The marathon legal battle regarding player compensation and the makeup of college athletics in a landmark, multibillion-dollar antitrust case may have finally hit the homestretch Wednesday night.

Attorneys involved in a $2.8 billion settlement filed a brief tweaking the aspect of roster limits in the House v. NCAA settlement, which they hope will convince a federal judge to grant final approval. The judge twice voiced concerns over proposed roster limits, a small but significant aspect of the deal that will enable schools to pay athletes a portion of their media revenues, capped at $20.5 million, starting July 1.

Schools will be allowed — but not required — to reinstate players who were cut from rosters during the 2024-25 academic year without those players counting against new roster limits set to be implemented July 1. Purged players exempt from roster limits can also transfer to new schools.

The key language in the brief, however, is that roster-limit exceptions are to be made at a school’s discretion. It remains to be seen if the brief will satisfy Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California, who specifically asked attorneys to “grandfather” all players into the deal, after twice delaying a decision on whether to approve the settlement in April.

“In other words, there are no guarantees that designated student-athletes will get or maintain roster spots,” the NCAA and power conference’s counsel wrote in a supplemental brief Wednesday. “But that does not adversely affect any injunctive relief class member.”

High school seniors who were promised scholarships that were later rescinded because of the proposed roster limits will also be exempt.

Now, college athletics waits – again – for a decision from federal court. Wilken gave preliminary approval in October, speaking in favor of most aspects of the deal. However, she has twice delayed final approval because of language tied to roster limits, which could lead to an estimated 5,000 players being cut from sports across the NCAA. 

Several objectors testified April 7 against replacing scholarship limits with roster limits at a settlement hearing in the District Court of Northern California. In a brief filed April 23, Wilken ordered attorneys to develop a plan to “grandfather” current players into the agreement, allowing schools to temporarily exceed new limits as part of a phase-in solution for rosters. A two-week negotiation ensued.

If Wilken is not satisfied with the parties’ resolution and declines final approval, the case may advance to trial, a daunting prospect for the NCAA, which has been bludgeoned legally over student-athlete compensation and lambasted by the Supreme Court over the last five years. If the NCAA and power conferences lose in trial, the parties could be liable for $20 billion in damages.

If the settlement is not approved, schools may soon turn to their state governments to help legalize direct pay to players, who have planned to be paid a share of the $20.5 million pool next fall.

Wilken’s request on April 23 to renegotiate aspects of roster limits sent shockwaves across the country, complicating matters for many schools that had already begun cutting players from rosters. Under the preliminary settlement released in October, football rosters were set to shrink to 105 players, meaning as many as 30-plus players would be cut at each school. Even before the judge’s final approval, schools began to cut players in the spring in preparation for the settlement’s implementation on July 1.

Putting the toothpaste back in the tube could prove difficult for athletic departments. Some purged players landed at new schools, but many remain without a home, hoping to land again at their former schools. Most schools might be unwilling to re-sign players and spend extra scholarship money – as well as room and board, meals and health care – that balloon already-tight budgets.

In a brief filed April 23, Wilken was unmoved by the schools’ plight, writing that “any disruption that may occur is a problem of Defendants’ and NCAA members schools’ own making.”

The settlement’s touchstones remain uncchanged. Starting July 1, NCAA schools can share as much as $20.5 million in revenue with their athletes, and former athletes who played between 2016 and 2024 will be paid $2.8 billion in back payments if the settlement is approved.

Each school’s revenue-sharing cap will increase 4% each year during the 10-year agreement. 

What is House v. NCAA?

The class-action antitrust lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Arizona State swimmer Grant House and women’s college basketball player Sedona Prince seeking an injunction against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences. It sought to lift restrictions on revenue sharing of media rights revenues. 

Powerful antitrust attorneys Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler represented the plaintiffs.

If approved by the judge, the settlement would resolve three antitrust lawsuits: Carter v. NCAA, House v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA.

What’s next?

A decision: Judge Claudia WIlken will study the brief and decide whether to grant final approval to the House v. NCAA settlement, which was first introduced in October and has included months of negotiations.

Revenue-sharing formula: Many schools are preparing to mirror the back-payment formula in their revenue-sharing model for the future. That means roughly 75% of future revenue will be shared with football players, 15% to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball and 5% to all remaining sports. Those numbers will differ from school to school, but most power programs have shared similar models with administrators.

