On Wednesday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, along with Virginia, sued the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) for violating federal antitrust laws and University of Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman vowed not to back down from the NCAA.
Attorney General Skrmetti said, “We sued to protect the rights of current and future Tennessee student-athletes from Memphis to Mountain City, from Union City to Unicoi County, from Covington to Cleveland, and everywhere in between.”
Meanwhile, Plowman called the NCAA a bully, failing, flawed, intellectually dishonest and full of defects. “If someone charges you or your family or your children with something that you didn’t do and you think it’s unfair, you’re going to speak up,” Plowman told The Daily Beacon, the UT student newspaper.
In an email to the NCAA, Plowman wrote, “The NCAA’s allegations are factually untrue and procedurally flawed. Moreover, it is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infractions cases as if student-athletes have no NIL rights.”
These anticompetitive restrictions violate the Sherman Act, harm current and future student-athletes as well as the State, and should be enjoined.
According to the press release from the Attorney General’s office, “Student-athletes are entitled to rules that are clear and rules that are fair,” said Skrmetti. “College sports wouldn’t exist without college athletes, and those students shouldn’t be left behind while everybody else involved prospers. The NCAA’s restraints on prospective students’ ability to meaningfully negotiate NIL deals violate federal antitrust law. Only Congress has the power to impose such limits.”
After the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA violated antitrust law by imposing unreasonable restraints on the compensation college athletes may receive, Tennessee and other states enacted laws to foster a thriving NIL market for the benefit of student-athletes. Contrary to those state laws, the NCAA has adopted a shifting and opaque series of rules and guidelines that thwart the ability of student-athletes to get fair compensation for their NIL.
Currently, the NCAA prohibits prospective student-athletes from discussing potential NIL opportunities with schools and collectives prior to enrolling. Prospective student-athletes are:
- prevented from negotiating with collectives,
- unable to review NIL offers prior to making enrollment decisions,
- and cannot adequately consider the full scope of NIL-related services a school might offer upon enrollment.
Student-athletes generate massive revenues for the NCAA, its members, and other constituents in the college sports industry—none of whom would dare accept such anticompetitive restrictions on their ability to negotiate their own rights. Student-athletes shouldn’t be left behind while everyone else profits from their achievements.
Photo: Chancellor Donde Plowman. (UT Chancellor’s Office photo).