The NCAA says Tennessee and Virginia are threatening to “disrupt” college sports if they are granted the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction requested as part of their lawsuit, arguing that the NCAA's name, image and likeness rules group violate antitrust law.
The organization asks a judge to dismiss both motions in its 25-page response filed Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. On Feb. 13, a judge will hear a request from the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia for a preliminary injunction.
“There is no reason to disrupt this process, invite chaos at any time, and transform college sports into an environment where players and schools are matched based primarily on the dollars that can change hands,” the NCAA wrote in asking whether both motions sought to be denied.
“Requests for radical changes require robust deliberation.”
Chancellor Donde Plowman revealed in a scathing letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker released Tuesday that the NCAA was investigating Tennessee and The Vol Club, an NIL collective run by Spyre Sports Group. Tennessee's recruitment of five-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava from California and his NIL contract with Spyre are among the deals receiving NCAA scrutiny.
The attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia followed Plowman's letter by filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA on Wednesday challenging its ban on the use of NIL compensation in the recruiting of college athletes, and in response to the association's investigation into Tennessee .
Tennessee and Virginia have until Sunday night to respond to the NCAA's request to deny the temporary restraining order and injunction requests.
The lawsuit wants both to be issued by Tuesday to prevent the NCAA from enforcing NIL recruiting rules before National Signing Day on Wednesday while the lawsuit plays out in court.
The NCAA argues that accepting the motions would result in “recruiting incentives equivalent to paying for athletic performance” and would ruin the recruiting process for athletes who choose schools that best suit them, while exposing them to “bad actors.” ” that people sign with “coercive contracts.
“In reality, they seek not to preserve the status quo, but rather to fundamentally alter the landscape of college athletics by mandating the creation of an NIL market for recruited student-athletes that does not currently exist,” the NCAA said in its motion.
The response also argues that the lawsuit does not provide evidence of how NIL rules are harming athletes and does not recognize that universities within each state have repeatedly agreed to follow the rules now in question.
“Nor do they provide any compelling explanation for why rules that have been in place for years, if not decades, have given rise to a state of emergency warranting extraordinary judicial intervention,” the NCAA wrote in its response.
Granting these motions would bring universities and athletes closer to an employer-employee relationship, and the NCAA says many athletes don't want that.
The NCAA also argues that the lawsuit is due to an “imminent investigation” rather than a pending punishment. The organization also notes that the University of Tennessee is not a party to the lawsuit, which “does not save its case.”
The response argued that the plaintiffs never mention or address that the University of Tennessee commits each year to following the rules now in question and never offered alternatives or asked for clarification on those rules.
The NCAA noted that the lawsuit had a statement from only one current athlete and nothing prevents students from signing NIL agreements once they arrive on campus.
The response also cited a lawsuit scheduled for trial in January 2025 in which the athletes sought a permanent injunction and billions of dollars in damages. The NCAA noted that no one has requested a temporary injunction in a case that began in 2020.
That lawsuit has already had more than 40 witnesses testify, including athletic department employees from Power Five conferences and the NCAA. That trial will avoid the “disruptive intervention” sought in the lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia.
