by Kira Stearns[1]

Antitrust scrutiny of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has a long history, rooted in tensions between the organization’s role as a regulator of college sports and the requirements of U.S. competition law. Until 2014, the NCAA relied on amateurism as its primary defense against antitrust challenges, particularly regarding limits on athlete compensation. This framework was directly challenged in O’Bannon v. NCAA (2014), which focused on the NCAA’s prohibition on compensating athletes for the use of their names, images, and likenesses (NIL), especially in video games and broadcasts. The Ninth Circuit ruled that while the NCAA could maintain some limits tied to amateurism, its complete ban on NIL-related compensation violated antitrust law. On July 1, 2021, a wave of state legislation and new NCAA policies allowed college athletes to begin signing endorsement deals and earn revenue on their NIL.

Another consequential recent ruling came in NCAA v. Alston (2021), where the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that NCAA limits on education-related benefits—such as scholarships for graduate school, tutoring, or laptops—were unlawful restraints of trade. Notably, the court rejected the NCAA’s broad claims that amateurism justified deference under antitrust law and openly questioned the legality of nearly all NCAA compensation restrictions. While Alston technically addressed only education-related benefits, its reasoning signaled broad skepticism toward the NCAA’s business model.

The House v. NCAA settlement was the most recent antitrust resolution that significantly changed how college athletes at certain institutions may be compensated.[2] Approved in 2025, it resolved multiple lawsuits alleging that the NCAA had unlawfully restricted athlete pay in violation of federal antitrust law. As part of the settlement, schools are now permitted to share athletic revenue directly with athletes, subject to annual caps. While the settlement does not classify athletes as employees, it effectively dismantles the NCAA’s traditional amateurism model and marks a structural shift toward a revenue-sharing system in college sports.

Despite implementing these significant changes, the NCAA cannot reasonably expect the end of legal challenges on antitrust grounds. Recent cases suggest that the next battleground may revolve around the NCAA’s eligibility rules.[3] As it currently stands, the NCAA provides student athletes with four years of athletic eligibility within a five-year period. According to the NCAA, this five-year clock begins once the athlete enrolls at any collegiate institution, regardless of whether its athletic programs operate within the NCAA. The clock does not reset when the athlete transfers to a different school.

Under the prior regime—before revenue-sharing and NIL agreements—the NCAA’s eligibility requirements were relatively innocuous, from an economic perspective. Although many athletes received valuable in-kind benefits related to tuition and living expenses, participation in collegiate sports did not involve direct monetary compensation. As a result, for many athletes, the economic opportunities available outside of college were strictly superior to those available within it. This disparity was especially pronounced for elite athletes in highly lucrative professional sports, such as football and men’s basketball. For these athletes, the requirement that they compete without monetary pay in college—often due to age-based professional league restrictions—was widely understood as an economic sacrifice.[4]

However, under the current regime, and for a select group of individual athletes, the economic returns to remaining in college may now far exceed the income available outside of the NCAA. This dynamic is particularly pronounced for athletes in sports without highly paid professional leagues, such as gymnastics. As an extreme example, Louisiana State University (LSU) gymnast Olivia Dunne reportedly earned an estimated $4.1 million in endorsement deals during her fifth year of eligibility.[5] Whether that level of brand value can be sustained beyond the college sports ecosystem remains to be seen.

Moreover, women’s college basketball players may now earn substantially more through NIL arrangements than they would as professionals in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). As of June 2025, top NIL earners in women’s college basketball reportedly secured deals ranging from roughly $300,000 to $1.5 million, while the salary for a first-round WNBA draft pick begins at approximately $75,000.[6] The highest paid WNBA player in 2025 commanded an annual average salary of $252,450.[7] For players who fear that their marketability may diminish upon leaving a prominent college program, these disparities create a strong economic incentive to remain in college for an additional year.

Importantly, this incentive is not limited to athletes without lucrative professional alternatives. Even in sports such as football and men’s basketball, the opportunity cost of remaining in college for an additional year has fallen substantially. With the availability of NIL income and revenue-sharing arrangements, athletes now forgo less by staying in school an extra season to develop their skills and potentially improve their draft position.  Indeed, a recent study of player’s decisions to enter the NBA draft between 2019–2024 finds that, following the liberalization of NIL rules, more men’s colleges basketball players choose to use their remaining collegiate eligibility.[8]

This growing incentive to maximize one’s time in college athletics likely holds for all but the very top prospects of high-paying professional leagues. For example, a top-five college quarterback projected as a second-round pick may hope to improve to a top-three quarterback, and first-round selection, after an additional year playing college football. Moving from a second-round selection to a first-round selection has significant economic upsides. For example, a player chosen in the first round of the National Football League (NFL) can expect average total compensation of $21.7 million, versus $8.6 million for a player chosen in the second round. When combined with NIL income and revenue sharing from the university, the upside of staying in college an additional year is now significantly more economically appealing.

Taken together, these developments point to a new potential source of economic harm arising from the NCAA’s position as the sole governing body of major college athletics. If an alternative collegiate athletic association existed, it might compete to attract athletes by offering more generous revenue-sharing arrangements, improved NIL opportunities, or more favorable terms governing the duration over which athletes can receive such compensation. While previous changes to the NCAA compensation rules sought to address alleged harm related to the first two dimensions, it did not meaningfully confront, and has perhaps exacerbated, the third.

In conclusion, as the economic value of participating in college athletics continues to rise, the antitrust implications of NCAA eligibility rules are likely to become more pronounced. Restrictions that limit how long athletes may participate—and therefore earn—within the collegiate system may increasingly be viewed as anticompetitive restraints. Whether courts or the NCAA itself will adapt in response to these pressures remains an open question.

[1] This article benefitted from excellent research assistance by Matthew Domke.
[2] The settlement only impacted athletes at Division I schools, though it is expected that Division II and Division III programs may need to adapt their business models in order to recruit talented athletes.
[3] For example, Jabarrek Hopkins, a football player at Prairie View A&M filed suit against the NCAA and its eligibility rules.  This follows a suit by Diego Pavia, a star quarterback at Vanderbilt filed in [year], also challenging the eligibility rules.  See:
Hopkins v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, Case No. 4:26-cv-00014-RH-MJF (N.D. Fl.)
Diego Pavia v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, Case No. 3:24-cv-01336 (U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee).
[4] Some professional athletes have waited out the age requirement by playing professionally outside of the United States.
[5] https://www.si.com/college-basketball/highest-paid-college-athletes-via-nil-deals.
[6] https://www.foxsports.com/stories/womens-college-basketball/top-10-womens-college-basketball-players-highest-nil-valuations, https://www.spotrac.com/wnba/cba/minimum/, https://frontofficesports.com/how-much-will-2025-wnba-draft-picks-make/.
At the time of writing, the WNBA has put forth a collective bargaining agreement proposal that would considerably increase the salary cap.  See, for example:
https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/47862248/wnba-new-cba-proposal-includes-housing-provisions.
[7] https://www.si.com/wnba/highest-paid-wnba-players-now-and-all-time.
[8] McDaniel, Cole, Brian Meehan, and E. Frank Stephenson (2025), “Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Effect of NIL and Transfer Rule Changes on College Basketball Players Entering the NBA Draft,” Journal of Sports Economics 26(5): 543–561.