Antitrust – District court incorrectly analyzed antitrust claim against NCAA

Where the district court applied a quick-look analysis to the antitrust claim brought by former junior college athletes against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, it erred.

Background

Jimmori Robinson, Jeffrey Weimer, Tye Edwards and Justin Harrington challenge a rule of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, that counts time spent and played at junior colleges, or JUCOS, toward student-athletes’ seasons and years of eligibility to play on NCAA teams, as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The JUCO Rule had rendered the players ineligible for the 2025-26 collegiate football season. The players sought and the district court issued a preliminary injunction allowing the players to participate in the 2025-26 collegiate football season.

Mootness

The 2025-26 college football season concluded in January 2026. But there is an exception to the mootness doctrine that applies where the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and where there is “a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again.” Both elements are satisfied here.

College football seasons are necessarily too short to allow for meaningful appellate review, and the same issues repeat year after year. And one of the players has already sought an eligibility waiver for the 2026-27 college football season. Should the NCAA deny his waiver, there is a demonstrated probability he will return to court seeking a preliminary injunction as to the 2026-27 season and will do so by raising the same claims in this case.

Sherman Act

The NCAA first argues that this case is not properly brought under the Sherman Act because the challenged eligibility rules under the NCAA bylaws are not commercial behavior, and thus they are not restraints of trade or commerce. Although the Supreme Court dealt with NCAA compensation rules in NCAA v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69 (2021), it has not analyzed NCAA eligibility rules that determine who can play for college teams. Today, this court joins the two courts of appeals to have considered this question post-Alston in concluding that the challenged eligibility rules are subject to the Sherman Act.

The challenged eligibility rules limit college athletes’ participation in a labor market. This restraint on labor through association rulemaking interferes with student athletes’ free exercise of their rights to engage in commerce (i.e., participate in Division I football).

Likelihood of success

There are three avenues of analysis under section 1 of the Sherman Act that apply depending on how obviously anticompetitive the challenged conduct is: (1) per se liability, (2) quick-look scrutiny and (3) rule of reason analysis. Rule of reason analysis requires “a three-step, burden-shifting framework,” whereas quick-look analysis directs courts to “undertake only a cursory examination before imposing antitrust liability.”

The NCAA rules challenged in this case clearly fall under the category of “restraints in the great in-between” that must be evaluated under rule of reason analysis. To the extent the district court applied quick-look analysis, rather than the standard rule of reason analysis laid out in Alston, that was error. The district court’s apparent failure to apply the proper method of analysis alone weighs in favor of reversal because the lower court improperly reduced the players’ burden of proof.

Moreover plaintiffs must generally have sufficient evidence to show actual anticompetitive effects within the product and geographic markets. The district court did not hold the players to their evidentiary burden on this step of the rule of reason analysis—it failed to point to any record evidence showing that the JUCO Rule or the Five-Year Rule reduced output, increased prices, decreased wages or decreased quality in the relevant market.

Nor did the players prove the NCAA’s market power in a relevant market and put forward a coherent “economic theory” as to how the NCAA’s conduct “harms competition” by, for instance, increasing barriers to entry or reducing consumer choice through the exclusion of would-be competitors. Moreover, the district court failed to properly define the relevant market. The district court also erred when it did not engage in a fact-specific analysis of the relevant market despite the parties’ differing opinions on the topic and instead merely adopted the players’ proffered definition.

Vacated and remanded.

Robinson v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, Case No. 25-2003, April 3, 2026. 4th Cir. (Floyd), from NDWVA at Clarksburg (Bailey). Rakesh Nageswar Kilaru for Appellant. John Fulton Gianola for Appellees. VLW 026-2-116. 34 pp.

Full-Text Opinion

VLW 026-2-116
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