Legal threats from state AGs underscore NCAA's vulnerability

The NCAA is the sports world’s enduring piñata, taking hits from all comers for decades.

But the latest onslaught carries added significance – a growing number of state attorneys general and public officials are threatening legal action. 

Chief among them: 

+Amid the outrage over the NCAA’s initial denial of North Carolina football transfer Tez Walker’s eligibility, state Attorney General Josh Stein, in a Sept. 26 letter to NCAA President Charlie Baker, wrote: “The NCAA has imposed a sweeping, unilateral, one-year non-compete restriction, in violation of both state and federal law.”

+On Oct. 19, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wrote in a letter to Baker that his office is considering opening an investigation into the NCAA for antitrust violations. Yost wrote that the NCAA’s denial of eligibility to Cincinnati men’s basketball player Aziz Bandaogo is not only “wrong as a matter of common sense and decency, it is also likely unlawful.”

+On Oct. 24, Jimmy Patronis, the state of Florida’s chief financial officer, wrote to Baker regarding the eligibility of Florida State football player Darrell Jackson. 

“The NCAA’s lack of transparency on this issue raises equal protection and antitrust concerns,” the letter read.

+That same day, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey tweeted that the recent decision to deny men’s basketball player RaeQuan Battle’s eligibility at West Virginia “raises serious legal issues that demand answers.” Morrisey concluded he would “take all appropriate steps to ensure our laws are followed.”

Legal threats show NCAA is vulnerable

All the AG letters reference and rely on the 2021 Alston decision to support their arguments that the NCAA transfer rules violate antitrust law, Mit Winter, a college sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry, said. 

In a post-Alston world, taking on the NCAA is all the rage. 

“It shows how legally vulnerable and weakened the current NCAA structure and college athletics model have been made by the Alston decision,” Winter told On3. 

“It [also] demonstrates how disdain for the NCAA now generally runs across party lines. State officials see attacking the NCAA as a move that will garner them public support and favor. Neither of these [developments] are good news for the NCAA, and they also demonstrate why it’s very unlikely it will get a federal law with its requested asks.”

The NCAA continues to lobby Congress for a federal reform bill. Consider the NIL part a stocking stuffer. The NCAA covets the big-ticket item: Antitrust protection – and for good reason. 

The beleaguered association is as vulnerable as ever – and state AGs smell blood in the water.