10th Circuit restores NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule

The NCAA faces half a dozen lawsuits from college athletes in Colorado alone challenging a rule they say unfairly shortens their sports careers. The Colorado Buffaloes against the Colorado State Rams in the Rocky Mountain Showdown on Sept. 1, 2007. (Joseph Van/Wikimedia) DENVER (CN) — A split 10th Circuit reinstated a much-contested time limit on NCAA eligibility Friday, delivering a blow to a group of college athletes seeking to exercise their fifth years. The rule only allows athletes to compete in college sports for five seasons in five years starting with the first semester after the student turns 19, effectively capping the eligibility age at 24. On July 8, University of Northern Colorado basketball player Brock Wisne led a class action against the NCAA in federal court, arguing the organization’s five-year eligibility rule prematurely ended the careers of some athletes who started college in 2022-23. Due to the timing of their high school graduation, Wisne and others would only be eligible to compete in four seasons over five years in college, posing the risk of them losing scholarships, while shortening their opportunity to participate in their chosen sport. On July 31, Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney granted class certification and a temporary restraining order to allow the student athletes to compete in NCAA sports at the start of the school year. Friday’s opinion reinstates the rule pending the NCAA’s appeal, but does not impact dozens of athletes who have won temporary restraining orders in state courts across the nation. “We conclude that appellant has satisfied its burden as to each of these factors,” the federal appeals court wrote in a succinct three-paragraph per curiam opinion, backed by Senior U.S. Circuit Judges Timothy Tymkovich and Paul Kelly. Biden-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Veronica Rossman voted against granting the stay. Tymkovich was appointed by George W. Bush and Kelly by Bush’s father. In a statement, a spokesperson for the NCAA applauded the appellate court’s decision. “Effective immediately, the age-based eligibility rules will be implemented as the Division I membership intended,” wrote the spokesperson on X. “Class members who were allowed to compete because of the Wisne injunction are no longer eligible to compete.” In recent years, the NCAA has faced several lawsuits over eligibility requirements, with the Wisne lawsuit one of half a dozen involving Colorado athletes pending in state and federal court. “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,” the spokesperson added. The NCAA is represented by attorney Ben Kappelman, of Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis. Wisne and the athletes are represented by attorney Elliot Sol Abrams of Cheshire Parker in Raleigh, North Carolina, who did not immediately respond to an inquiry for comment. Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.