10/13/2026 04:42:00
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10/13 13:01 CDT Judges sound a skeptical note about players arguments in key
college eligibility case
Judges sound a skeptical note about players arguments in key college
eligibility case
By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
The attorney representing athletes in a key case regarding the NCAA's new
five-year eligibility rule took a series of questions Tuesday from federal
judges who sounded skeptical about the players' ability to pinpoint the depth
of the economic harm they have suffered from the change.
A lower-court judge in the case, Wisne vs. NCAA, initially ruled in favor of
the players, granting all NCAA athletes who graduated high school in 2022 a
fifth year of eligibility for this school year after the NCAA had excluded them
from the new rule.
An appeals court blocked that ruling and its full hearing came in front of a
three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which
will rule at a later date. All three asked multiple questions to plaintiff
attorney Robert Shelquist over the plaintiffs' attempts to define the market
for the players.
That definition would be key to determining how the players are being harmed by
being declared ineligible. It's the benchmark the judges said was key to
winning an antitrust lawsuit such as this.
"It doesn't seem there's been a definition of the market from a huge, huge
division --- golf, everything," said U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Kelly, a nod to
the wide difference in earning power between, say, a college football player
and golfer. "And you're lumping them all together and you never looked at
commonality and interchangeability of the various buyers."
Shelquist argued an analysis presented by the plaintiffs that was prepared by
University of Mississippi legal scholar William Berry III provided a framework
of what the market for the players would look like if they were deemed eligible.
Arguing for the NCAA, attorney Rakesh Kilaru argued the plaintiffs' analysis
takes all the players and "lumps all of those individuals together in a way
that does not make economic sense."
If the judges rule in favor of the NCAA, it would set what could be an
important precedent but would not necessarily end the legal wrangling.
After they blocked the initial ruling, cases in state courts across the country
went on --- most notably one in Louisiana that led LSU to look into bringing on
two football players who had spent time this summer in NFL training camps. More
recently, the NCAA has won cases in Kentucky, Ohio and Arizona.
The judges also asked both attorneys if they should delay their decision to see
whether Congress passes the Protect College Sports Act, a bill that made it
through the Senate last month that would limit these sorts of lawsuits in the
future.
The bill would not preempt active lawsuits, and both attorneys urged the court
not to wait, with Shelquist reminding the judges of the narrow window for this
group of players who left high school in 2022, with this school year's football
season halfway over and basketball season about to begin.
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