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The NCAA’s emergency motion for administrative stay and motion to stay the preliminary class-wide injunction in the U.S. District Court of Colorado were denied by Judge Charlotte Sweeney on Monday night, per court docs. Sweeney ruled last month that all high school class of 2022 athletes who exhausted their fourth season of college eligibility this spring would be eligible for a fifth season in 2026-27.
Sweeney’s ruling Monday night is a win for athletes currently seeking a fifth year of eligibility, as the injunction remains in place. It also creates a roadblock for the NCAA in its fight to overturn the ruling. The NCAA’s appeal is still pending. The governing body filed a motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction directly in the Tenth Circuit earlier Monday.
“And in this case, the record showed—and continues to show, as explained below—that the NCAA is in a bind of its own making,” Sweeney wrote in her order denying the stay Monday. “In other words, its own business judgment gave rise not only to the Court’s finding that Plaintiffs had shown that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their Sherman Act claim but also gave rise to exactly the ‘chaos’ about which the NCAA now complains. At bottom, the NCAA made its own choice which comes with its own consequences.”
The current injunction only grants athletes in the class a fifth year. It does not enjoin transfer rules, roster caps or rev-share caps – part of the House settlement agreement. The injunction is not intended and does not enjoin any provisions of the House settlement and the court notably did not enjoin the operation of the transfer rules.
The court also did not enjoin the age-based portion of the new eligibility rule, which means athletes who were 20 years old or older at the start of their five years are not eligible per the injunction.
One key question is whether players will be able to leave their former programs if there is no roster space. The NCAA ghost transfer rules, which include penalties for adding players outside of the transfer portal window, stand in place.
The NCAA previously responded to the injunction stating the ruling “plainly lacks the authority to undermine the House injunction, which all of the plaintiffs in the Colorado case are bound by, including the roster limits and revenue share cap.”
The lawsuit was spurred by the NCAA pivoting to an age-based eligibility model this spring. The age-based model calls for an athlete’s eligibility clock to start with initial full-time enrollment in college or at the beginning of the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs earlier. The age-based eligibility implementation will begin this summer. Recruits starting in 2027 are age-based only.
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