NCAA Baseball Coaches Get Preliminary Approval in ‘Wage Fix’ Case

Hundreds of volunteer coaches are on the brink of getting paid. 

On Thursday, a California judge gave preliminary approval to a class action lawsuit that nearly 1,000 NCAA baseball coaches filed against the NCAA with antitrust allegations over a “uniform wage fix” bylaw. The settlement would require the NCAA to pay $49.5 million to the hundreds of plaintiffs. 

The average payout per plaintiff is $32,794.85, which William Shubb, the district judge presiding over the case, wrote was a “strong result” for the plaintiffs. Members of the class will have their exact pay determined from a model that accounts for their school and number of years worked. The settlement is for coaches who served on staff between 2018 and 2023. A final hearing in the case is set for Sept. 15. 

The plaintiffs were led by Taylor Smart and Michael Hacker, two former college volunteer coaches who filed the case in November 2022. Smart previously served as a volunteer baseball coach at Arkansas, while Hacker coached at UC Davis in the same role. The two claimed that the NCAA conspired with its member schools to unlawfully fix the number of assistant coaches college baseball teams could hire at the Division I level, which meant volunteer coaches wouldn’t get  paid. (The suit alleges the NCAA effectively functioned as a the sole employer of baseball coaches, which gave it significant bargaining power.) After the lawsuit was filed, the NCAA repealed its volunteer coaching rule, which became effective in July 2023. 

In 2023, the NCAA fought to dismiss the case or get it transferred to another state, but Shubb refused, saying the institution hadn’t convinced him that litigating in California was enough of a problem. The coaches asked the court to certify their class in November, and in March filed a motion for preliminary approval of their settlement with Smart and Hacker serving as class representatives. 

Shubb is presiding over a similar lawsuit from other volunteer coaches in the NCAA for sports that include soccer, swimming, and track and field, among other Olympic sports. That case was filed in March 2023.