NIL Laws · ID

Idaho

High-school NIL: permitted with conditions. No state college-NIL statute — the NCAA/House framework and campus policy govern. Agent rules below.

High School NIL
Permitted with conditions

The Idaho High School Activities Association permits NIL activity separated from school identity and not tied to athletic performance.

Citation · IHSAA NIL guidance
What This Means

Idaho high-schoolers may pursue personal-brand deals within the standard guardrails.

Insight: Rodeo and outdoor-brand deals are Idaho's distinctive NIL lane — usage rights for photo and video deserve special attention.
College NIL

Idaho has no comprehensive state NIL statute; NCAA/House rules and institutional policy govern.

Citation · No state NIL statute
What This Means

Campus policy is the operative rulebook for Idaho college athletes.

Insight: Boise State's policies differ from the Vandals' — never assume one Idaho campus mirrors another.
Agent Regulations

Idaho adopted the Revised Uniform Athlete Agents Act with Secretary of State registration.

Citation · Idaho Code §54-4801 et seq. (RUAAA)
What This Means

Agent registration is mandatory before soliciting Idaho athletes.

Insight: RUAAA's expanded definitions capture NIL-only representatives too — "marketing rep" is not an exemption.
Look Up Registered Agents →

The NCAA & Federal Layer

State law is only half the rulebook. Wherever you play, the NCAA framework reshaped by the House settlement — plus the new age-based eligibility model and one federal statute on agents — sits on top of your state's rules.

Revenue sharing (House settlement)

Since July 2025, Division I schools that opted into the House v. NCAA settlement may pay athletes directly, capped at roughly 22% of average power-conference athletics revenue. The cap was about $20.5M per school in year one and rises roughly 4% a year — approximately $21.3M for 2026–27. Roster limits replaced scholarship limits, and the large majority of Division I schools have opted in.

House v. NCAA settlement (N.D. Cal., final judgment June 6, 2025)
What this means: Your school can now be a counterparty, not just a bystander. Campus revenue-share agreements are real contracts with real obligations — and the cap is a ceiling on the school's side of the table, not on third-party NIL.
NIL Go clearinghouse

Third-party NIL deals of $600 or more must be reported through NIL Go, the clearinghouse run by the College Sports Commission with Deloitte, generally within five business days. Reporting and valuation are separate tests, and the valuation test has loosened twice: effective July 1, 2026 an individual deal up to $15,000 is exempt from "range of compensation" review (up from $2,500 in April 2026 and $600 before that), and an athlete may take up to $50,000 in total associated-entity deals in an academic year before that review is triggered. Every deal at every dollar figure still has to clear the valid-business-purpose requirement. Deals involving an "associated entity" draw the closest review. In August 2026 the House court declined to exempt multimedia-rights companies and third-party brand sponsors from that designation as a category, leaving them subject to review case by case — chiefly where the company both manages a school's intellectual-property rights and arranges deals for that school's athletes.

College Sports Commission — NIL Go reporting requirement; CSC range-of-compensation guidance eff. July 1, 2026; NCAA Bylaw 22.1.3; In re College Athlete NIL Litig., No. 4:20-cv-03919 (N.D. Cal.) (associated-entity rulings, June–Aug. 2026)
What this means: Most real deals must still be disclosed at $600, but small and mid-size deals are no longer priced against the model — while the valid-business-purpose screen applies to all of them. Paper a genuine deliverable, not a number. Routing a deal through your school's multimedia-rights partner does not put it outside the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse itself is also under direct antitrust attack — see the litigation section below.
Eligibility — the age-based model

On June 23–24, 2026, Division I adopted an age-based eligibility model replacing "four seasons in five years." An athlete generally gets five years of eligibility if they first enroll full time no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday. The clock pauses only for pregnancy, active-duty military service, and official religious missions. Full implementation applies to athletes enrolling in fall 2027 and later; fall 2026 enrollees are in a transition period, and athletes already enrolled may use whichever model helps them more. Division II followed on August 5, 2026, when its Executive Board adopted the model by emergency legislation on the Management Council's July recommendation. The Division II rule mirrors Division I but is drawn slightly differently: the five-year clock starts at the earlier of full-time enrollment at any college — domestic, international or junior college — or the start of the regular academic year after the athlete's 19th birthday. It took effect immediately for 2026–27, replacing four seasons within 10 semesters or 15 quarters. Athletes who exhausted eligibility under the old Division II rules after 2025–26 get nothing back; current athletes and 2026–27 enrollees take whichever model is more favorable, and fall 2027 enrollees are on the age-based model only. Division III has not adopted an age-based model and still runs its own seasons-based rules.

NCAA Division I age-based eligibility model (adopted June 23–24, 2026); NCAA Division II age-based eligibility model (Executive Board emergency legislation, Aug. 5, 2026, eff. immediately for 2026–27); NCAA Bylaw 12.6
What this means: Eligibility is now a calendar, not a waiver conversation — the old waiver path largely closed on July 31, 2026 — and as of this season that is true in Division II as well, so check which division's version of the clock applies to you before counting years. The rule is also the single most litigated thing in college sports right now. A Colorado federal court enjoined it nationwide on July 31, 2026, but the Tenth Circuit stayed that injunction on August 21, 2026, so the rule is once again in force everywhere except as to athletes holding their own individual court orders. Check the litigation section below before relying on any of it.
Enforcement

The College Sports Commission — not the NCAA — enforces the settlement's compensation rules for participating schools. Significant portions of the settlement and its implementation remain in active litigation, so details continue to shift.

College Sports Commission (est. 2025)
What this means: A new regulator with new processes: expect documentation requests, and expect the rules to keep evolving for a few more seasons.
Agents — the federal floor

The federal SPARTA statute prohibits agents from using false promises, providing inducements, or failing to disclose required warnings when recruiting student-athletes — in every state, on top of any state act.

15 U.S.C. §7801 et seq. (SPARTA)
What this means: Even in states with no agent registry, deceptive agent conduct is federally unlawful. There is always a rulebook.
Federal legislation — still not law

Congress still has not passed a national NIL statute, but the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 is the closest anything has come. It would preempt state NIL laws, classify athletes as non-employees, and grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption. The Senate Commerce Committee advanced it to the full Senate on June 18, 2026 by a bipartisan 19–9 vote, and on August 4, 2026 the Committee released revised text negotiated after the SEC and Big Ten endorsed the bill — hardening the revenue-share cap so associated-entity deals count against it, adding a $22.5M athlete-retention pool (up to $27.5M if the extra is matched by NIL spending on women's and Olympic sports), adopting the House settlement's associated-entity definition, and adding certification requirements for multimedia-rights holders, sponsors, apparel companies and vendors. The push for a floor vote then stalled: ten Republican senators filed objections on August 8, 2026 and the Congressional Black Caucus announced its opposition, and the Senate recessed early on August 9, 2026 without voting. Before the recess Majority Leader John Thune said the bill was "teed up" for September, and co-sponsor Sen. Maria Cantwell said she expected passage that month. The Senate reconvened on September 14, 2026, and its floor schedule for that day did not include the bill; no cloture vote on it has been held. It has not passed the Senate. A House companion carrying the same name, H.R. 9137, was introduced June 4, 2026 by Rep. Michael Baumgartner, who chairs the Congressional College Sports Caucus; no House floor vote on it has been reported. Neither chamber has passed anything, and none of it is law. The SCORE Act remains stalled in the House.

Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (S. 4668) — reported by Senate Commerce June 18, 2026 (19–9); revised text released Aug. 4, 2026; no floor vote before the Senate's Aug. 9, 2026 recess; Protect College Sports Act of 2026, H.R. 9137 (House companion, introduced June 4, 2026); SCORE Act (H.R., stalled)
What this means: Watch this one, but do not plan around it. It missed its best window in August and now has to clear the Senate, then the House, in an election year — and a companion bill sitting in a House committee is not the same thing as House momentum — and even the revised text would tighten the cap rather than loosen it, with associated-entity money counting against it. That is the provision to read if you deal with a collective or a rights holder. Until something is actually enacted, state law plus the courts are the rulebook.
The executive order — pressure, not statute

Executive Order 14400, "Urgent National Action to Save College Sports," signed April 3, 2026, directs federal agencies to condition grant and contract eligibility on athletics-rule compliance, targets so-called fraudulent NIL schemes and booster/collective contributions, and encourages national rules limiting participation to five years and restricting transfers. Its operative sections took effect August 1, 2026. The one concrete implementing step published so far is a GSA proposal: a June 16, 2026 Federal Register notice would require higher-education institutions registered in SAM.gov, and meeting a $20M (inflation-adjusted) intercollegiate athletics revenue threshold, to certify compliance with the order quarterly, with the certifications visible to federal contracting and grantmaking officials. GSA estimated roughly 2,900 certification responses a year against 11,720 screened registrants. The comment period closed August 17, 2026. As of August 31, 2026 that collection has not been approved — its OMB control number is still a placeholder — and no further guidance, notice or rulemaking under the order has been published in the Federal Register.

