There’s been a lot of consternation over veteran college athletes suing the NCAA in hopes of extending their eligibility for another season so they could earn NIL and revenue-sharing money.
Some have blamed the athlete-plaintiffs for treating college sports more as a professional career than a college experience. Others have blamed the athletes’ lawyers for engineering high-profile litigation, even though some of those lawyers haven’t been paid. Still, others blame the NCAA for opening the door to being sued over application of eligibility rules.
Often forgotten in this conversation is an entity that’s not a plaintiff, defendant or attorney: colleges that incentivize athletes to sue the NCAA by promising them roster spots if they can defeat the NCAA in court. If athletes didn’t have such a promise, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t sue.
Consider what happened in April when Oklahoma Sooners linebacker Owen Heinecke, whom the NCAA deemed had exhausted his eligibility, obtained a court injunction to play this fall. The school’s athletic director expressed gratitude for the ruling on social media, while an NCAA spokesperson said the ruling “contributes to the chaos” in college sports and works to “undermine rules agreed to by the same NCAA members who later challenge them in court.”