CBS Sports has learned one school is preparing to share more than 85% of the $20.5 million pool with football players – a reflection of the percentage of annual revenue the sport generates for its athletics department. 

More lawsuits: Concerns over Title IX and antitrust issues will continue after the settlement is approved. However, instead of the NCAA being the target, individual schools may soon become the focus of litigation. Each school will split the revenue pie based on its own formulas, meaning a women’s basketball player may sue a school if they believe they are not receiving their fair share of cash. The same can be said for a football player if their revenue share is lower than that of a rival player at another school. 

The White House is set to weigh in: The NCAA has long lobbied Congress to pass legislation protecting the organization and its members from antitrust litigation. Now the White House has zeroed in on college athletics.

President Donald Trump is creating a presidential commission on college athletics to find solutions for “issues ailing the ecosystem,” according to Yahoo! Sports. Trump was considering an executive order to regulate NIL after meeting with former Alabama coach Nick Saban, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn coach, also met with Trump last week to discuss college athletics. Steve Berman, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the House case, criticized the president’s potential actions, saying that an executive order would lead to more lawsuits.

Sen. Ted Cruz is reportedly drafting a bill that could offer the NCAA limited antitrust protection. It’s not clear how Trump’s plans may affect Cruz’s draft.

New enforcement model: The power conferences are expected to launch soon the College Sports Commission, an enforcement arm to police the settlement among its schools. The new organization effectively replaces the NCAA regarding NIL enforcement, and will monitor NIL deals between players and third parties, and oversee revenue-sharing practices at schools. This new organization will also penalize schools and individuals who break rules. 

Who is footing the bill? The NCAA is responsible for 40% of the $2.8 billion settlement, and the remaining 60% will come from reducing its revenue distributions to the 32 Division I conferences over the next 10 years ($1.6 billion). The NCAA is utilizing a formula based on revenue distribution presented to each league over a nine-year period starting in 2016, which leans heavily on basketball units tied to NCAA Tournament participation, according to Yahoo Sports. The Power Five conferences – ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC – will pay 24% of the overall damages, followed by the Group of Five at 10%.The FCS is on the hook for 14% and non-football conferences in Division I will pay 12% of the overall agreement, according to documents reviewed by CBS Sports.

House v. NCAA settlement terms

• $20.5 million salary cap for revenue-sharing at each Division I school (starting July 1)
• $2.77 billion in back payments to as many as 390,000 athletes who played an NCAA sport between 2016 and 2024.
• Outside NIL deals of more than $600 must be vetted by a third-party clearinghouse
• NIL deals must meet “fair market value.” How that fair-market value is determined is the subject of intense debate.
• Unlimited scholarships with new roster size limits
• At least 88,104 of approximately 390,000 athletes have filed back-pay claims, plaintiff attorney Steve Berman said in April. That number was expected to reach 118,879 at the end of April.
• 343 athletes opted out of the settlement

Open any social media app, search up “portal” or “NIL” (name, image and likeness) and there will be a host of opinions lampooning today’s college sports landscape, with comparisons often being made to the Wild West. 

The last half-decade in the industry has been defined by uncertainty, turbulence and endless legal battles. The introduction of NIL policies in 2021 have turned educational institutions into dueling bidders, waving money at student-athletes to either get them to transfer to their school or, if they’re already at the university, to prevent them from going on the open market. There’s been little to no regulation on who can spend – or how much. 

Calls for change were louder than ever, to the point where house representatives and senators offered up their two cents on the issues. Ultimately, it appears the Supreme Court will have the final say through House vs. NCAA, a case heading towards a settlement that looks to provide the stability many across the country are looking for. 

Scheduled to take effect in the next month, the settlement will permit colleges to spend up to around $20 million on their own student-athletes yearly. That money can be paid out through direct payments to athletes, NIL benefits or through increased scholarships, although any spending on scholarship benefits past $2.5 million won’t be counted.

Don’t let the number fool you: most Division I schools have nowhere near $20 million to spend. Universities in the “Power 4” conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern) can hit that mark, but very few, if not all schools outside of them can’t. 

These non-power schools have dealt with adversity throughout their entire existence. The only response they know of is to fight back, and in the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s case, to not only survive but thrive in this new climate. 

“We’re going to be in a really positive position as it relates to our [Mid-American Conference] peers from an additional benefit, scholarship and NIL standpoint in our investment there,” athletic director Ryan Bamford said. 