Exec. Order No. 14400, 91 Fed. Reg. 18267 (Apr. 9, 2026) (signed Apr. 3, 2026); GSA, Information Collection; System for Award Management Quarterly Certification of Compliance With Executive Order 14400, 91 Fed. Reg. 36143 (June 16, 2026) (notice and request for comments; comments closed Aug. 17, 2026)
What this means: An executive order is not a statute and does not by itself rewrite your rights. Its leverage is federal funding — it reaches schools through their grants and contracts, not athletes directly. What it has produced so far is a proposed checkbox: a quarterly self-certification your school would file in SAM.gov, not a rule that governs your deal. That is worth knowing because it puts compliance pressure on the athletic department, which is where it reaches you — but nothing here has been approved yet, and a self-certification is not an enforcement action. Watch whether the collection is actually approved, and whether anyone challenges it.

See the litigation that could change all of this →

The NCAA In Court — Nationwide

Current Litigation

The NCAA is defending on four fronts at once: how athletes get paid, who is eligible to play, whether athletes are employees, and what it owes for civil-rights and health claims. These cases are national — they are not a state-by-state question, and a ruling in Colorado or Ohio can change what your school can do tomorrow.

Docket status verified as of September 15, 2026

The Money — Compensation, Revenue Share & The Clearinghouse

Every case here can change how much your school may pay you, what a third-party deal must survive, and when back damages actually land.

House v. NCAA
Objections overruled — on appeal
N.D. Cal. (Judge Claudia Wilken) · appeals consolidated in the Ninth Circuit

Issue: The antitrust case that produced the $2.576 billion settlement, direct revenue sharing, and roster limits.

Where it stands: Final judgment entered June 6, 2025. Roughly a dozen appeals are consolidated in the Ninth Circuit, led by objectors arguing the back-damages formula — which sends over 90% of the fund to male football and basketball players — violates Title IX. The appeals paused distribution of the back-damages fund; go-forward revenue sharing was not stayed. Oral argument has not been formally calendared; the Ninth Circuit has tentatively pointed to November 2026. A second track is live in the district court: incoming Division I athletes joining for 2026-27 have their own right to object to the injunctive-relief settlement, objections were due August 11, 2026, two more incoming athletes filed objections on August 17, 2026, responses were due September 1, 2026 and were filed that day — class counsel and the defendants each filed briefs opposing the objectors — and on September 3, 2026 Judge Wilken issued an opinion and order overruling those objections. She rejected the incoming class's Title IX, roster-limit and program-cut arguments and left the injunctive-relief settlement in place unmodified, so the settlement governs the 2026-27 class as written. That ruling is confined to the district-court objection track: the consolidated Ninth Circuit appeals are untouched, and the pause on distribution of the back-damages fund remains in force.

In re College Athlete NIL Litig., No. 4:20-cv-03919 (N.D. Cal.)
Why it matters to you: Revenue sharing keeps running. If you are a former athlete owed back damages, that money is frozen until the Ninth Circuit rules — and the allocation formula itself could be rewritten.
House implementation — the multimedia-rights fight
Decided — CSC oversight upheld
N.D. Cal. (Judge Wilken; Chief Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins as Special Master)

Issue: Whether the College Sports Commission may treat multimedia-rights companies and third-party brand sponsors as "associated entities," pulling the deals they arrange into NIL Go review.

Where it stands: Class counsel moved April 20, 2026 to enforce the settlement against the CSC. The Special Master denied that motion June 25, 2026 (Dkt. 1136), declining to exempt multimedia-rights companies and brand sponsors as a category. Plaintiffs objected and moved for reversal July 9, 2026 (Dkt. 1138); the NCAA opposed July 23, 2026 (Dkt. 1142), and the noticed August 13 hearing was vacated July 10, 2026 (Dkt. 1139). On August 4, 2026 Judge Wilken affirmed the Special Master's order, declining to declare categorically that multimedia-rights companies fall outside the entities the CSC may review — so they remain subject to review case by case, chiefly where the company both manages a school's intellectual-property rights and arranges deals for that school's athletes. The same order held that plaintiffs are entitled to request and receive documents about the CSC's investigations of multimedia-rights companies and third-party brand sponsors, so class counsel can test whether the CSC is in fact deciding associated-entity status case by case; disputes over that production go to Magistrate Judge Cousins, and the parties were directed to confer by August 18, 2026. They did: on August 19, 2026 the Special Master adopted the parties' joint discovery status report on how multimedia-rights companies are being classified, and directed a further status update by September 1, 2026. That update came in on schedule: on September 1, 2026 the parties filed a notice stating they had met and conferred on the multimedia-rights classification question and would report to the court again on September 15, 2026. The dispute is being managed on rolling status reports rather than through a further ruling, so the case-by-case classification regime stands in the meantime.

In re College Athlete NIL Litig., No. 4:20-cv-03919 (N.D. Cal.)
Why it matters to you: A deal papered through your school's multimedia-rights partner is not automatically outside the clearinghouse. Assume a Learfield, Playfly or JMI deal can be reviewed like a collective deal, and document the market value behind it before you sign.
Ili v. NCAA
Newly filed — motions to dismiss
N.D. Cal. (Judge P. Casey Pitts) · filed June 9, 2026

Issue: A class action attacking the revenue-share cap and the NIL Go clearinghouse as federal and state antitrust violations, and as conflicting with NIL statutes in roughly 17 states.

Where it stands: Filed June 9, 2026 by two college football players. The court set a briefing schedule on July 31, 2026; defendants' answer or motion to dismiss is due September 11, 2026, plaintiffs' opposition October 26, 2026 and the reply December 4, 2026. On that calendar the pleadings will not be ripe for decision before December at the earliest. The first of those dates has been met: the defendants filed their motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on September 11, 2026, so the case is in briefing rather than waiting on a first response. The opposition and reply deadlines are unchanged, which leaves the December estimate intact. No ruling yet.

Ili v. NCAA, No. 26-cv-05562 (N.D. Cal.) — NCAA, power conferences & College Sports Commission named
Why it matters to you: This is the head-on attack on NIL Go. If it succeeds, the fair-market-value screen your deals run through could be narrowed or eliminated.
Fontenot v. NCAA (consolidated with Hill v. NCAA)
Pending — discovery & mediation
D. Colo. (Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney)

Issue: A damages case attacking pay-for-play restrictions more broadly than House, brought by athletes who stayed outside that settlement.

Where it stands: Survived dismissal and remains live. Discovery deadlines were extended by joint motion in May 2026, settlement mediation was set for June 24, 2026, and a substantial document production is due August 21, 2026. No trial date has been set.

Fontenot v. NCAA, No. 1:23-cv-03076 (D. Colo.)
Why it matters to you: A second damages front the House settlement did not close — and a reminder that opting out of a class settlement can preserve real claims.
Jenkins v. NCAA
Dismissed — on appeal
S.D.N.Y. (Judge Denise L. Cote) · on appeal to the Second Circuit

Issue: A separate challenge to NIL compensation restrictions.

Where it stands: Dismissed December 15, 2025 on statute-of-limitations and settlement-preclusion grounds. Notice of appeal filed January 8, 2026; the appeal is pending.

Jenkins v. NCAA (S.D.N.Y.), appeal filed Jan. 8, 2026
Why it matters to you: Shows how broadly courts are reading the House release. If you were in a settlement class, assume your claim may already be gone.

Eligibility — The Largest Wave

Since Pavia v. NCAA in December 2024 the NCAA has faced more than 70 eligibility suits, and the June 2026 age-based rule set off a second wave. Outcomes are genuinely split — the same rule is enjoined in one courthouse and stayed in the next. Three appellate courts stayed athlete injunctions inside of ten days: the Ohio First District on August 17, 2026, the Tenth Circuit on August 21, 2026, and the Tennessee Court of Appeals on August 26, 2026. The Georgia Court of Appeals added a fourth on September 9, 2026. The first appellate court to refuse came five days later: on September 14, 2026 the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal denied the SEC's application to stay the Baton Rouge injunction in Pyburn. Trial courts kept granting relief anyway — two more ex parte restraining orders issued on August 26 alone. What is left is a patchwork of individual orders, most of them measured in days. Then a new obstacle arrived on top of them, and courts moved against it within forty-eight hours. All four power conferences barred athletes with professional experience from their member-school rosters inside of three days — the SEC and the Big Ten on August 25, 2026, the Big 12 on August 26, 2026 and the ACC on August 27, 2026 — and on August 26, 2026 the NFL said separately that a player who returns to college is ineligible for the 2026 NFL season. For two days a court order and a place to play were entirely different things. Two courts then reached the conference rule itself: a Dallas County judge on August 27, 2026 and Judge Jorden in Baton Rouge on August 28, 2026 each entered orders naming the SEC and Commissioner Greg Sankey as restrained parties. The conference is complying and fighting at the same time: on August 30, 2026 the SEC said on the record that it "will continue to comply with the Court's order" while it contests the case at a September 3 hearing — a hearing at which Judge Jorden has also ordered the SEC and the NCAA to show why their new penalties do not put them in contempt of his earlier order. The fight is no longer only about what the NCAA may do, and for the first time a court is asking whether the association and a conference have defied it. And the class-action track did not end with the stay: a second nationwide case in the same Colorado district, Moore v. NCAA, was amended on August 28, 2026 to seek classwide relief for the athletes the Wisne class never covered — including Division II players. The appellate picture then hardened again. On September 9, 2026 the Ninth Circuit became the fourth federal circuit to vacate an athlete eligibility injunction, publishing its full reasoning in Blythe v. NCAA and holding that an athlete must prove a relevant market built on evidence for their own sport rather than borrowing the one the Supreme Court accepted in Alston. Courts around the country began ordering briefing on what Blythe means for the cases in front of them within twenty-four hours.

