Key Points

  • The Tenth Circuit reversed and vacated a preliminary injunction that had ordered the NCAA to let a class of four-season Division I athletes compete for a fifth season.
  • The court held that the district court clearly erred in defining the relevant labor market as all Division I athletics in the United States, because athletes in different sports do not view all Division I programs as reasonably good substitutes.
  • The panel held that the NCAA itself is not the employer; individual athletic programs in the athlete's sport are, and any submarket must be supported by its own economic data.
  • Because market definition was dispositive, the court did not decide anticompetitive effects, procompetitive justifications, whether antitrust law applies to eligibility rules, or whether a heightened injunction standard applied.

A federal appeals court on Friday threw out an order that would have let a class of college athletes who had already played four seasons compete for a fifth, holding that they had not shown that every sport in NCAA Division I forms a single labor market for antitrust purposes.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed and vacated a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in Colorado. Judge McHugh wrote the opinion for the panel, which also included Judges Kelly and Moritz; no judge wrote separately. The panel held that the trial court clearly erred in defining the market as "Division I athletics in the United States," and that without a plausible market the athletes could not show they were likely to win.

The ruling turns on market definition, the first step in a case judged under the rule of reason. The panel held that athletes in different sports do not compete for the same jobs, so an antitrust challenge to an NCAA eligibility rule must rest on proof about particular sports. The decision follows rulings from the Seventh, Third and Fourth Circuits that reversed or vacated similar injunctions, and a Ninth Circuit ruling that rejected a proposed market for Division I baseball.

Until recently, the NCAA limited Division I athletes to four seasons of competition within five years. In June 2026, it approved a rule allowing most athletes to compete for up to five seasons in five years, but declined to apply it to athletes who had already played four. The NCAA said those students had "received the full period of eligibility permitted" and that giving them "another season would destabilize rosters just ahead of the coming season by disrupting settled expectations of countless student-athletes."

The 12 named plaintiffs, led by Brock Wisne, entered college in 2022 and played their fourth season at Division I schools in 2025-26. All but one allege they earned money last season from deals for their name, image or likeness, known as NIL, and say they could earn more with another year. They sued under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the federal ban on agreements that restrain trade, arguing the NCAA's refusal amounted to "a group boycott." They said they were not challenging the new rule itself, only the decision not to apply it to them.

The district court certified a class of athletes who began their careers in 2022-23 and competed for four straight seasons, then ordered the NCAA to let them play a fifth. The NCAA appealed, and the Tenth Circuit stayed the injunction and expedited the appeal because the 2026-27 season was already underway in some sports.

The fight over the market played out between two economists. The athletes' expert, Dr. David Berri, said that "Division I college sports are a unique labor market" distinct from other college divisions and from professional leagues. He offered data on men's basketball and baseball players weighing professional careers, noted the WNBA's minimum age of 22 and said most other sports have little or no professional outlet. The NCAA's expert, Dr. Matthew Backus, called the all-sports market "patently implausible" because it "assumes all student-athletes are interchangeable within the relevant market."

In a reply, Dr. Berri conceded that "college athletes in different sports are different." But he argued that each sport, as a submarket, was "100% controlled by the NCAA as a monopsonist," meaning a single dominant buyer. The district court accepted that reasoning.

The Tenth Circuit did not. It held that the NCAA itself does not hire athletes, and that the employers are, ultimately, individual athletic programs. The panel noted that 101 of Division I's 366 universities field no football team, and that 303 have no women's gymnastics program. "A men's basketball player looking for a Division I roster spot, for example, does not explore what he might earn by selling his labor to a men's hockey team," Judge McHugh wrote.

Relying on the Supreme Court's 1962 decision in Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, the panel held that "a submarket must be supported by appropriate economic data" and must be analyzed as a market of its own. The athletes never alleged any submarkets, the court said, and Dr. Berri "failed to provide any data for most of the sports offered at Division I universities."

The panel acknowledged that the athletes had brought "hard numbers on various aspects of some Division I sports" and "have perhaps done more than the plaintiffs in those predecessor suits." But it held that their choice of the broadest possible market sank the claim. "As explained, the employers are not interchangeable because the athletes competing in different sports are not fungible," Judge McHugh wrote.

The court decided only the market question. It did not reach the NCAA's argument that antitrust law does not apply to its eligibility rules at all, or the parties' dispute over whether the athletes faced a heightened burden because the injunction would alter the status quo. In a footnote, the panel said properly defined markets would likely show that "men's basketball players face significantly different market considerations than women's volleyball players."

Lawyers for the NCAA included Rakesh Kilaru of Wilkinson Stekloff LLP. The athletes were represented by Robert K. Shelquist of Cuneo Gilbert Flannery & LaDuca LLP.

With the injunction vacated, the class members have no court order entitling them to a fifth season. The appeal did not reach the district court's class-certification order or the athletes' separate claims for breach of contract and a declaratory judgment, which remain outside the Tenth Circuit's ruling.