The fallout from a federal judge granting a nationwide injunction that extends the eligibility of players who began in collegiate sports in the 2022–2023 season and who finished college this past spring is growing, as the NCAA and the plaintiff athletes escalate their battle over what exactly U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney ordered last Friday.
Advertisement
In a brief filed Thursday, the NCAA insists a dozen players led by former—and perhaps future—Northern Colorado basketball player Brock Wisne have wrongly interpreted Sweeney’s injunction to “massively” broaden what it actually does.
More from Sportico.com
The NCAA stresses that Sweeney has clarified her order did not “enjoin the operation of the transfer rules” or other eligibility-related rules outside how the NCAA interprets its new age-based eligibility rule that allows for up to five years of eligibility.
But there’s debate over another statement Sweeney made as part of her intended clarification.
Advertisement
The judge, whom President Joe Biden nominated to the bench in 2021, wrote the NCAA is enjoined from prohibiting the players in the class “from competing in a fifth season of collegiate athletics under the rule (as defined in the preliminary injunction order) or any NCAA bylaw.”
What does “or any NCAA bylaw” mean?
There are varying interpretations.
The NCAA argues it would be nonsensical to include “transfer rules [Sweeney] explicitly said [she] was not enjoining.” The four-word expression was stated in the context of Sweeney clarifying she was, as the NCAA puts it, “not enjoining things [she] did not mention in the original injunction, such as the NCAA’s transfer rules and the House settlement.”
Advertisement
The association goes so far as to maintain it would “make no sense” for Sweeney to enjoin a “slew of rules” through a phrase she wrote it on page six of a judicial opinion when on page four of that same opinion she wrote her order “does not enjoin the operation of transfer rules.”
But the players argue the NCAA is using the transfer portal, and especially potential punishments for schools and coaches who recruit players outside of portal windows, to undermine the injunction.
That’s because if players in the class can’t join other schools, their only option is the school they played for in 2025–26, and that’s only true if the school has a roster spot for them.
Given that the fall semester will soon start at campuses across the country, many rosters are already set. From that lens, “or any NCAA bylaw” could mean transfer rules or any other bylaw that limits where class members could play.
Advertisement
Yet the NCAA insists that type of interpretation would be without a limiting principle, meaning if transfer rules are included in the injunction, there’s no logical stopping point as to what else could fall in that category.
To that end, the NCAA contends that “rules restricting professional participation by collegiate athletes, sports wagering, the use of banned substances . . . acceptance of improper benefits by student-athletes, as well as rules imposing GPA requirements, credit-hour minima, and progress toward degree benchmarks” could all theoretically be cast aside if they limit where any particular class member can play.
In addition, the NCAA maintains an injunction shouldn’t extend to topics that go beyond the evidence presented for an injunction.
“There is no evidence in the record about any other rules,” the NCAA says, adding the players “have offered no antitrust analysis, no economic analysis, or any analysis at all of the NCAA’s transfer rules, nor did they previously even mention any of the other rules that they now interpret this court as having enjoined.”
Advertisement
The NCAA further maintains that transfer rules benefit the college sports system, including for athletes. Players “can transfer as many times as they want,” and transfer portal windows “make transfers more predictable for all parties involved.”
The NCAA acknowledged it recently added new penalties for schools and coaches (though not athletes), but it is to deter the manipulation of transfers outside portal windows. These penalties, the NCAA asserts, “make transfers more predictable, to bring stability to rosters and to prevent tampering (in which coaches try to poach players who have committed to other teams).”
In their own brief filed on Thursday, the players objected to the NCAA demanding that Sweeney stay the injunction until there’s a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Sportico previously examined the NCAA’s arguments for a stay.
Advertisement
One core argument is that because roster spots are fixed and because fall rosters are largely set by this point in the summer, an athlete from the class returning to college and taking a roster spot would harm the player who loses the spot.
Consider that players who benefit from the injunction are relatively older (probably 22 or 23) and have already played four seasons of college ball. A coach could find such a player appealing given their experience and given that they might be more physically advanced in their early to mid-20s than an 18-year-old freshman who has yet to play college sports.
Several of the plaintiffs fit the profile of players who, by their fourth season in college sports, had become highly productive players. Wisne, in fact, signed with a pro basketball team in Spain after graduating from college. Or consider Cade Tyson, who as a senior at Minnesota averaged 19.6 points per game and earned All-Big Ten Honorable Mention. Tyson wasn’t drafted by an NBA team in June but was invited to the G League Draft Combine. Many D-I basketball coaches would want to sign players like Wisne and Tyson, at any date.
But the players insist the “roster chaos” theory is a zero-sum problem created, and curable, by the NCAA.
Advertisement
“Roster limits,” the players insist, “are a product of the NCAA’s own rulemaking” that could be remedied by the NCAA “choosing to raise roster limits to the extent necessary to absorb this cohort.”
The NCAA would likely disagree with that depiction and note that roster limits are also a product of the House settlement, and Sullivan wrote she is not enjoining settlement terms.
The back-and-forth over what the judge means has real-world and practical consequences for athletes and their families, as well as coaches.
The athletes in the class just graduated college and some might have started a job or plan to attend new student orientation for law school or grad school in a week or two and maybe sign a lease for an apartment. They’re now presented with the possibility of continuing in college sports for another year, possibly in another part of the country. They don’t know whether they could attend a school different from the one they played at last year.
Advertisement
Coaches, meanwhile, want to maximize their rosters, and they would like to know whom they can sign. They have also made promises to players, including freshmen who are already on campus, and replacing one at this late date for a presumably better player raises ethical considerations.
These decisions also aren’t occurring in a vacuum. They’re taking place in an academic setting, with the athletes needing to be full-time students and to enroll in courses that might already be full and have add/drop dates.
Best of Sportico.com
Sign up for Sportico’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
