A federal appeals court on Friday ruled in favor of the NCAA’s plan to prohibit athletes from the 2022-23 academic year to get an extra year of eligibility after halting a previous order granting them access to play.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado granted the NCAA a stay blocking an earlier lawsuit challenging a recent rule change limiting how long students can participate in collegiate sports. A decision by judge Charlotte N. Sweeney in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on July 31 initially ruled in favor of a class action by former student athletes who said their playing tenure was ended by the NCAA’s move to allow five years of eligibility.
The NCAA Division I cabinet passed its age and eligibility rule in June and on Friday the collegiate governing body informed schools that the mandates were once again active.
Effective immediately, the age-based eligibility rules will be implemented as the Division I membership intended,” chief legal officer Scott Bearby said in a letter. “Class members who were allowed to compete because of the Wisne injunction are no longer eligible to compete.”
The decision originates from a federal class-action lawsuit filed in July by University of Northern Colorado basketball player Brock Wisne who argued that the NCAA’s new eligibility mandate directly impacts athletes who began their college enrollment in 2022.
Wisne is part of a group of 12 student athletes who already graduated and are wholly opposed to the NCAA’s rule change that prohibited them from participating in sports for the 2026-27 season which started with the current semester.
Despite the appeals decision, the NCAA has faced similar suits in numerous states from student athletes who have individually been granted restraining orders in court that have paved the way for them to gain a fifth season of eligibility. It will likely also trigger additional lawsuits, claims and injunctions with several sports like football, women’s and men’s soccer, women’s volleyball and cross country all set to begin play next week.
“The Association will separately continue to defend other similar putative class action lawsuits and the state court cases that have been filed by former student-athletes seeking additional eligibility and expeditiously appeal any cases where former student-athletes have, or will, be granted additional eligibility through separate state court rulings,” Bearby said. “We are encouraged by the Ohio Court of Appeals’ decision to stay the first of those injunctions pending our appeal.”
The NCAA’s rule change in June specifies that an athlete’s eligibility clock starts when they first enroll in school or at the beginning of the academic year after their 19th birthday, depending on which comes first.
“While previous NCAA rules have served college sports well for a long time, we heard also loud and clear from NCAA members and student-athletes that eligibility rules should be easier to understand,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said at the time of the rule change in June. “This change to an age-based model eliminates aspects of the rules that have proven difficult to administer in the current litigious environment and clearly defines the exceptions available in limited circumstances, while preserving the long-intended alignment of eligibility with typical college enrollment and graduation patterns, because 98 percent of the 550,000 NCAA student-athletes will go pro in something other than sports.”
Waivers and redshirts would be reduced under the rule along with the ability for athletes extend their collegiate careers beyond four years using exemptions. The rule initially applied to Division I sports but in early August the NCAA Division II Executive Board adopted similar guidelines.
The NCAA’s tightening of its rules echoes President Donald Trump’s April executive order that limited athletes to five years and one transfer. The order was as part of a larger initiative to protect opportunities within college sports, limit when athletes could turn professional, restrict how boosters along with wealthy schools pay players through endorsement deals and preserving scholarships based on the revenue of each institution.
And in May, a bipartisan Senate bill led by Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell was drafted and aimed at eligibility, how athletes are paid and transfer rules.
