Fourth Circuit Vacates Preliminary Injunction Allowing College Football Players To Bypass NCAA Eligibility Rules

On April 3, 2026, Senior Judge Henry Floyd of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, joined by Judges Harris and Benjamin, vacated a preliminary injunction issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia that had allowed four college football players to participate in the 2025–26 collegiate football season in contravention of the NCAA’s 5-year eligibility limitation, finding that the district court committed legal errors in its assessment of the players’ likelihood of success on the merits of their Sherman Act Section 1 claim challenging the NCAA’s eligibility rule.  Robinson v. NCAA, No. 25-2003 (4th Cir. Apr. 3, 2026). 

Plaintiffs are former junior college (“JUCO”) football players who transferred to West Virginia University (“WVU”) after having played at least two years at a JUCO before transferring.  Plaintiffs challenged both the NCAA’s “JUCO Rule,” which counts time spent and played at junior colleges toward student-athletes’ seasons and years of NCAA eligibility and the so-called “Five-Year Rule” that imposes certain temporal limitations on NCAA eligibility.  Even after the NCAA (“defendant”) issued a partial blanket waiver of the JUCO Rule for the 2025-26 season, plaintiffs remained ineligible because they had first enrolled at a collegiate institution more than five years prior, and the waiver did not extend to the Five-Year Rule.  After defendant denied plaintiffs’ individual waiver requests, they filed suit alleging the NCAA’s rule is in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act (which prohibits unreasonable restraints of trade) and sought a preliminary injunction to play for WVU for the 2025-26 season.  The district court granted the injunction on August 20, 2025. 

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit first addressed mootness, as the 2025-26 football season had concluded before oral arguments.  The Court held the case was not moot due to an exception to the mootness doctrine.  It found that the challenged action, a preliminary injunction limited to a single football season, was too short in duration to be fully litigated, and there was a reasonable expectation that the same controversy would recur, particularly because one plaintiff had already sought an eligibility waiver for the 2026-27 season.  As such, the case was not moot. 

Turning to the merits, the Court applied a heightened standard of review because the preliminary injunction was mandatory rather than prohibitory.  It required defendant to grant waivers and declare plaintiffs eligible, thereby altering rather than preserving the status quo.  Under this standard, the Court assessed plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on their Sherman Act Section 1 claim. 

The Court agreed with plaintiffs that the challenged eligibility rules are subject to Sherman Act scrutiny.  Joining the Third and Seventh Circuits, the Fourth Circuit held that the JUCO Rule and Five-Year Rule are commercial in nature, and therefore, not exempt from antitrust review.  The Court noted, however, that its holding does not extend to all NCAA eligibility rules, leaving the status of other rules for future cases. 

Despite finding Sherman Act applicability, the Court identified two critical errors in the district court’s analysis.  First, the district court improperly applied an abbreviated “quick look” analysis rather than the full rule of reason analysis.  “Quick look” analyses are only applicable in cases where the anticompetitive or procompetitive effects are clear, which was not the case here.  This error improperly minimized plaintiffs’ burden of proof for showing anticompetitive effects.  Second, the district court failed to properly define the relevant market.  Instead, the district court simply adopted plaintiffs’ proposed definition of a “nationwide market for the labor of NCAA Division I college football players” without engaging in any independent factual analysis or addressing defendant’s challenges to that market definition.  Several unanswered questions remained, including whether the market includes Divisions II and III.  The Court noted that plaintiffs did not provide factual evidence to support their market definition and did not meet their burden of proof.  As a result, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings. 

In vacating and remanding, the Fourth Circuit left open the possibility that plaintiffs could succeed on a fuller record, but made clear that plaintiffs would need to overcome the heavy burden of proof, including presenting evidence to support a properly defined relevant market.  This decision adds to the growing body of appellate authority addressing the antitrust status of NCAA eligibility rules in the advent of NIL compensation and revenue sharing.  It signals that while NCAA eligibility rules may be subject to antitrust scrutiny, plaintiffs challenging those rules face a demanding evidentiary burden under the rule of reason framework.