A U.S. federal judge has given the National Collegiate Athletic Association an early win in a lawsuit in Chicago challenging rules that impose an “amateurism” eligibility requirement on athletes who want to play college sports.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman in a Wednesday order declined to block a decision by the college sports governing body to deny eligibility to twins Matthew Bewley and Ryan Bewley. The 19-year-old brothers sued the NCAA in November after it refused to grant them “amateur" status that would allow them to play basketball for Chicago State University.
The NCAA denied eligibility based on contracts the brothers previously signed to play for and receive compensation from an elite sports school.
Gettleman in his order denying a preliminary injunction said the “plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success on their claims that defendant’s bylaws are unreasonably anticompetitive or restrictive.”
Lawyers for the Bewley brothers and representatives for the NCAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The case is among several pending lawsuits against the NCAA contesting restrictions it places on student-athletes. In some of those cases, current or former athletes are seeking compensation.
The NCAA in 2021 loosened some checks against players making money from advertising and merchandising deals with companies and other third parties using the athletes’ “name, image and likeness,” or NIL.
The rule at issue in the Bewleys’ case can bar would-be athletes from competing if they previously played for a team in a professional league.
Gettleman’s order said the brothers’ deals with a sports school were “clearly an employment contract with a professional league.”
Gettleman drew a line between current and former college athletes seeking payments for their work and those like the Bewleys who are prospective student-athletes. The court said the Bewley contracts were “much more than just an NIL contract.”
The NCAA had urged the court to “not blur the distinction between college and professional sports.”
The NCAA said it was up to Chicago State and other Division I schools to seek any rule change and that “to date, no such rule-change has been proposed or adopted.”
The case is Matthew Bewley and Ryan Bewley v. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:23-cv-15570.
For plaintiffs: Dominique Price and Daniel McGrath of Hinshaw & Culbertson
For NCAA: Patricia Brown Holmes and Brian Watson of Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila
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