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A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction siding with the states of Tennessee and Virginia in their lawsuit challenging the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s enforcement of its rules restricting the use of name, image and likeness payments to recruit athletes, the Associated Press reported.
Attorneys general in the two states sued the NCAA after the association threatened to penalize the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for alleged rules violations. While the NCAA was forced to loosen its rules to allow athletes at its member colleges to receive compensation for use of their likenesses, it continues to be against NCAA rules for colleges themselves, including through booster groups, to use NIL incentives to recruit athletes.
Judge Clifton L. Corker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee issued a preliminary injunction barring the NCAA from enforcing its name, image and likeness policy, citing not its impact on institutions like the University of Tennessee but on athletes themselves.
“It is pure speculation to assume that student-athletes would receive more lucrative NIL deals in an open market. Fair-market value may be equal to or less than the NIL deals student-athletes can currently receive after selecting a school,” Corker wrote. “But without the give and take of a free market, student-athletes simply have no knowledge of their true NIL value. It is this suppression of negotiating leverage and the consequential lack of knowledge that harms student-athletes.”
