The NCAA was sued by Vanderbilt University’s quarterback, Diego Pavia, who claims the organization’s junior college eligibility rules are anticompetitive.
The NCAA’s bylaws discriminate against junior college athletes because they reduce the number of years that former juco football players can play Division I NCAA football after transferring to a D-I school, Pavia said in a lawsuit filed Friday in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that seeks injunctive relief.
The rules also restrain the ability of these athletes to earn money through use of their name, image, and likeness, according to Pavia, who played at a junior college for two years. He also played at New Mexico State before transferring to Vanderbilt.
Pavia’s case is among dozens of antitrust suits filed against the NCAA since the 2021 landmark Supreme Court decision that paved the way for college athletes to receive compensation for use of their NIL. A federal judge last month granted NCAA and athlete plaintiffs preliminary approval to a $2.8 billion settlement agreement that has seen opposition over a host of concerns, including fair and equitable pay for female athletes.
Pavia cites an NCAA bylaw, referred to as the “five year rule,” that gives athletes five years of eligibility to play four seasons of intercollegiate competition in their chosen sport.
The five-year window is known as an “eligibility clock” and starts to run from the date on which an athlete registers as a full-time student at any collegiate institution, whether a member of the NCAA or not.
For two-year transfers, the purpose of the five year rule is merely to “move student-athletes toward graduation in a timely manner,” Pavia said in his complaint.
But starting a junior college athlete’s eligibility clock one or two years before the athlete arrives on an NCAA member institution campus does nothing to help an athlete earn his degree, Pavia said.
Pavia suggests minor revisions to the bylaws, including starting the eligibility clock when an athlete first registers at an NCAA member institution. The definition of intercollegiate competition in NCAA bylaws could also be changed to reference when an athlete is in an “NCAA member institution” as opposed to “in either a two-year or a four-year collegiate institution” as in the current bylaws, Pavia said.
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