NCAA’s NIL rules suspended: Prospects can negotiate deals during recruiting process

The future of the NCAA as the governing body for college athletics continues to be uncertain following a Friday ruling in Tennessee district court regarding name, image and likeness.

U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker granted a preliminary injunction forbidding the NCAA from punishing any athletes, boosters or school-affiliated collectives for negotiating NIL deals with prospects during their recruiting process or while they are in the transfer portal.

Current NCAA rules forbid athletes from negotiating and signing NIL deals that are designed as inducements to attend a particular school. Prior to Friday’s court ruling, only athletes already enrolled at a college could make NIL deals, whether with a collective or a booster.

According to the ruling Friday, representatives of NIL collectives now can speak with and present offers to high school recruits and transfer portal players, once again an affront to the power of the NCAA, which according to the AP is facing at least six antitrust lawsuits on various issues regarding student-athletes rights.

College prospects and transfers in effect can now negotiate NIL deals with various schools and ultimately agree to an NIL contract before enrolling at a school.

They will be able to do so until at least the end of this court case.

The preliminary injunction alone likely will put an end to the NCAA investigation into the Tennessee football program for allegedly violating NIL rules.

A lawsuit was filed by the attorney generals of Tennessee and Virginia on Jan. 31, a day after Tennessee’s chancellor revealed that the Vols’ athletic department was being investigated for potential recruiting rules violations.

The preliminary injunction would seemingly also halt an NCAA infractions case against Florida State. The Seminoles were accused of steering a prospect to a booster collective that works with the FSU athletic department. The collective allegedly made a specific offer to a player in the portal considering FSU.

The NCAA, which post injunction has lost the authority to enforce any rules on NIL, has in the recent past been asking Congress to come to the rescue and consider passing some rules on pay-for-play and NIL.

“Turning upside down rules overwhelmingly supported by member schools will aggravate an already chaotic collegiate environment, further diminishing protections for student-athletes from exploitation,” the NCAA said in a statement Friday as reported by ESPN.com. “The NCAA fully supports student-athletes making money from their name, image and likeness and is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but an endless patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear partnering with Congress is necessary to provide stability for the future of all college athletes.”

NCAA president Charlie Baker told ESPN.com the NCAA’s goal has always been for athletes to pick their colleges based on athletic opportunities and academic goals, not immediate monetary gain. The NCAA has said NIL deals should only be worked out once athletes show up on campus, emphatically stating not while they are recruits.

“I think the most important thing here is let’s deal with some of the issues around accountability and transparency and consumer protections first,” Baker told ESPN.com. “And if we then want to have a conversation about other stuff, about how this should all work, especially if we get to the point where we give schools the ability to do more in this space, I’m all-in on that.”

The NCAA lost a case in the courts in December when a federal judge ruled that athletes could transfer as many times as they would like during their college careers while a case on the issue is pending. The NCAA had required two-time transfers to sit out a season at their new school.

The NCAA after that ruling granted immediate eligibility to two and three-time transfers.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Corker wrote in his decision as reported by ESPN.com: “The NCAA’s prohibition (against negotiating NIL deals prior to enrollment) likely violates federal antitrust law and harms student-athletes,”

According to ESPN.com, Corker said the attorneys general (of Virginia and Tennessee) “have a reasonable chance of winning their case and that student-athletes could suffer irreparable harm if the restrictions remain in place while the case is being decided.”

Corker according to ESPN, “said the NCAA’s lawyers did not make a compelling argument for why using NIL contracts as recruiting inducements would undermine the academic side of college sports.”

Tennessee attorney general Anthony Skrmetti according to ESPN said Friday his office will continue working the case “to the fullest extent necessary to ensure the NCAA’s monopoly cannot continue.”

In another recent setback for the NCAA, an NLRB regional director ruled that Dartmouth men’s basketball players are employees of the university and allowed to unionize. That recent ruling can be appealed by Dartmouth. In 2015, the NLRB blocked Northwestern football players’ efforts to form a union overruling a 2014 decision by the board’s regional director.