Wisne v. NCAA
Stayed — 10th Cir. paused injunction
D. Colo. (Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney) · on appeal to the Tenth Circuit

Issue: Whether the NCAA may apply its new age-based eligibility rule to shut the high-school class of 2022 out of a fifth season.

Where it stands: Plaintiffs styled their motion as one for a temporary restraining order but pleaded a preliminary injunction in the alternative; on July 31, 2026 the court construed it as a preliminary-injunction motion and granted that relief outright, together with certification of a nationwide Rule 23(b)(2) class of Division I athletes who began play in 2022–23, completed four years of eligibility under the old rules by the end of 2025–26, and are barred from a fifth season by the new rule. The court held eligibility rules are commercial under Section 1 of the Sherman Act and likely an unreasonable restraint, rejected the NCAA's argument that "exiting" one class of athletes expands output, found irreparable harm, and held the House settlement released nothing here because the rule was adopted after that settlement was finally approved. A clarification order issued August 2, 2026 sets the reach of the injunction: the NCAA is enjoined from prohibiting class members from competing in a fifth season "under the Rule … or any NCAA Bylaw," but the order does not enjoin the House settlement or its terms, does not enjoin transfer rules, does not enjoin roster caps, and does not stop a member school from making eligibility decisions based on whether an athlete was over twenty years old when they enrolled in 2022–23. Those four words — "or any NCAA Bylaw" — are now the fight. The NCAA moved to stay the injunction on August 2, 2026 (Dkt. 43), calling the order "egregiously wrong," and filed its notice of expedited appeal to the Tenth Circuit on August 3, 2026 (No. 26-1309). On August 10, 2026 Judge Sweeney denied that stay in full (Dkt. 56), rejecting the NCAA on all four Nken factors: it had made no strong showing of likely success — its stay motion "essentially rehashes arguments" already rejected and barely engaged the clear-error standard that governs the court's factual findings on appeal; it offered no evidence of irreparable harm to itself; its claim that the class faces only "minimal harm" the court answered with a one-word "Nonsense"; and the public interest lies in antitrust compliance. The order's framing is that the disruption the NCAA complains of is "a bind of its own making." The injunction therefore remains in force. The NCAA had already filed an emergency motion in the Tenth Circuit before the ruling (No. 26-1309, Dkt. 9), and on August 11, 2026 that court entered an expedited briefing schedule on whether to pause the injunction while the appeal proceeds: the athletes' response was due August 14, 2026 and the NCAA's reply August 17, 2026. That is a scheduling order and nothing more: the class filed its response on August 14, 2026 and briefing closed on August 17, 2026 with the NCAA's reply. The NCAA filed its reply on August 16, 2026 (10th Cir. Dkt. 18), closing briefing a day early. On the morning of Friday, August 21, 2026 the Tenth Circuit granted the stay. The panel — Judges Timothy M. Tymkovich, Paul J. Kelly, Jr. and Veronica S. Rossman — split 2–1: Tymkovich and Kelly concluded the NCAA had satisfied the traditional Nken factors, including a strong showing of likely success on the merits, while Judge Rossman would have denied the stay. The order is a short one and is not a merits ruling; it pauses Judge Sweeney's July 31 injunction while the expedited appeal proceeds, which means class members who were competing only because of that injunction are ineligible again. The Tenth Circuit has not yet calendared argument on the merits of the appeal, but the expedited schedule it ordered is now running: the NCAA filed its opening brief on September 1, 2026, the athletes' response brief was filed on schedule on September 8, 2026, and the NCAA's reply is due September 11, 2026. Briefing therefore closes in the second week of September, and a merits decision is unlikely before the season is well underway — the stay governs in the meantime. Separately, plaintiffs had moved August 4, 2026 to enforce the injunction (Dkt. 46), arguing the NCAA was using transfer rules and transfer-related penalties to confine class members to a single buyer of their labor and asking the court to require notice to schools and procedures for signing fifth-year athletes; that motion was fully briefed and awaiting a ruling when the stay issued, and with the injunction paused the district court denied it as moot — there is nothing left to enforce while the stay stands. The appeal itself is now moving quickly: on August 25, 2026 the Tenth Circuit granted the class's unopposed motion to expedite briefing on the merits and took under advisement their separate request to expedite argument. Briefing has now closed. The NCAA filed its reply brief on September 11, 2026, completing the expedited merits schedule, and the same day the class filed a notice of supplemental authority putting the Ninth Circuit's two-day-old decision in Blythe v. NCAA before the panel. That is a notable filing for the athletes to have made, because Blythe vacated an athlete injunction — but it also holds that eligibility rules are commercial and reachable under the Sherman Act, which is the threshold the NCAA has been contesting, and it makes the Ninth Circuit the fourth to say so. The Tenth Circuit therefore has the appeal fully briefed with the newest sister-circuit authority in front of it. No argument date has been set.

Wisne v. NCAA, No. 1:26-cv-03063, 2026 WL 2214234 (D. Colo. July 31, 2026) (prelim. inj. & class cert.); clarification order (Aug. 2, 2026) (Dkt. 41); order denying stay (Aug. 10, 2026) (Dkt. 56); order granting stay pending appeal, No. 26-1309 (10th Cir. Aug. 21, 2026); order expediting merits briefing (10th Cir. Aug. 25, 2026); appellant's opening brief filed (10th Cir. Sept. 1, 2026); appellees' response brief filed (10th Cir. Sept. 8, 2026); appellant's reply brief filed and appellees' notice of supplemental authority as to Blythe filed (10th Cir. Sept. 11, 2026)
Why it matters to you: The window closed. If your only basis for playing a fifth season was membership in the Wisne class, you do not have one right now — athletes who had already enrolled, signed or transferred in reliance on the July 31 injunction went from eligible to ineligible on a Friday morning, two weeks before the season. That is the risk this page has been flagging, and it landed. Three things still matter. First, a stay is not a merits ruling: the appeal is live, the panel was 2–1, and the injunction could come back. Second, the stay reaches only the Colorado class action — individual orders from other courts, including the California, Louisiana and Kentucky ones below, are separate and remain in force on their own terms. Third, that is now the practical path: relief you hold in your own name, in your own case, is what keeps you on the field, and plaintiffs' counsel has said more state-court applications are coming. If you were relying on the class, assume you are ineligible until a court tells you otherwise in your own case, and get counsel before you take the field — competing while ineligible is its own problem, and the NCAA's Rule of Restitution can reach back at results. One thing did change under this case while it sits on appeal. A second class action in the same district — Moore v. NCAA, its own card immediately below — was amended on August 28, 2026 to seek classwide relief for athletes Wisne never reached, including Division II players and athletes trying to move up to Division I. It is a separate case before a separate judge, nothing in it has been granted, and it restores nothing the stay took away. But if you were told you fell outside the Wisne class, that is the docket to ask your counsel about.
Moore v. NCAA — the class action for who Wisne left out
Class & injunction motions pending
D. Colo. (Judge Regina M. Rodriguez) · filed Aug. 20, 2026

Issue: A second nationwide class action against the same age-based rule, drafted to reach the athletes the Wisne class never covered — Division II players, and athletes trying to move up to Division I.

Where it stands: Filed August 20, 2026 in the District of Colorado — the same district as Wisne, but before a different judge, Regina M. Rodriguez. On August 28, 2026 the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint adding named plaintiffs, reported to include Gomes, Moon, Hara, Harman, Okorougo and Zielinski, together with a motion to certify under Rule 23(b)(2) and a motion for a preliminary injunction granting classwide eligibility for the 2026-27 season. The design of the case is the gap in Wisne. The class Judge Sweeney certified reaches only athletes who previously competed in Division I; this complaint proposes classes reaching athletes who want to play a fifth season in Division II, and athletes who competed outside Division I and now seek to move up to it. The proposed Division II class is defined as all persons in the United States who began collegiate competition in the 2022-23 season, competed in NCAA Division II, completed four years of eligibility under the prior rules by the end of 2025-26, and are barred from a fifth season by the Division II rule — the age-based model the Division II Executive Board adopted as emergency legislation on August 5, 2026, effective immediately. The supporting record is reported to rest on the reasoning and evidence developed in Wisne, with added evidence about the Division I and Division II athlete labor markets. Neither motion has been ruled on. Two structural facts sit on top of the case. The Tenth Circuit stayed the Wisne injunction on August 21, 2026 and is hearing that appeal on an expedited schedule; the same court sits over this judge, so what it says on the merits in Wisne is likely to govern here. And if the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralizes the eligibility docket at its September 24, 2026 hearing, this case is a candidate to be swept in with the rest — no longer a hypothetical: on September 2, 2026 the NCAA filed a notice with the Panel naming Moore as a related action, so the case built to replace the stayed nationwide injunction is now formally on the transfer list. No ruling on the certification or injunction motions had been entered as of this update.

