Responding to the NCAA's claim that college sports would be thrown into “disarray” if rules prohibiting the use of name, image and likeness compensation as recruiting incentives were lifted by court order, the attorney general of Tennessee, Jonathan Skrmetti, said in a document filed Sunday that the association is defending “a world that does not exist.”
The attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia are seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction as part of their federal lawsuit arguing that the group's NIL rules violate antitrust law.
The NCAA asked a judge to deny 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.
“The NCAA waits until page 16, two-thirds of the way through its brief, before defending the NIL recruiting ban on merit. And even then, the NCAA is defending a world that does not exist,” Sunday response. saying. “Says you must 'ban NIL compensation' to protect amateurism, competition and athletes.”
The AGs said student-athletes will suffer irreparable harm if the TRO is not granted by Tuesday because college football's traditional signing period for college football players begins Wednesday.
“And it is not the plaintiffs' fault that the NCAA has decided to regulate NIL and recruiting through a Byzantine set of overlapping guidance rules. To the extent there is confusion, the NCAA believes it has the power to enforce the ban of NIL recruiting, that problem is one of the NCAA's own creation,” Sunday's response read.
The lawsuit was filed last week, a day after it was revealed that the NCAA is investigating the University of Tennessee for potential recruiting violations related to NIL compensation.
“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 compared based primarily on the dollars that can change hands,” the NCAA wrote.
“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 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.