“In a sport like basketball, we want to compete with the Big East schools, and we don’t just want to compete with the MAC schools. We want to compete for student athletes: for acquiring them, recruiting them and then retaining them with those in the Big East and some of the [Power 4 schools].” 

Overall spending

According to Bamford, the University plans to spend $5-to-6 million of the approximate $20 million cap on its athletes in 2025-26. He plans on that number rising to $8-to-10 million the following academic year. 

While few non-power schools have gone public with their numbers, it’s safe to assume that even $5 million puts UMass in a good spot. At the very least, it’s likely one of, if not the top number in the MAC, the school’s new home as of July 1. 

“[Our finances give us] a pretty good head start and advantage,” Bamford said. “I think we [have] to spend those resources strategically and smartly.” 

However, money will not instantly give UMass a winning team. On the extreme end, Kansas State set aside one of the biggest war chests in men’s college basketball this past season just to finish with a losing record. Schools with the deepest pockets, though, typically have the best odds of succeeding. 

“My assumption is that they’re going to want to be in the top 10 percent in [the MAC in] basketball spending because they want to come here and run this league, which is doable,” sports enterprise reporter and founder of Extra Points Matt Brown said. “[The MAC] is the poorest [FBS] league in the country … these are mostly not healthy institutions.” 

Where the money comes from

Getting to that $5 million mark, or any number that schools aim for, has been difficult for many departments. Costs have to be cut somewhere, leading to programs being shuttered, staff pools being downsized and more. 

A popular option nationwide to cut costs has been to limit non-conference travel for Olympic sports, an idea that Bamford has considered but hasn’t committed to yet. More likely, he said that some athletic support systems will face minor budget cuts. 

“Some of the nutrition and dining programs, the academic support services, we’re in a really healthy spot in a number of areas that if we were to adjust, pare it back by five percent, it’s probably not going to change the operational posture,” Bamford said. 

“We’ve already talked to our coaches about [it], that if you could do away with five percent of something, what would it be? … It’s just going to get reinvested into something that probably, by measure, would impact winning a little bit more.”

On the flip side, schools are also looking for new revenue streams to boost their monetary bases. For UMass, the primary source of this extra income will be the new Script U Scholarship Society, an initiative founded by the Minutemen Club. This will allow fans to pay a certain amount yearly for student-athletes’ scholarships and/or additional benefits, such as covering team travel costs. 

“In the past, you had to give to the Gridiron Club to get football benefits, you had to give to the Court Club to get basketball benefits … We’re trying to build a holistic UMass fan,” senior executive director of development Drew St. Aubin said. 

If a fan puts a certain amount of money into Script U, they’ll get benefits in return. This will range from preferred parking to team travel opportunities at the $10,000/year “Flagship” level. It will cost a little more out of donors to get a little less, and Bamford acknowledged that, but he said the majority of the fanbase understands what’s needed to keep UMass competitive. 

In a way, Script U serves as another de facto NIL collective for the athletic department, joining the external multi-sport Massachusetts Collective. 

There was a tumultuous relationship between the school and the external football-centric Midnight Ride Collective. The handling of the two parties’ dissolution was considered to be controversial, but there are benefits to an internal setup. Primarily, older donors may feel more comfortable donating their money directly to a university. 

The other focus of the department financially is to gain incremental revenues from existing sources. Whether that’s through ticket sales, multimedia rights, their Adidas contract or a different area, anything that brings in money will be analyzed to see if UMass can further capitalize on it. 

Team-by-team payouts

With this revenue-sharing money, according to Brown, the standard benchmark for colleges is to give 75 percent of funds to football players, 15 percent to men’s basketball, five percent to women’s basketball and the remaining five percent to be split up between other sports. 

But UMass is not your typical school. 

“If you’re spending 75 percent of $5 million or 75 percent of $8 million on football, the players that UMass is going to be recruiting and probably retaining are about the same,” Brown said. “You’re still going to lose anybody that Penn State wants or Boston College wants for that matter.”

“But UMass can win a national championship in men’s hockey … So the question then becomes ‘Do I spend less on football so I can make more meaningful investments in hockey?’ … or do I put it in for football because if football gets cooking, we’re going to have a lot more money for anything else anyway.” 

Bamford thinks his school can operate in both areas at once. 

To be clear, Bamford’s stated plan is more like Brown’s first scenario. He said that if UMass does reach its $10 million goal down the line, closer to $5 million, or 50 percent, would likely go to the football team.

