Nyzier Fourqurean v. NCAA
N/A (2025)
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Rule of Law:
A plaintiff challenging an NCAA eligibility rule under § 1 of the Sherman Act must independently define the relevant market and demonstrate that the rule causes market-wide anticompetitive effects; evidence of the plaintiff's own exclusion from the market is insufficient by itself to show a likelihood of success on the merits.
Facts:
- Nyzier Fourqurean played two seasons of college football at Grand Valley State University, an NCAA Division II school.
- He then transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), an NCAA Division I school, and played two more seasons.
- Having completed four seasons of play, the NCAA's 'Five-Year Rule' rendered Fourqurean ineligible for a fifth season.
- Fourqurean, who graduated in December 2024, desired to play a fifth season at UW-Madison to enhance his NFL draft prospects and capitalize on new Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and revenue-sharing opportunities.
- In December 2024, UW-Madison submitted a waiver request to the NCAA on Fourqurean's behalf, citing mitigating circumstances from his first season, including the death of his father.
- The NCAA denied Fourqurean's waiver request in January 2025.
Procedural Posture:
- Nyzier Fourqurean sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, a federal trial court.
- Fourqurean filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the NCAA from enforcing its 'Five-Year Rule' against him for the upcoming season.
- After a hearing, the district court granted the preliminary injunction, finding that Fourqurean was likely to succeed on the merits of his Sherman Act claim.
- The NCAA, as the defendant-appellant, appealed the district court's order granting the preliminary injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
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Issue:
Does the NCAA's 'Five-Year Rule,' which restricts student-athletes to four seasons of competition within a five-year window, constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act?
Opinions:
Majority - St. Eve, J.
No, at the preliminary injunction stage, the plaintiff has not shown that the NCAA's Five-Year Rule is an unreasonable restraint of trade. A plaintiff must properly define the relevant market and show market-wide anticompetitive effects beyond their own exclusion. Fourqurean failed to meet this burden by improperly relying on NCAA v. Alston to define the market and offering only his own exclusion as evidence of anticompetitive harm. The court reasoned that Alston did not definitively establish the relevant market for all future cases; it merely accepted the market definition that was uncontested by the parties in that specific litigation. Furthermore, the Sherman Act protects competition, not individual competitors. Therefore, Fourqurean's exclusion from playing a fifth season, without more evidence of how this harms the overall market for student-athlete services (e.g., by depressing compensation or reducing output), is insufficient to demonstrate a likelihood of success on his Sherman Act claim.
Dissenting - Ripple, J.
Yes, the Five-Year Rule is likely an unreasonable restraint of trade. The court should analyze the rule as a competitive restriction on the labor market for Division I football players, a market in which the NCAA has monopsony power. The rule has a plain anticompetitive effect: it systematically removes the most experienced athletes, who would otherwise command the most lucrative NIL and compensation packages, thereby depressing overall compensation and lowering the quality of the product. The NCAA's procompetitive justifications, such as preserving amateurism and linking athletics to academic progression, are disingenuous and undermined by recent rule changes allowing unlimited transfers and the creation of a robust NIL market. Given the irreparable harm Fourqurean would suffer by losing a season of eligibility, the preliminary injunction was properly granted.
Analysis:
This decision significantly clarifies the post-Alston legal landscape for challenges to NCAA rules, establishing that the Supreme Court's ruling was not a blanket invalidation of all NCAA eligibility bylaws. It reinforces the fundamental antitrust principle that a plaintiff must prove harm to competition as a whole, not just harm to an individual competitor. By rejecting the plaintiff's reliance on Alston for market definition and his own exclusion as proof of anticompetitive effect, the court sets a higher evidentiary bar for student-athletes seeking preliminary injunctions against eligibility rules. Future plaintiffs will need to present specific, fact-intensive evidence defining the relevant market and detailing how a rule harms that market, for instance, through economic data showing suppressed compensation across the league.