Moore v. NCAA, No. 1:26-cv-03837 (D. Colo.); amended complaint, motion to certify under Rule 23(b)(2) and motion for classwide preliminary injunction (Aug. 28, 2026)
Why it matters to you: If you are a Division II athlete, or you spent four years outside Division I and want to move up, the Colorado class action everyone has been reading about never covered you — the Wisne class reaches only athletes who already competed in Division I. This is the case written for that gap, and it is worth finding out whether your name falls inside a proposed class. But read the posture, not the ambition. Nothing has been granted. The motions to certify and to enjoin were filed August 28, 2026 and no court has ruled on either, so this puts nobody on a roster today — a pending class motion is not eligibility. Two more things belong in the calculation. The same appellate court that paused the Wisne injunction on August 21, 2026 sits over this judge and is already reviewing the identical legal question on an expedited schedule, so a ruling there lands on this case whether or not it is captioned that way. And the September 24, 2026 MDL hearing could move this case in front of a different judge in a different state. If your season depends on a fifth year, the advice is the same one this page has been giving all month: relief in your own name, in your own case, is the only thing putting athletes on the field right now.
The California fifth-season TRO — the 73-athlete portal order
TRO in force — portal window closed
California state court — court, division and judge not identified in public reporting

Issue: Whether a group of roughly seventy-three class-of-2022 athletes can be declared eligible for a fifth season and given a transfer window outside the NCAA’s closed portal periods — including athletes who had already signed professional contracts.

Where it stands: On August 18, 2026 a California state court granted a temporary restraining order in favor of a group reported at roughly seventy-three student-athletes, ordering that the NCAA may not enforce its transfer restrictions against them and may not bar those who signed a professional contract before July 31, 2026 from competing in 2026-27. The order opened a transfer-portal window for the named plaintiffs immediately and running through Monday, August 24, 2026. Named plaintiffs identified in reporting include Michigan State center Jaxon Kohler, UCLA guards Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark, and Florida guard Xaivian Lee; Kohler entered the portal and committed to BYU on August 20, 2026. This is the largest single group of athletes covered by any individual eligibility order to date, and it is expressly independent of the Colorado class action: the Tenth Circuit’s August 21, 2026 stay in Wisne is a different court, a different body of law and a different set of plaintiffs, and by its terms reaches only the Colorado class. Athletes covered by this order therefore remained eligible through the stay. Reporting describes the relief interchangeably as a temporary restraining order and as a preliminary injunction, and the NCAA has been reported as able to appeal it. The transfer window this order opened closed on Monday, August 24, 2026. By its own terms the order runs until further order of the court or until the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction is decided. As of August 31, 2026 no preliminary-injunction hearing date, extension, modification or appellate ruling has been publicly reported, and the last reporting to address the point — commentary reviewing Kohler's position on August 24, 2026 — described the Tenth Circuit's stay in Wisne as having no bearing on it. Treat continued operation as reported rather than confirmed. A separate obstacle arrived after that reporting and then grew: between August 25 and August 27, 2026 all four power conferences adopted rules barring athletes with professional experience — the SEC and the Big Ten on August 25, the Big 12 on August 26, the ACC on August 27 — which reach some of the athletes this order was written to protect regardless of what the order says about the NCAA. Two later orders, in Dallas County on August 27, 2026 and in Baton Rouge on August 28, 2026, restrained the SEC and Commissioner Sankey directly, but this California order names no conference as a party and so does not carry that protection to the athletes covered here. IMPORTANT LIMITATION ON THIS ENTRY: the court, county, judge, case caption and docket number for this order could not be verified from any public source at the time of this update. State-court eligibility filings are poorly indexed — the College Sports Litigation Tracker itself notes that many state cases cannot be reliably tracked or accessed. What is published here rests on three independent reputable reports (ESPN, CBS Sports and On3) that agree on the substance, the athlete count, the portal dates and the professional-contract provision. Treat the caption as unconfirmed and verify against the order itself before relying on it.

Temporary restraining order (Cal. Super. Ct., Aug. 18, 2026); transfer window through Aug. 24, 2026. Case caption, county and docket number could not be confirmed as of this update — see note below.
Why it matters to you: If you are one of the named plaintiffs, the transfer window this order opened has already closed — it ran through Monday, August 24, 2026. Athletes who moved inside it are on rosters; anyone who did not does not get that window back from this order. This order also does the thing the Colorado injunction did not — it reaches the transfer rules, not just eligibility — which is why athletes covered by it could actually move to a roster while class members in Wisne could not. Two cautions. First, this protects the people named in it and nobody else; being similarly situated to a plaintiff is not the same as being a plaintiff, and there is no class here. Second, if you signed a professional contract, the order addresses the NCAA’s rule but not your contract — unwinding a pro deal is its own legal and financial problem, and you need counsel on both sides of it at once. Because the caption of this order could not be confirmed, do not act on this summary alone: ask your counsel or compliance office for the order itself, confirm you are named in it, and confirm it has not been modified, extended or appealed before you take the field.
Pyburn v. NCAA — the Louisiana fifth-season case
Prelim. injunction — stay denied on appeal
19th Judicial District Court, East Baton Rouge Parish, La. (Judge William Jorden)

Issue: Whether class-of-2022 athletes shut out of a fifth season can not only be declared eligible but actually get into the transfer portal to find a roster — including athletes who have since signed professional contracts.