Though that split means the team will inherit much less than an FBS team’s average cut – 75 percent of revenue-sharing money – it doesn’t automatically mean it will extend its 14-year streak of losing seasons. 

According to Bamford, head coach Joe Harasymiak has over $2 million in NIL money exclusively for next year’s roster, which Bamford claims is around double the next-closest MAC team (likely Toledo or Ohio). If that’s true, then coupled with additional benefits like education-related Alston payments, UMass will operate in the best of both worlds: saving money on football to give to other sports while having enough invested in the program to be one of the MAC’s elite. 

The men’s basketball team will be a major benefactor of the department’s decreased emphasis on football, with head coach Frank Martin taking over 15 percent of the pot. Although schools like Akron and Ohio have built up respectable mid-major budgets, there’s confidence within that UMass will be a big fish in a small pond in the MAC, carving out a path to NCAA Tournament appearances. 

“We’re going to be in a position in two or three years where we may be spending more than potentially some of the high-end [Atlantic 10] schools and maybe even lower-end ‘Power 4’ schools in basketball,” Bamford said. 

There’s endless discussion surrounding college football and basketball teams’ NIL budgets, as stories like Matt Norlander’s in April that bring up specific numbers give fellow reporters and fans talking points for months. The regional nature of college hockey, however, means not much is known about what top programs need to spend to build a championship-contending roster.

For the Hockey East – widely considered an elite conference on the ice – the outlook on revenue-sharing is mixed. Schools with FBS football or power conference basketball (UMass, Boston College, UConn and Providence) are likely set up a little better to compete in hockey, given their expanded pools. That same reasoning has led some to believe that the Big Ten could dominate in hockey in short order, with most, if not all of its schools having the full $20-plus million in revenue sharing to work with.

Schools outside of that realm, like Merrimack and UMass Lowell, have to be much more strategic in how much they want to spend on the ice. With a smaller pool that could be at two million dollars or less for the entire department, hockey could take a football-sized share at these universities. 

Then there’s last season’s Western Michigan squad, which won the NCAA championship without a cent of NIL money being spent. It’s risky, but not fruitless, to build a legitimate roster solely through culture and strong recruiters like UMass has in head coach Greg Carvel and his assistants.

The verdict from Bamford is that below five percent of funds will go to the school’s hockey team in 2025-26. In the following year, that cut will jump to between five and eight percent. Using the low end of financial projections, that gives Carvel $400-640,000 to work with in 2026-27. Those numbers, Bamford estimates, would make UMass a top five spender on hockey in the nation.

Since power-conference schools are worried about supporting and advancing their football teams, the opportunity is there for UMass to spend more on the ice compared to other schools than in years past.

Women’s sports in Amherst will be supported as well. The women’s basketball team will lead, receiving around five percent of funds, but UMass can gain more of a competitive advantage through its planned support of other women’s programs.

The school’s plan leaves a healthy portion of money (15-20 percent of the total pool) to be handed out even after football, basketball and hockey are taken care of, and Bamford has decided to use that capital to continue to chase success in other women’s sports.

A group of six women’s programs (softball, field hockey, women’s soccer, women’s lacrosse, rowing and tennis) will receive money in an era where peer institutions may shut those teams out from revenue-sharing plans entirely. MAC schools likely won’t touch UMass here: if some do shell out for women’s Olympic sports, their reduced finances and more aggressive spending on football will leave their programs lagging behind the Minutewomen.

Long-term challenges and opportunities

An important message: Increased funding does not mean UMass athletics will immediately succeed. Especially for a non-power school in today’s environment, such results are near-impossible. 

A good chunk of the initial money put up for revenue-sharing will come from Script U, taking the biggest share of that pot outside of payments coming from the MAC. With the benefits donors receive, the vision is for them to spend enough to help teams create or build off of winning cultures. Over time, the department hopes this will lead to renewals at similar or higher price points.

But what if in the near future, the wins don’t arrive? What if football spends $3 million on another losing season? What if basketball has a first-place budget for a fifth-place MAC finish? It’s tough to imagine the Script U benefits will be enough to keep people invested at the same level. 

“We’ve got to be very strategic [with our donors] in how we time it out and what we ask for, knowing that for the most part, it’s ‘How many times can we go to the well?’” St. Aubin said. “ … As tough as it can be, it can switch overnight if we’re throwing some teams out there that are winning and they’re exciting.” 

