A federal judge has denied a University of North Carolina tennis player’s request for an injunction blocking the NCAA from enforcing its rules against student-athletes accepting prize money from pro sports competition.
As reported by The Carolina Journal, Reese Brantmeier had asked for an injunction that would have applied to any NCAA athlete competing in individual sports, defined by the NCAA as women’s bowling, cross country, women’s equestrian, fencing, golf, gymnastics, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, women’s triathlon, and wrestling.
“A mandatory preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy, and the Court is not persuaded that Ms. Brantmeier has shown a likelihood of success on the merits for all of the Individual Sports,” wrote U.S. Chief District Judge Catherine Eagles in an order issued Monday, as reported by CJ staff.
“Ms. Brantmeier has shown that the NCAA controls the markets for the services of Individual Sports athletes who want to compete in NCAA Division I sports and receive a college education in exchange for their athletic services. The NCAA has no identified competition in these markets,” Eagles wrote.
“But the evidence of harm to competition from the prize money rules is remarkably thin. The harm must be ‘likely and significant,’ which requires courts to conduct an ‘examination of market circumstances.’ Yet here, Ms. Brantmeier has produced little to no evidence specific to each market.”
“Ms. Brantmeier contends that the prize money rules harm competition by reducing the number of athletes participating in non-NCAA prize money tournaments,” Eagles added. “But that is not harm to competition in the relevant market, which Ms. Brantmeier has defined as the college athletics labor market.”
“She also contends that the prize money rules harm competition by encouraging some of the best athletes to skip NCAA competition, thereby decreasing the quality of NCAA athletics,” Eagles wrote, as reported by CJ. “Assuming without deciding this is the kind of ‘decreased quality’ the case law contemplates, she has not shown that the number of players who make this decision is meaningful enough to have an actual effect on quality, at least not in every single Individual Sport.”
“Ms. Brantmeier says that the prize money rules harm competition in the same way that group boycotts and price-fixing agreements do: by requiring member schools to exclude athletes who accept prize money from scholarships and NCAA competition and by reducing student-athletes’ compensation because they cannot earn prize money from third parties,” Eagles wrote. “But both of these arguments depend on the implicit assumption that there is meaningful prize money available from professional athletic competitions in each sport sufficient to affect competition in the market.”
“Ms. Brantmeier has affirmatively shown that significant sums of prize money are available for a few elite athletes in a few Individual Sports: tennis, bowling, and perhaps swimming,” Eagles wrote. “One might assume the same for gymnastics and golf.”
“But even in those sports there has been no showing that the prize money rules, which affect only elite athletes who qualify for professional competitions and win prize money, result in anticompetitive effect on the market generally,” the judge explained. “And for other sports, there is no evidence at all about the availability of prize money and little to support the inference of harm to competition in those relevant markets. This is insufficient to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”
According to CJ staff, Eagles wrote she is not “persuaded at this point that harm to a few elite ‘consumers’ is by itself sufficient to show harm to competition.”
“To obtain a preliminary injunction, Ms. Brantmeier must show harm to competition in each market at issue. The Court is not satisfied on this record that this standard is met, especially given the fact that Ms. Brantmeier seeks a mandatory injunction,” Eagles wrote.
As reported by CJ, Brantmeier’s lawyers filed a motion July 2 in U.S. District Court seeking the injunction. The motion estimated that the injunction could affect more than 100 current student-athletes. A court filing in September suggested Brantmeier’s case could affect 10 or more players at the US Open Tennis Championships in Flushing, N.Y.
Brantmeier’s individual case involves $49,000 she won during the 2021 US Open.
“Brantmeier brought this action on behalf of a class of similarly situated National Collegiate Athletic Association (‘NCAA’) Division I scholar-athletes competing in Individual Sports who intend to participate in non-NCAA athletic events that award Prize Money,” Brantmeier’s lawyers wrote, as reported by CJ staff. “The NCAA’s long-standing amateurism rules prohibit Student-Athletes who compete in Individual Sports from accepting ‘Prize Money’ awarded for their performance in non-NCAA competitions.”
“With certain exceptions, a Student-Athlete forfeits eligibility for intercollegiate competition if they accept Prize Money,” the court filing continued. “If they lose their eligibility, Student-Athletes can also lose their education scholarships to an NCAA member institution.”
“Plaintiff and the Proposed Class seek injunctive relief from the remnants of the NCAA’s archaic Prize Money rules so current and future Student-Athletes who complete in Individual Sports can retain Prize Money earned for their performances in non-NCAA competitions without affecting their NCAA eligibility,” the tennis player’s lawyers added.
The court filing noted recent changes in NCAA rules for payment of student-athletes, including payments related to use of an athlete’s name, image or likeness.
“In recent years, the NCAA’s rules against Student-Athlete compensation have come under fire,” Brantmeier’s lawyers wrote. “As a result of recent litigation, the NCAA’s amateurism rules prohibiting educational-related compensation, NIL related compensation, and certain other benefits beyond ‘cost of attendance’ scholarships have been struck down or suspended.”
Brantmeier’s legal team also pointed to other cases that showed the NCAA’s willingness to allow some athletes to maintain amateur status after collecting six-figure sums. Swimmer Katie Ledecky competed for Stanford after winning $115,000 in the 2016 Olympics. Joseph Schooling swam for the University of Texas after the Singapore Olympic Committee paid him $740,000 for his gold-medal performance, according to court filings cited by CJ staff.