Where it stands: Roughly thirty athletes across several sports — sixteen of them football players, plus LSU women's basketball player Amiya Joyner, men's basketball player Rashad King and women's soccer player Jazmin Ferguson — sued the NCAA in Louisiana state court over the same age-based rule at issue in Wisne. On August 19, 2026 Judge William Jorden granted a temporary restraining order that does two things the Colorado injunction pointedly did not: it deems the plaintiffs eligible to compete, and it bars the NCAA from applying its transfer restrictions to them, giving them roughly a week to enter a transfer portal the NCAA had otherwise closed to anyone who missed the prescribed windows. Reporting on the order states that it enjoins both the NCAA's "ghost transfer" rule and its Rule of Restitution — the bylaw that lets the NCAA strip wins, records and revenue after the fact if an injunction is later vacated — which matters because that bylaw is the main residual risk of competing under an order that is still temporary. It also reaches athletes who signed NFL contracts after their college careers ended — among them Dae'Quan Wright (Browns), Wydett Williams (Cardinals), Anthony Hankerson (Seahawks) and Jack Pyburn (Buccaneers) — who may return to college if they are released and if they terminate their contracts and return what they were paid before competing. NFL cutdowns to fifty-three players fall on August 30, 2026. The order is a TRO, not a preliminary injunction: by its terms it runs ten days from issuance — through roughly August 29, 2026 — unless the court extends it. The hearing at which the TRO either converts into a preliminary injunction or falls was initially noticed for August 31, 2026 and is now set for September 3, 2026. Reporting on the order puts the number of named athletes at roughly thirty-three. The Tenth Circuit's August 21, 2026 stay in Wisne does not disturb this order: it is a different court, a different circuit, a different body of law and a different set of plaintiffs, and the stay by its terms reaches only the Colorado class action. The NCAA's senior vice president for external affairs said courts granting relief to "ineligible athletes who already had every opportunity to compete in college" are "failing to appreciate the destabilizing effect their rulings are having on college sports." SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey filed an affidavit in a related East Baton Rouge Parish eligibility case opposing the return of professional athletes, arguing it creates "a competitive disadvantage and fundamental unfairness" to current athletes. The conferences then acted on their own. On August 25, 2026 the SEC's presidents, chancellors and athletic directors voted 16-0 to bar from SEC rosters any athlete who declared for the NFL, NBA or WNBA draft without properly withdrawing, signed a contract with a professional football or basketball team or affiliate, or appeared on a professional roster; a member school that plays such an athlete faces a half-season suspension of its head coach, a fine of half the sport's operating budget, and loss of its vote in conference business. The Big Ten adopted an equivalent policy the same day, and the ACC and Big 12 have been reported as preparing to follow. Athletes reported as squarely in the path of the SEC rule include Dae'Quan Wright, the former Ole Miss tight end released by the Browns, and RJ Luis Jr., the 2025 Big East player of the year who signed with the Jazz and the Celtics without appearing in a regular-season game — both of whom had been reported as targeting LSU. Plaintiffs' counsel Ryan Downton has publicly characterized the conference rules as violating multiple standing court orders, and he did not stop at characterizing them. On Friday, August 28, 2026 Judge Jorden amended his temporary restraining order to add the SEC and Commissioner Greg Sankey as restrained parties, barring the conference from using its new former-professional rule to punish schools, coaches or the covered athletes for doing what the court's own order permits. That is the first time in this litigation that a conference — rather than the NCAA — has been ordered to stand down, and it followed a Dallas County order the day before that did the same thing (its own card, below). Athletes reported as directly affected include former New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Zxavian Harris and former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae'Quan Wright, both committed to LSU, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers edge defender Jack Pyburn. The same day, Judge Jorden signed a show-cause order — the development that now defines this case. It requires the SEC and the NCAA to appear and explain why the penalties attached to their new former-professional rules, which plaintiffs' counsel called "draconian," do not place them in contempt of court and in violation of his earlier order. That converts Thursday's setting from a routine preliminary-injunction hearing into a combined proceeding on both the injunction and contempt. The SEC did not fold. In a statement issued Sunday evening, August 30, 2026, the conference said the order against it and Sankey "is a temporary restraining order, not a final ruling on the merits," that both are "prepared to contest the allegations in the plaintiffs' petition at Thursday morning's hearing and defend the SEC's rights as a voluntary association to fulfill its mission to its member institutions," that "[i]n the meantime, the SEC and Commissioner Sankey will continue to comply with the Court's order," and that after the hearing it "will carefully review the Court's decision and determine the appropriate next steps." Read those two halves together: the SEC is complying now and fighting on Thursday. That statement, made on the record, supersedes the earlier secondhand reporting this page carried that the conference had told counsel it would comply. The hearing is Thursday, September 3, 2026 in Baton Rouge — two days before LSU opens against Clemson on Saturday, September 5, 2026 (7:30 p.m. ET, Tiger Stadium) — and the question is whether the TRO becomes a preliminary injunction or is stayed. One caveat on the order's own term: the TRO was written to run roughly ten days from August 19, and no public source confirms a formal order extending it past that. What is confirmed is that the court has set the September 3 hearing and that the SEC says it is continuing to comply, so the order is being treated by the parties as operative. NFL cutdowns to fifty-three players have now passed — all thirty-two clubs trimmed their rosters by 6 p.m. ET Sunday, August 30, 2026, with more than 1,100 players released, waived or given injury designations — so the pool of released players who could try to use this order is now fixed rather than pending. The hearing went forward in Baton Rouge on Thursday, September 3, 2026, and the first ruling went to the conference. Judge Jorden sustained the SEC's exception of improper cumulation — the Louisiana procedural objection to joining unrelated claims in a single action — agreeing that most of the plaintiffs, now reported at forty-two to forty-four athletes, have no connection to an SEC school and therefore no claim against the conference at all. Only the seven plaintiffs with SEC ties, because they attended an SEC school or are seeking to join one, may continue against the SEC; the rest are left to pursue the NCAA alone. Commissioner Sankey then testified, saying the conference needed to "establish a line between professional and college sports" and maintain "clear accountability standards," and that the SEC acted on its own rather than in concert with the NCAA. His sworn account also corrects a number this page carried from press reports of the August 25 vote: Sankey testified the SEC presidents voted 15-0, with LSU's Wade Rousse abstaining, not 16-0. Reporting from the courtroom states that the judge left his order against the NCAA in place — the association remains barred from declaring the covered former professionals and fifth-year athletes ineligible — and that the contempt question directed to the NCAA remained open. Then, late on the night of September 3, 2026, after a hearing that ran more than nine hours, Judge Jorden granted the preliminary injunction. Reporting identifies the case as Pyburn v. NCAA — named for former LSU linebacker Jack Pyburn, who has since signed with the Kansas City Chiefs and is not returning to college — and puts the plaintiff group at roughly forty-three athletes, including nineteen football players, eleven men's basketball players, five softball players and four women's basketball players. The injunction bars the NCAA from using the age-based eligibility rules to keep the named plaintiffs from competing in 2026-27, and bars the SEC from punishing a member university, coach or administrator for signing, rostering or playing one of the SEC-connected plaintiffs — the penalties the conference adopted August 25, 2026, including the head-coach suspension, the half-budget fine and the loss of conference voting rights. It also restrains LSU itself from taking adverse action against the covered players, which matters if the school later comes under pressure from the conference or the association to bench them. This is a preliminary injunction rather than a temporary restraining order, so it is not measured in days and does not lapse on its own; it stands until the court or a reviewing court says otherwise. Counsel for the NCAA and the SEC said they would appeal, and the SEC has been reported as having done so. Two footnotes from the first day under the order: LSU did not immediately add Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris to its roster despite the ruling, and the SEC had already filed its own federal suit against LSU in Alabama hours earlier — its own card, below — which puts a state injunction and a requested federal injunction on a collision course. The first of those footnotes has now hardened into the most instructive fact in the case. Facing a Friday, September 4, 2026 deadline to submit an opening-day roster to the conference, LSU turned in 103 players against a 105-man limit and left Wright and Harris off it, leaving two spots deliberately open rather than filling them. Both men remain enrolled at LSU and can be added later; neither dressed for the September 5, 2026 opener against Clemson, and reporting notes that Harris had not practiced and Wright had practiced twice. Head coach Lane Kiffin said publicly that the decision "wasn't easy" and was made for the "big picture of LSU and the LSU football program" given the "uncertainties of what could come by adding them to the roster." Plaintiffs' counsel characterized it as a "measured decision to keep these two young men off the roster for now while preserving a path for them to be added later." Reporting states that LSU is holding those two spots while it awaits resolution of the SEC's appeal of this injunction and of the conference's federal suit in Alabama. So the school that won the order — and that the order also restrains from taking adverse action against these players — chose not to use it while the appellate and federal questions are open. That choice then became final for the fall. On September 8, 2026 — the day the SEC amended its Alabama suit and disclosed a vote on expelling LSU — the school left Wright and Harris off its fall roster and filled its 105-man roster with other players, and President Wade Rousse said LSU had complied with conference rules and called the issue moot. The SEC took expulsion off its agenda, and its September 10, 2026 meeting ended with no sanctions. Counsel for Wright and Harris said they are considering their legal options. The injunction itself has not been reported vacated, and on September 14, 2026 the SEC's first attempt to pause it failed. A three-judge panel of the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal — Judges Penzato, Lanier and Fields — denied the application for a stay and for supervisory writs filed by the SEC and Commissioner Sankey (No. 2026 CW 1195). The panel relied on Article 3612 of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, under which an appeal does not automatically suspend a preliminary injunction and the decision whether to suspend one rests in the trial court's discretion, and held that "[t]he relators have not shown an abuse of that discretion by the district court." Judge Jorden's injunction therefore remains in force and the district-court case continues. The application was brought by the conference and its commissioner; reporting does not describe a separate stay application by the NCAA. That breaks the run this page has been tracking: the Ohio First District, the Tenth Circuit, the Tennessee Court of Appeals and the Georgia Court of Appeals each granted the stay asked of them, and Louisiana's intermediate appellate court did not. The ruling addresses interim relief only, not the merits of the SEC's appeal, and reporting notes that it does not prevent the conference from seeking further review; no application to the Louisiana Supreme Court had been reported as of this update. Nor does it change the roster facts above: Wright and Harris remain off LSU's fall roster by the school's own choice.