There may be issues getting long-time donors to spend money in the first place. Some people might have been fine with donating $5,000 in 2010 to build better facilities at their alma mater, but they’ll hold on to that money in an era where unpaid labor has been replaced with sizable payouts. 

“How do you convince somebody to donate money to pay for a salary that makes more money than you?” Brown said. “Especially if you’re not very good … Once the school can [pay], I think that becomes a harder sell.”

Retention will also be an issue unchanged from the NIL age. If a donor believes their investment will keep players around and they’re consistently proven wrong, that will be disheartening. The more money poured in, the greater the odds are that top players stick around, but continually failing retention could be another cause of donors backing away. 

The talent gap between mid-major and powerhouse schools also poses a concern. While the rich get richer, schools like UMass can face issues trying to keep up and build a program that can compete.

Does winning the MAC basketball title in a conference that’s twice as weak as it used to be feel the same? Did millions need to be spent? If the answer is no and the budget can be reduced, is it okay to acknowledge that UMass will never again be on the level of a power conference team? 

Revenue-sharing solves problems, but it also raises many questions.

For mid-major schools and their athletic directors like Bamford, it may be easier just to live in the moment. Win now, or win soon, and the money likely keeps coming in. 

They’ll always be at a money disadvantage, yes, but for now, Brown says there’s one saving grace: “Nobody actually knows how the f*** to spend this money [on players].” 

The rulebooks and collective bargaining agreements present in professional leagues don’t exist in college, Brown said, so nobody can find loopholes in CBAs that get them talented players for cheap. 

“It’s entirely possible that a school with less money finds some market inefficiencies and distributes and spends their money better than someone with a lot more money, just like we saw in baseball,” Brown said. 

Find the right players, create a culture, raise the money and it’s only a possibility that consistent success will come. That’s asking a lot to go right for non-power athletic departments, more than has been asked of them in the past. 

To be fair, non-power schools have never had it easy either. In a subdivision of college athletics that supports over 350 departments but is consistently led by the same 50 or so spending-wise, the remaining 300 need to get creative if they want even a chance at knocking off high rollers, such as finding those market inefficiencies. It’s been that way no matter what NCAA rules have been in place, and it certainly won’t change now.

There’s a bit of a paradox with these new regulations, though, signifying that another creative response may be for non-power schools to lean harder and harder into the status quo.

As power schools spend more and more money, a school content with spending $4 million on sports every year will likely need a miracle to get itself into the limelight. To ensure the highest odds of success, smaller schools need to embrace the new climate and chase after unique revenue streams and innovative funding ideas.

UMass has enough money to where major innovation isn’t required immediately, but it may be needed at some point to ensure the department’s long-term success. That will mean even more of a buy-in into this new landscape, one that industry experts and other voices in college athletics say will impair non-power schools.

To Bamford, that mindset couldn’t be further from his own.

“I think we got a chance to be the best UMass we can be.”

Dean Wendel can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @DeanWende1. 

The NCAA on Monday motioned a federal judge to deny Zakai Zeigler’s motion for an injunction in his antitrust lawsuit to keep playing playing Division I basketball as a college graduate who already played four D-1 seasons. The NCAA’s motion sends a warning that Zeigler’s lawsuit could open the door to numerous players staying on teams for years after they graduate—and taking spots away from incoming freshmen.

Zeigler, 22, graduated from the University of Tennessee last month. The 5-foot-9 native of Long Island, N.Y. is a two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year and set several team records. He played all four seasons at Tennessee, where he also received recognition for academic achievement.

Zeigler would like to play a fifth season as a graduate student, but the NCAA only allows four seasons of intercollegiate competition within a five-year window. Zeigler contends the four-seasons rule violates antitrust law by depriving him and similarly situated players of athletic skill development and NIL opportunities—Zeigler contends he’d earn as much as $4 million in NIL in 2025-26 since he’s a well-known and successful college player from a prominent program. He argues there’s a less restrictive approach where the NCAA could allow for an additional season if a player completed their undergraduate degree in four years, meaning they did not red shirt and their academic advancement followed the typical path for college students.

