The U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the NCAA that will permanently bar the organization from restricting athletes’ transfer eligibility, it was announced Thursday.
The settlement resolves a federal antitrust lawsuit filed by a coalition of states last December challenging the NCAA’s requirement that athletes who transfer more than once must sit out a year of competition. U.S. District Court Judge John Preston Bailey in West Virginia issued a preliminary injunction at the time that banned the NCAA from enforcing its Transfer Eligibility Rule. The DOJ joined the suit in January.
A consent decree announced Thursday makes that policy change permanent, allowing athletes to transfer an unlimited number of times without penalty. It also requires the NCAA to restore a year of eligibility for current athletes who missed a year of competition since 2019-20 due to the old policy.
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“Free from anticompetitive rules that unfairly limit their mobility, Division I college athletes will now be able to choose the institutions that best meet their academic, personal and professional development needs,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division said in a statement.
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“We’ve leveled the playing field for college athletes to allow them to better control their destinies,” said Ohio AG Dave Yost, who brought the suit. “This long-term change is exactly what we set out to accomplish.”
As required by the Tunney Act, a 60-day public comment period will begin, after which the court may enter the settlement as final judgment.
Last week, the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences agreed to a settlement in another antitrust case, House v. NCAA, in which the defendants would pay $2.7 billion in back pay to a class of athletes alleging they were denied compensation for use of their name, image and likeness. That settlement still needs to be approved by a judge in Northern California.
(Photo: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)