Temporary restraining order (La. 19th Jud. Dist. Ct., E. Baton Rouge Parish, Aug. 19, 2026); amended temporary restraining order adding the SEC and Commissioner Sankey (Aug. 28, 2026); show-cause order directed to the SEC and the NCAA (Aug. 28, 2026); combined preliminary-injunction and show-cause hearing held Sept. 3, 2026 (bench ruling sustaining the SEC's exception of improper cumulation); preliminary injunction granted Sept. 3, 2026; application of the SEC and Commissioner Sankey for stay and supervisory writ denied, No. 2026 CW 1195 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. Sept. 14, 2026) (Penzato, Lanier & Fields, JJ.). District-court docket number could not be confirmed as of this update.
Why it matters to you: This is the order that does what Wisne could not: it puts eligible athletes into the portal. But read the fine print before anyone reorganizes a season around it. It is a temporary restraining order measured in days, it protects the named plaintiffs and not a nationwide class, and the portal window it opens is about a week wide. If you signed a professional contract, walking it back is a separate legal problem with real money attached — terminating the deal and returning earnings is a condition of competing, not an afterthought, and no court order makes that decision for you. Anyone in this posture needs counsel on the contract side and the eligibility side at the same time, and needs to know whether the TRO has been extended before they act on it. After the Tenth Circuit stayed the Wisne injunction on August 21, 2026, orders like this one are no longer a supplement to nationwide relief — for the athletes named in them they are the whole basis for playing. Note the gap in the calendar: the TRO was written to run about ten days from August 19, and the hearing is not until September 3. No public order extending it has surfaced — what is confirmed is that the court set the hearing and the SEC says it is still complying. Do not assume those dates meet on their own; ask counsel to confirm the order is still in force before you rely on it. The second gate has now been addressed, at least here. Between August 25 and August 27, 2026 all four power conferences barred athletes with professional experience from their member-school rosters, and for two days a court order against the NCAA did nothing about that — the penalties those conferences attached fall on the school, not on the athlete, which meant the school, not the court, was deciding whether to play you. The August 28 amended order changes that for the athletes named in this case: the SEC and its commissioner are now restrained parties, and the conference stated publicly on August 30 that it is complying while the order stands. Read that narrowly, and read the rest of the same statement. The SEC also said it is "prepared to contest" the case on Thursday and will "determine the appropriate next steps" after the ruling — meaning it is obeying the order, not accepting it. This protects these plaintiffs, against this conference, under this order, until the court says otherwise. It is not a ruling that conference eligibility rules are unlawful, and the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC are not parties to it. The question whether a conference may apply such a rule to an athlete holding a court order is still unresolved; two trial judges have now said not to these plaintiffs, and nothing above them has spoken. The date to watch is Thursday, September 3, 2026, and the stakes there went up: the judge has also ordered the SEC and the NCAA to show why their new penalties do not put them in contempt of his earlier order. That is a second question on top of whether the TRO becomes a preliminary injunction or lapses, and it is the first time in this litigation a court has asked whether the association and a conference have defied it. If your plan runs through a power-conference roster and you have any professional history at all, do not test it on your own — the answer depends on whether you are named in an order, and being similarly situated to someone who is does not count. One thing did get decided on September 3, and it cuts against most of the plaintiffs. If you are in this Louisiana case and you have no tie to an SEC school, you no longer have a claim against the SEC at all — seven of the roughly forty-plus plaintiffs do, and everyone else is now suing the NCAA alone. That matters because an order against the NCAA does not stop a conference from penalizing the school that plays you. This is the two-gate problem in its plainest form, and the court has just told most of these athletes they are through only the first gate. The rest of that hearing has now been decided, and it went the athletes' way. Late on September 3 the court converted the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. The practical difference is the one this page has been flagging all month: a preliminary injunction does not expire on a ten-day clock, so for the named plaintiffs the calendar problem is gone and the order stands until a court removes it. It also reaches all the way through the second gate for the SEC-connected plaintiffs — the conference cannot punish the school, the coach or the athletic director for playing them, and LSU cannot bench them to avoid trouble. Three cautions before anyone treats this as settled. It protects the roughly forty-three named plaintiffs, not a class, and the athletes with no SEC tie still have no claim against the conference after the cumulation ruling. An appeal is coming and has been reported as filed, so build in the possibility that this order is stayed the way Wisne was. And winning the order still did not get two of these players onto the field. Against a September 4, 2026 roster deadline LSU submitted 103 names for 105 spots and left Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris off it; neither played the opener the next day, and the school is holding those two spots open while the SEC's appeal and its Alabama federal suit are pending. That is the single most useful fact on this page for anyone in this posture. This order does not merely fail to compel a school to play you — it restrains LSU itself from taking adverse action against these very players, and LSU still kept them off the roster, because a school weighing an appeal it might lose will protect itself first. A court can forbid the conference from punishing your school; it cannot make your school play you, and the broadest order yet obtained in this litigation did not change that. Plan on the possibility that you win, remain enrolled, and still do not dress. The other thing to watch is the collision the SEC set up hours before the ruling by suing LSU in federal court in Alabama. If that judge grants the conference what it is asking for, LSU would be under a state order telling it that it may play these athletes and may not penalize them, and a federal order telling it that it may not. No one in that position should be making their own call about which order controls — that is a question for counsel, immediately, and it is now a live one rather than a hypothetical. It then resolved without a court. On September 8, 2026 LSU filled its fall roster without Wright and Harris and called the dispute moot, and the SEC dropped its expulsion vote two days later. As far as has been reported, the injunction remains in force, and it still did not put these two players on the field. For an athlete with professional history and a court order, that is now the documented outcome at the school that won the broadest order in this litigation, not a hypothetical risk. The September 14, 2026 appellate ruling runs the other way from everything else this page has reported on stays. Every other athlete order that went up on a stay request came back paused; this one came back intact. For the named plaintiffs, the order they hold is still the order that governs, and the SEC is still restrained from punishing a school that plays one of the SEC-connected plaintiffs. Keep it in proportion. It is a refusal to pause the injunction, not a ruling that the injunction is right — the appeal itself is still undecided, and the conference can still ask a higher court. And it did not move a single player onto the field: LSU had already filled its roster without Wright and Harris, and nothing in the ruling requires the school to revisit that. An order that survives a stay request is worth more than one that does not, but it is still only as useful as a school's willingness to act on it.
The Southeastern Conference v. LSU — a conference sues its own member
Hearing postponed — no ruling
N.D. Ala. (Judge Annemarie Carney Axon) · filed Sept. 3, 2026

Issue: Whether a conference has a First Amendment right of expressive association that lets it refuse to field competitions against former professional athletes a state court has declared eligible.

Where it stands: Just after midnight on September 3, 2026 — hours before the Baton Rouge hearing in Pyburn — the Southeastern Conference sued its own member institution in federal court in Alabama. The complaint names LSU, its Board of Supervisors, President Wade Rousse, athletics director Verge Ausberry and head football coach Lane Kiffin, and alleges that they waged what the conference calls a "deliberate and coordinated campaign" to recruit former professional football players for the 2026 season, including men who had signed contracts with the Cleveland Browns, the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The theory is not antitrust and not contract. It is the First Amendment right of expressive association: the conference argues it is a voluntary association with a constitutional right to decide what it stands for, and that LSU is forcing it to associate its competitions, its brand and its championships with conduct the membership has voted to reject. The SEC asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions barring LSU from violating that right and from deterring, coercing or punishing the conference for exercising it, plus a declaration vindicating its right to disassociate. The case was assigned to United States District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon in Birmingham. No ruling had issued as of this update. The timing is the point: later the same day Judge Jorden entered a preliminary injunction in Baton Rouge forbidding the SEC to penalize a member school for playing these very athletes, so the conference is now asking a federal judge for an order that would run directly against a state injunction already in force. The collision did not come. On September 8, 2026 the SEC amended its complaint to add members of the LSU Board of Supervisors and Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill as defendants, and moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring LSU from blocking a September 10 meeting of the conference's presidents and chancellors or otherwise interfering with the conference's asserted First Amendment rights. The filings disclosed that the purpose of that meeting was a vote on whether to expel LSU, which requires a two-thirds majority. The same day, LSU left Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris off its fall roster, and President Wade Rousse said the school had complied with conference rules and called the issue moot. The TRO hearing Judge Axon had set for September 9, 2026 was continued at the parties' request and postponed to a date to be determined, and the SEC removed expulsion from the meeting agenda. The September 10 videoconference ended with no sanctions against LSU; the conference said discussions "will continue" as it and its members "work toward an appropriate resolution." The case remains pending, and no ruling has issued.

The Southeastern Conference v. Louisiana State University (N.D. Ala., complaint filed Sept. 3, 2026); amended complaint adding members of the LSU Board of Supervisors and Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill as defendants, with motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (Sept. 8, 2026); TRO hearing set for Sept. 9, 2026 continued at the parties' request, no new date set. Docket number could not be confirmed as of this update.
Why it matters to you: This is the second gate turned into its own lawsuit, and it changes who the parties are. For a year the fight has been athletes against the NCAA, with conferences hovering as the entity that could quietly make a court win worthless. Now a conference has gone to court on its own behalf, against its own school, to establish that it can refuse to play against you no matter what any other court has said about your eligibility. Take two things from it. First, if your plan depends on a power-conference roster, the eligibility order you win against the NCAA is now one of at least three questions — the association, the conference, and whether your school will actually put you on the field — and they are being litigated in different courthouses under different bodies of law. Second, the constitutional framing is a real escalation. Antitrust arguments ask whether a rule is unreasonable; an expressive-association argument asks whether a conference has a right to the rule regardless of its competitive effect, and that is a much harder thing for an athlete to overcome. Nothing here has been decided, and the SEC has only asked so far. But if you are an athlete with professional history weighing an offer from an SEC school, this case — not just your own — now determines whether that offer is real. Ask your counsel where it stands before you sign, enroll or move. The September 8–10 sequence answered this card's question for now, and not through a court. The state-federal collision never reached a judge: the school stood down first, the federal hearing was postponed, and the expulsion vote was dropped. What settled whether these two players would play this fall was the pressure of a pending conference vote, not a ruling. Read that narrowly as well. Nothing here holds that a conference may lawfully exclude former professionals, the federal case is postponed rather than decided, and the conference says talks are continuing. But if you are counting on an eligibility order to carry you onto a power-conference roster, this is the documented case of a school holding that order and choosing not to use it.
Hudson v. NCAA — the Dallas order that reached a conference
TRO narrowed & extended Sept. 11
Dallas County district court, Tex. (Judge Martin Hoffman)

Issue: Whether a court can stop not only the NCAA but a conference and its commissioner from keeping class-of-2022 athletes with professional experience off a college roster.

