied a fifth year.

By the time the Wisne ruling came down, some of the state lawsuits had already obtained  preliminary injunctions of their own. But the Wisne preliminary injunction, granted via a 50-page ruling, could ultimately result in tens of thousands of college athletes gaining another year of eligibility.

However, questions—and legal processes—remain. 

First, it’s unclear if this ruling is permanent. The NCAA is likely to appeal, as it has in other cases (the governing body previously said it intends to fight this wave of eligibility lawsuits one by one). The ruling also did not explicitly enjoin the NCAA’s “rule of restitution,” suggesting the NCAA could theoretically punish players and schools who participate in these new rules once they are ultimately overturned in court.

The ruling also raises questions about how teams might approach this new pool of eligible athletes. Players themselves who spent the entire summer assuming their NCAA days were over may have to find out if they can backtrack, including players who have initiated the process of entering the pros or have already played in pro leagues.

The transfer portal is another issue—it’s unclear if these players would have to violate another NCAA rule (transferring outside the stated window) to get to a roster that would take them between now and September. A previous ruling in a state lawsuit in Ohio addressed this transfer conundrum, but the Colorado ruling did not.

In a statement Friday night, NCAA president Charlie Baker again implored stakeholders to advance the Protect College Sports Act, which the NCAA has endorsed as a way to implement legal protections on NCAA rules like eligibility restrictions. (As the Wisne ruling circulated throughout college sports Friday night, negotiations were ongoing to advance the bill.)

“Without targeted intervention from Congress, college sports cannot set nationwide rules everyone can play by and without Congress, failed professionals will continue to use college sports as a fallback option—robbing the next class of young athletes of college scholarships,” Baker said. “Today’s rulings and the chaos they bring to college sports are exactly why it’s time to pass this bill.”

Rob Shelquist, partner at Cuneo Gilbert Flannery & LaDuca, LLP representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement to Front Office Sports that the NCAA may have set this rule to create chaos in the first place. “It appears that the decision to exclude the college athletes knowing that they would likely win a TRO was for political expediency to publicize the need for legislative action,” he said. “We are concerned that having decisively achieved a hard-won victory, the PCSA will now ignore the Judge’s careful analysis and block the college athletes’ access to the courts in the future.”

In the long run, the ruling leaves arguably more questions than answers for many athletes. But for now, it’s a devastating blow to the NCAA’s eligibility policy, which was implemented in part to stop the flood of lawsuits, rather than create a new one.