The NCAA repudiates Zeigler’s arguments in a brief authored by Taylor J. Askew and Rakesh Kilaru and colleagues from Holland & Knight and Wilkinson Stekloff. Among the points raised in the NCAA’s brief is that Zeigler is not an NBA prospect and thus an additional season is unlikely to make him a candidate for the NBA. “All publicly available evidence indicates that Plaintiff, respectfully, has a difficult path to the NBA, at this juncture,” the brief states.

The brief acknowledges that Zeigler is a terrific college player—he’s the all-time leading scorer and assist leader in Tennessee history—but pivots from that point to assert, “presumably, if [Zeigler] had a viable path to the NBA, given his resume, he would already be a viable prospect. After all, NBA scouts would have seen him play in 138 collegiate contests.” The brief also bluntly mentions, “there is no proof in the record that Plaintiff was even invited to either the NBA Combine or G-League Combine this year.”

Similarly, the NCAA highlights how “there is no evidence that one more season of participation in college basketball is necessary” for Zeigler to play pro hoops. To that point, Zeigler could have tried to join the NBA, G League or a foreign league years ago. He met their minimum age and experience requirements but chose to remain in college and advance toward a degree.

Zeigler is also depicted as selfish. As the NCAA spins it, Zeigler is asking a court to make him the first college athlete “in history” to obtain a judicial decree to play a fifth season “as a matter of right.” If Zeigler is granted that chance, there would be a loser: a roster spot for a graduating high school senior would otherwise join the Volunteers would be “reapportioned” to Zeigler.

In fact, the NCAA estimates that if college seniors who played four seasons could play another season and chose to do so, somewhere between 20% and 25% of roster spots that would have gone to incoming freshmen would be lost. “While Plaintiff focuses only on what that means for himself,” the NCAA writes, “he does so to the detriment of the entering student-athletes who dream of being the next Zakai Zeigler.”

In that same spirit, the NCAA defends the four seasons rule as reflecting “the lifecycle of a collegiate athlete.” Stated differently, NCAA sports are intended to be a career. A college student plays a sport and their college athletic career time ordinarily ends when they graduate. This “lifecycle,” the NCAA argues, ensures a “steady stream of opportunities” for graduating high school players to gain a college education and play sports. 

“College athletics,” the NCAA asserts, “is a means to a better end for student-athletes—not the end itself.”

The NCAA also maintains that Zeigler, like other athletes who have sued the NCAA in recent months to extend their eligibility, has “misapprehended” the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in NCAA v. Alston (2021) for legal principles that the Court rejected. 

Although Alston is sometimes linked to NIL, the case had nothing to do with NIL. The NCAA stresses that Alston only addressed compensation rules for athletes’ education-related expenses, which are subject to antitrust scrutiny since they involve commercial activity. However, Alston does “not touch” eligibility rules, which the NCAA asserts fall outside the scope of antitrust scrutiny. As the NCAA tells it, eligibility rules are not about commercial transactions and instead concern who counts as a college athlete—a “necessary” ingredient “to create the product of collegiate sports.” Even Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s oft-cited concurring opinion, in which lambasted the NCAA and amateurism, explicitly stated that Alston “involves only a narrow subset of the NCAA’s compensation rules.”

The NCAA further asserts that relevant precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which governs the Tennessee federal court where Zeigler sued, also instructs that eligibility rules fall outside the scope of antitrust scrutiny. As the NCAA recently cited in an appellate brief in Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s case against the NCAA regarding eligibility rules, the Sixth Circuit held in Claude Bassett v. NCAA (2008) that enforcement of NCAA rules “is not within the purview of antitrust law” since those rules are not related to commercial or business activities.

Another alleged defect in Zeigler’s lawsuit is that it has “no limiting principle,” meaning if a player has a legal right to play a fifth season so they can earn more NIL and further refine athletic skills, the same player could raise the same argument for a sixth season and so on. Universities have no shortage of graduate programs in which an athlete could remain enrolled for, at least in theory, many years.

The NCAA also contends that a core premise of Zeigler’s lawsuit, which argues that removing experienced college players harms the labor market, is erroneous. While Zeigler suggests NIL deals are most lucrative for seniors, the NCAA says “non-seniors, on average, have higher NIL valuations than seniors.” The NCAA’s expert witness, Cal Berkeley economics professor Matthew Backus, provided a declaration referencing that individual NIL valuations for college basketball players shows that non-seniors’ have a higher average NIL valuation than seniors, $1.2 million compared to $1.07 million.