Where it stands: On Thursday, August 27, 2026 — two days after the SEC and the Big Ten adopted rules barring athletes with professional experience, and the same day the ACC adopted its own — Dallas County District Judge Martin Hoffman entered a temporary restraining order for a group reported at forty-one athletes. The order names the NCAA, the Southeastern Conference and Commissioner Greg Sankey as restrained parties and bars all three from blocking the plaintiffs' return to college competition in 2026-27 on the basis of transfer-portal rules or time spent on a professional roster, and it directs that the transfer portal be opened for the covered athletes for one week. Reporting describes the order as running fourteen days, which is the default term for a Texas temporary restraining order, and states that the NCAA appeared at a hearing before it issued — so unlike the Arkansas and Texas orders of August 26, 2026 this one was not entered ex parte. Named plaintiffs identified in reporting include Dallas Cowboys receiver Jordan Hudson, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Wesley Bissainthe, Chiefs receiver Omari Evans, and two WNBA players, Christeen Iwuala and Bailey Maupin; three of the plaintiffs were on NFL rosters when the order issued. Reporting also describes the order as putting the burden on the other side: if the NCAA or the SEC wants to block a covered athlete's return, it must come back to Judge Hoffman and argue for it. This is the first order in the eligibility wave to restrain a conference rather than only the NCAA; Judge Jorden in Baton Rouge amended his own order to do the same thing the following day. On August 30, 2026 the SEC said publicly that it "will continue to comply with the Court's order" in the Louisiana case while contesting it at the September 3 hearing — an on-the-record position that supersedes the earlier secondhand reports of compliance this page carried, and one the conference has not separately stated as to this Dallas order. The order did not lapse. On Friday, September 11, 2026 — the day after the reported fourteen-day term would have run out — Judge Hoffman clarified, narrowed and extended the temporary restraining order, and continued the hearing on a temporary injunction rather than holding it. So the order survives, the case remains on a temporary footing, and the hearing that would convert it into something durable has moved to a date that has not been publicly reported. The word doing the most work in that entry is "narrowed": the docket records that the court cut back the order's scope, but the respect in which it was narrowed — whether it dropped plaintiffs, dropped the transfer-portal provision, or reduced what the SEC and Commissioner Sankey are restrained from doing — is not public. Nobody covered by this order should assume the version protecting them today is the version entered on August 27. IMPORTANT LIMITATION ON THIS ENTRY: the case caption is now reported as Hudson v. NCAA, which matches the lead plaintiff named in the August reporting, but the docket number and district court number still could not be verified from any public source at the time of this update, and neither the text of the September 11 order nor the new hearing date has been published. What appears here rests on the College Sports Litigation Tracker's docket entries together with multiple independent reputable reports (ESPN, NBC Sports and On3) that agree on the judge, the date, the defendants, the athlete count and the portal provision. Reporting also differs on the spelling of one lead plaintiff's name. Verify the current terms against the order itself before relying on it.

Hudson v. NCAA (Dallas Cnty. Dist. Ct., Tex.) (Judge Martin Hoffman); temporary restraining order (Aug. 27, 2026); order clarifying, narrowing and extending the temporary restraining order and continuing the temporary-injunction hearing (Sept. 11, 2026). Docket number could not be confirmed as of this update — see note below.
Why it matters to you: This is the order that answered the question the conference rules created. For two days an athlete could hold a valid court order against the NCAA and still have no conference that would let a school play them; this order, and the Louisiana amendment the next day, reach the conference and its commissioner directly. Three limits matter more than the headline. It is a temporary restraining order measured in days, not a season — the reported fourteen-day term runs out in the second week of September and the next hearing is the whole ballgame. It protects the people named in it: there is no class here, and forty-one names is forty-one people. And it binds the SEC, which was a party — it does not bind the Big Ten, the Big 12 or the ACC, which were not. If your roster spot is in one of those three conferences, this order does nothing for you, and you would need your own. The practical read is the same one this page has been giving all month, now with a second gate on it: ask not only whether a court will declare you eligible against the NCAA, but whether the order names every party who can keep you off the field — and get that confirmed from the order itself, not from a summary of it. The September 11, 2026 ruling makes that last sentence literal rather than rhetorical. The order did not expire the way this page warned it might; the judge extended it. But he also narrowed it, and the public record does not say how. If you are one of the forty-one athletes here, the question this week is not whether you are still covered in general — it is which paragraphs of the order still cover you. Get the amended order rather than a report about it, and have counsel read it against the roster, transfer and contract decisions you have already made in reliance on the August version. Note too what did not happen: the temporary-injunction hearing was continued, so the relief you are playing under is still temporary, still discretionary, and still has no date on which it becomes something sturdier.
The eligibility MDL — In re NCAA Age-Based Eligibility Rules
Argument Sept. 24 — still briefing
Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (NCAA seeks M.D. Tenn.)

Issue: Whether the scattered eligibility suits get centralized before one judge.

Where it stands: The NCAA moved August 1, 2026 to centralize the eligibility actions in the Middle District of Tennessee, where it says most named plaintiffs reside. The Panel docketed the motion as MDL No. 3198 and on August 5, 2026 set a briefing schedule: responses are due August 26, 2026 and the NCAA's reply September 2, 2026. Eight actions are named so far — Wisne, Morton, Fuller, Wiley, Zeigler, Pavia, Boyd and Patterson. Parties in Zeigler jointly moved to stay pending the Panel's decision, and the NCAA filed MDL notices in Patterson and Boyd in early August 2026. On August 14, 2026 the Panel set the motion for argument at its September 24, 2026 hearing session in Chicago — 9:30 a.m. Central, at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. On August 19, 2026 the NCAA identified Campbell, Evans and Lorient as additional potential tag-along actions, and on August 20, 2026 it added Deck, Edwards and James, so the pool the Panel could sweep in keeps growing while the motion sits. Responses to the motion were due August 26, 2026, and they do not line up the way the caption suggests. On August 26, 2026 counsel for the Wisne and Campbell plaintiffs filed responses opposing centralization, counsel for the Zeigler plaintiffs filed a response supporting it, and a pro se litigant, Jenna James, filed her own opposition. Counsel for the Fuller, Morton and Patterson plaintiffs filed further oppositions on August 27, 2026. So the athletes' side is split against itself: the plaintiffs behind the nationwide class action want to stay where they are, and at least one plaintiff group is asking to be gathered in with the rest. The NCAA's reply landed on schedule. On September 2, 2026 it filed its reply brief in support of centralization and, with it, a notice naming eight further related actions — Trotter, Ramirez, Tu'akoi, Braham, Martinson, Larry, Jimmori Robinson and Moore. That reply was meant to close briefing three weeks ahead of the hearing, and the pool the Panel could sweep in has roughly doubled from the eight actions named when the motion was filed. Notably, the notice reaches Moore — the successor class action filed in Colorado after the Tenth Circuit stayed Wisne — so the case built to replace the nationwide injunction is itself now a candidate for transfer out of the court that would hear it. Briefing did not stay closed. Having been named in that September 2 notice, the Moore plaintiffs filed their own response opposing centralization on September 8, 2026, so the newly added actions are answering for themselves and the Panel is still taking in oppositions two weeks before argument. The split on the athletes' side has widened with them: counsel for the Wisne, Campbell, Fuller, Morton and Patterson plaintiffs, and now the Moore plaintiffs, oppose centralization, while the Zeigler plaintiffs support it.

In re NCAA Age-Based Eligibility Rules Antitrust Litig., MDL No. 3198 (J.P.M.L.)
Why it matters to you: One judge could soon control the entire eligibility docket — including the fate of injunctions athletes have already won. Nothing is centralized yet, and now there is a date on it: the Panel does not hear the motion until September 24, 2026, so the split results below stay in force through the start of the season no matter how the Panel eventually rules. The Tenth Circuit's August 21, 2026 stay raises the stakes here rather than lowering them: with the nationwide class injunction paused, the eligibility docket is once again a scatter of individual state and federal orders — exactly the fragmentation the NCAA is asking the Panel to gather up in front of one judge. Note too that centralization is no longer a purely NCAA-versus-athletes question: at least one plaintiff group is asking for it as well. If you are weighing whether to file your own case, understand that it may not stay in the court you chose — and that the athletes already in this fight do not agree among themselves about whether that would be good or bad.
Borovicanin v. NCAA
Stayed — injunction paused on appeal
Hamilton County (Ohio) Court of Common Pleas (Judge Wagner)

Issue: Twenty-four basketball players excluded from a fifth season — pleaded as a state contract claim rather than antitrust.

Where it stands: Preliminary injunction entered July 9, 2026 barring the NCAA from enforcing Bylaw 12.6 and transfer-portal requirements against the plaintiffs, secured by a $200,000 bond. Judge Wagner then denied the NCAA's motion to stay his own injunction, writing that a stay was not warranted and that the NCAA "is subject to the results of its own decisions." The NCAA appealed to the Ohio First District Court of Appeals (No. C2600335) and filed its opening appellant brief on August 10, 2026, along with a reply pressing for a stay and for expedited briefing, argument and decision. On August 11, 2026 that court held it does have jurisdiction over the appeal — rejecting the threshold challenge that would have ended it — but deferred any decision on the stay. On August 17, 2026 the First District granted it, finding the NCAA had "presented a substantial case on the merits and have demonstrated irreparable harm." The July 9 injunction is therefore paused while the appeal proceeds. The athletes' appellee brief is due September 9, 2026 and an optional reply September 19, 2026; on August 19, 2026 the court set oral argument for September 22, 2026. Discovery continues below.

Borovicanin v. NCAA, No. A2603352 (Ohio Ct. Com. Pl. July 9, 2026), appeal docketed, No. C2600335 (Ohio Ct. App. 1st Dist.)
Why it matters to you: When this stay issued these twenty-four players still had a fallback — they fall inside the nationwide Wisne class, so their eligibility rested on that federal injunction instead. On August 21, 2026 the Tenth Circuit stayed that injunction too, and the fallback went away. Both of the orders that had them on the field are now paused at the same time. That is the lesson, and it is a hard one: a second, independent basis for relief is what keeps you playing when your own case gets stayed — but only for as long as the second one holds. It cuts the other way too. State contract theories have been winning at the trial level, and the appellate courts reviewing them are leaning toward the NCAA — the Tennessee Court of Appeals did the same thing nine days later in Washington, below.
Washington v. NCAA — the Tennessee nineteen
Stayed — injunction paused on appeal
Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tenn. (Judge I'Ashea Myles) · on appeal to the Tennessee Court of Appeals

Issue: Nineteen class-of-2022 basketball players seeking a fifth season — the second state-court group order to be stayed on appeal.

