Summary
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that allowed Rutgers football player Jett Elad to compete for an additional NCAA season despite the NCAA's junior-college eligibility rule. The court held that the rule has a commercial effect potentially subject to Sherman Act scrutiny and that the district court failed to adequately define the relevant market for its rule-of-reason analysis. The case was remanded for further proceedings addressing current market realities in college athletics.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the NCAA's junior-college eligibility rule has a commercial effect and is therefore subject to scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
- Whether the District Court adequately defined the relevant market for purposes of the rule-of-reason analysis.
- Whether the District Court abused its discretion by granting a preliminary injunction when Elad had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.
Holdings
- The junior-college rule is not exempt from Sherman Act scrutiny merely because it is characterized as an NCAA eligibility rule; the rule has a commercial effect because it allegedly limits an athlete's participation in a labor market.
- The District Court committed legal error by failing to define the relevant market through a fact-specific analysis and, alternatively, by relying on an expert market definition unsupported by economic evidence and current market realities.
- The District Court abused its discretion by granting a preliminary injunction because Elad had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.
Key quotations
“If . . . market realities change, so may [a] legal analysis” (at 11)
“Rule-of-reason analyses under Section 1 of the Sherman Act require a well-defined relevant market and cannot rely on antiquated market definitions accepted on different evidence and in a different posture.” (at 17)
Factual background
Jett Elad played football at Ohio University, Garden City Community College, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, exhausting four seasons of eligibility over a five-year period, including one season at a junior college. Rutgers recruited Elad for the 2025–2026 season and helped him obtain an approximately $500,000 name-image-and-likeness contract. After the NCAA denied Rutgers's waiver request under the junior-college rule, Elad sued to obtain an injunction allowing him to compete.
Procedural history
Elad sought an injunction allowing him to play a fourth season of NCAA Division I football after the NCAA denied Rutgers's request for a waiver of the rule counting his junior-college season against his four-season eligibility limit. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction preventing the NCAA from counting that season. The Third Circuit vacated the injunction and remanded for further proceedings.
Remand instructions
The District Court must conduct a relevant-market analysis and account for changing market realities identified in its opinion, then conduct further proceedings consistent with the Third Circuit's opinion.