The issuance of a preliminary injunction for Zeigler, the NCAA argues, is also misplaced because any harm he suffers from not playing can be quantified. A core element to a preliminary injunction is that denial of one by a judge would likely cause the plaintiff irreparable harm, meaning a harm that money damages can’t remedy. 

The NCAA maintains there are several problems with Zeigler claiming irreparable harm. One is that he “has known since his first day on campus that he had five years to complete four seasons” and yet waited until after he graduated college to sue. The NCAA believes that Zeigler manufactured an emergency when in reality, he could have sued years ago, giving the court time to review the case’s merits.

Also, the NCAA asserts, any injury Zeigler suffers by a denial to keep playing would be calculable. 

The NCAA notes that Zeigler didn’t enter the transfer portal, “unlike 100+ other collegiate basketball players who have exhausted their eligibility but are either contemplating suing for more or hoping for an NCAA rule change.” If Zeigler plays another season, “he will assuredly play for the University of Tennessee,” the NCAA points out. Zeigler submitted a supporting exhibit of data from Spyre Sports Group, which has an NIL collective for Tennessee athletics and estimates Zeigler’s NIL value in another season would be worth $2 million to $4 million. That is important, the NCAA maintains, because it shows Zeigler’s potential legal injury could be resolved by monetary damages if he eventually wins a trial.

U.S. District Judge Katherine A. Crytzer will hold a hearing on Zeigler’s motion for a preliminary injunction on Friday at 1:45 pm local time in a Knoxville (Tenn.) federal courthouse.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – For the third consecutive year, five members of the Western Michigan baseball team have been named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team®. Redshirt senior outfielder Dylan Nevar earned a selection for the third straight year, grad student left-hander Reese Gaber was a second-time honoree and the trio of sophomore center fielder Tanner Mally, senior infielder Michael Maloney and junior right-hander Ty McKinstry picked up their first selections.  
 
An Academic All-America Second Team selection last year, Nevar had another strong season for the Broncos, batting .301 and leading the team in doubles (13), home runs (9), RBIs (49) and slugging percentage (.539). The Wisconsin Dells, Wis., native graduated this spring with a 3.91 GPA in Electrical Engineering, and wrapped up his Western Michigan career with the program’s all-time records for both RBIs and total bases, and tied for the program’s all-time home run record. He also leaves Kalamazoo ranking inside the top-10 all-time in hits, runs scored and doubles.
 

Selected to the Academic All-District Team® last year at the University of Sioux Falls, Gaber earned the honor again this spring after serving as one of Western Michigan’s weekend starters for much of the season. The lefty made 14 appearances, 11 starts, for the Broncos and tied for the team lead in wins, ranked second in strikeouts and was third in innings pitched. He also worked 6.0 innings of WMU’s combined no-hitter against The Citadel on April 6. Gaber owns a 3.88 GPA in his graduate studies towards a master’s certificate in Organizational Change & Leadership.
 

Mally is coming off of a sophomore campaign which saw his work in the outfield earn him a spot on the All-MAC Defensive Team. An Advertising & Promotion major with a 3.84 GPA, Mally posted a .973 fielding percentage with five outfield assists this spring, and did not make an error in MAC play. The Lisle, Ill., native was terrific at the plate as well, ranking fifth in the league with a .356 batting average and pacing the Brown and Gold in hits, runs scored and on-base percentage.
 
A Sport Management major with a 3.55 GPA, Maloney batted .304 with a .406 on-base percentage and finished second on Western Michigan with 37 RBIs. In the latter stages of the season, the Mokena, Ill., native put together a 16-game hitting streak, the longest streak by a Bronco in 2025. Maloney hit .418 with 20 RBIs over the course of his 16-game run, raising his batting average by more than 80 points.
 
Western Michigan’s Friday starter this spring, McKinstry paced the Brown and Gold’s staff with 71.2 innings pitched and 51 strikeouts while tying for the team lead in wins over his 14 starts. The righty ranked sixth in the conference in both ERA (5.02) and opposing batting average (.245), and improved those numbers to 3.58 and .221, respectively, in conference play. A native of Frankenmuth, Mich., McKinstry is an Exercise Science major with a 3.94 GPA.
 
The 2025 Academic All-District® Baseball teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances on the diamond and in the classroom. The CSC Academic All-America® program separately recognizes baseball honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
 
Nevar has been selected as a CSC Academic All-America® finalist and will advance to the national ballot to be voted on by CSC members.