Where it stands: The complaint was filed July 6, 2026 by the Texas Trial Group on behalf of nineteen Division I basketball players from the high school class of 2022, led by Jalen Washington, who had played the prior season at Vanderbilt. On July 31, 2026 Judge I'Ashea Myles granted temporary injunctive relief, ordering that the NCAA recognize the plaintiffs as eligible for the 2026-27 season and not deny or impede their recruitment, transfer or certification on the basis of the challenged eligibility determination. That order did what many others did not — it reached recruitment and transfer, not just eligibility — and Washington used it, transferring to Tennessee in early August 2026. The NCAA appealed and moved for a stay. On August 26, 2026 the Tennessee Court of Appeals granted it, saying it had weighed the relevant factors and in particular the NCAA's likelihood of success on the merits. The July 31 injunction is therefore paused while the appeal proceeds, and the nineteen plaintiffs no longer have its benefit. Like the athletes in Borovicanin, these plaintiffs had a second basis for playing while the nationwide Wisne injunction was in force; the Tenth Circuit stayed that on August 21, 2026, five days before this one, so both supports were gone by the time this order issued. Merits briefing on the appeal has not been publicly calendared.

Washington v. NCAA (Tenn. Ch. Ct., Davidson Cnty.), order granting temporary injunctive relief (July 31, 2026); order staying injunction pending appeal (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 26, 2026). Chancery and appellate docket numbers could not be confirmed as of this update.
Why it matters to you: This is the third appellate stay in ten days — Ohio on August 17, the Tenth Circuit on August 21, Tennessee on August 26 — and the three together are the most important pattern on this page. Trial judges have been receptive to class-of-2022 athletes; appellate judges, so far, have not. If your season rests on a trial-court order that the NCAA has appealed, the realistic planning assumption is now that the order may not survive the appeal, and that it can be paused with no notice and no transition period. Two practical consequences. Ask your counsel where your case sits on that ladder before you enroll, sign or transfer in reliance on an order — a stay motion already filed is a warning, not background noise. And understand what a stay does to work already done: Washington had transferred schools on the strength of this injunction and is reported ineligible again with the season underway. Nothing about that is unusual any more.
Godfrey v. NCAA — the Georgia basketball group
Stayed — injunction paused on appeal
Superior Court of Cobb County, Ga. · on appeal to the Georgia Court of Appeals

Issue: Class-of-2022 Division I men's basketball players seeking a fifth season on the theory that the NCAA applied its eligibility rules arbitrarily to athletes caught between the old and new systems — the fourth athlete injunction to be stayed on appeal.

Where it stands: In early August 2026 a Cobb County, Georgia state judge granted an interlocutory injunction clearing a group of Division I men's basketball players to compete in 2026-27 and barring the NCAA from penalizing schools or coaches who roster them, on a finding that the NCAA applied its eligibility rules arbitrarily and inconsistently to athletes caught between the old and new systems. Plaintiffs identified in reporting include RJ Godfrey (Arizona), Chauncey Wiggins (Gonzaga), JaMichael Stillwell (Texas Tech), Dillon Hunter (Clemson) and Dan Skillings (Grand Canyon). Reporting put the group at sixteen when the injunction issued and at roughly thirty since; the current count could not be confirmed. The NCAA filed a notice of intent to appeal on August 18, 2026. On September 9, 2026 the Georgia Court of Appeals docketed the appeal and granted the NCAA's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal. The order gives no reasons. Reporting states that while the stay stands, the plaintiffs are ineligible to practice or compete. The stay does not reverse the injunction: the appeal on the merits continues, and it has not been calendared. Some of these players, Godfrey among them, were also members of the Wisne class, but the Tenth Circuit has stayed that injunction since August 21, 2026, so neither basis for their eligibility is currently in effect.

Godfrey v. NCAA (Ga. Super. Ct., Cobb Cnty.), interlocutory injunction (Aug. 2026); NCAA notice of intent to appeal (Aug. 18, 2026); appeal docketed and stay pending appeal granted (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2026). Trial and appellate docket numbers could not be confirmed as of this update.
Why it matters to you: This is the fourth appellate stay of an athlete injunction on this page — the Ohio First District on August 17, the Tenth Circuit on August 21, the Tennessee Court of Appeals on August 26, and now Georgia on September 9 — and it landed after these players had already committed to new schools. Each of the four appellate courts that has ruled on a stay request here has paused the athletes' order, and this one did so without giving a reason. If your eligibility rests on a trial-court order the NCAA has appealed, plan for the possibility that it is paused without notice, and ask your counsel what your fallback is before the stay motion is decided rather than after. A stay is not a loss on the merits, and this appeal is still live. But the season is being played while it is pending.
The appellate line — Fourqurean, Elad, Robinson & Blythe
Four circuits — NCAA winning
Seventh, Third, Fourth and Ninth Circuits

Issue: Whether athletes can preliminarily enjoin the five-year and JUCO eligibility rules — and what an athlete actually has to prove to get one.

Where it stands: Four federal circuits have now reversed or vacated athlete injunctions, and all four give the same two-part answer: eligibility rules are commercial and reachable under the Sherman Act, but an athlete must carry a real rule-of-reason burden with market evidence, not a "quick look." The Ninth Circuit joined that line on September 9, 2026 in Blythe v. NCAA, No. 26-1106, a published opinion by Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez, joined by District Judge David A. Ezra of the District of Hawaii sitting by designation, with Judge Mark J. Bennett concurring. The panel had already vacated the injunction by order on April 8, 2026; this opinion supplies the rationale, and the disposition is a single word: "VACATED." Two holdings matter. First, the Five-Year Rule is a commercial restraint subject to the Sherman Act — under Alston, non-compensation eligibility rules are not immune from antitrust scrutiny so long as they affect commerce. Judge Bennett concurred in the merits analysis and in vacatur but would not have reached that question at all. Second, and this is the half that decides cases, the panel held the district court erred in defining the relevant market as the "Division I collegiate baseball labor market" because it leaned on Alston and on other district courts' preliminary-injunction orders rather than on evidence. Alston's market, the panel wrote, was cabined to "athletic services in men's and women's Division I basketball and FBS football" and "in no way discussed college baseball or its markets." Quoting the Third and Fourth Circuits, the panel repeated that "[r]eliance on a previously accepted market, without inspection of current market realities, is antithetical to antitrust legal principles," and it adopted the Fourth Circuit's list of questions a proper market definition would have to answer: whether the market is all of college football or only Division I, whether Division II, Division III and junior-college programs are reasonable substitutes, how revenue sharing changes recruitment, and whether Division I teams compete with professional teams for players. Given what it called the "dearth of evidence of anticompetitive effects," the court held Blythe had not shown a likelihood of success. The same panel decided a companion case the same day. In Braham v. NCAA, Nos. 25-5040 and 25-5962, it dismissed the NCAA's consolidated appeals from two athlete injunctions as moot — the injunctions had expired and the players' collegiate careers were over, so no effective relief could be granted — and held the NCAA had not met its burden to invoke the exception for disputes capable of repetition yet evading review. It also rejected the NCAA's argument that the appeals stayed alive because the injunctions still barred Rule of Restitution enforcement against the nonparty schools the athletes had played for, holding that once the season ended those expired injunctions "do not extend indefinitely to nonparties who might be subject to a Rule of Restitution action by the NCAA." Having dismissed, the panel vacated both district courts' orders under the doctrine of Munsingwear vacatur. Blythe was in circulation within forty-eight hours: the Wisne plaintiffs filed a notice of supplemental authority putting it before the Tenth Circuit on September 11, 2026, the court in Ramirez and Tu'akoi ordered briefing on its impact on September 10, 2026, and the NCAA filed its own notice of supplemental authority in Helms on September 11, 2026. A Sixth Circuit appeal in Zeigler is still pending.

Fourqurean v. NCAA, 143 F.4th 859 (7th Cir. 2025); Elad v. NCAA, 160 F.4th 407 (3d Cir. 2025); Robinson v. NCAA, 172 F.4th 271 (4th Cir. 2026); Blythe v. NCAA, No. 26-1106 (9th Cir. Sept. 9, 2026) (published); Braham v. NCAA, Nos. 25-5040, 25-5962 (9th Cir. Sept. 9, 2026) (published)
Why it matters to you: The bar is higher than the early headlines suggested, and four circuits now say so in nearly the same words. An eligibility injunction needs an economist and a defined labor market, not just a sympathetic story — and after Blythe it needs a market defined for your sport, on your evidence. Citing Alston is no longer enough, because Alston was a basketball and FBS football case and courts are now saying so explicitly. If your sport is baseball, soccer or softball, that record has to be built from scratch. Two practical reads. First, this is the answer to why so many of the trial-court wins on this page keep getting stayed or vacated: the orders were granted on a thin record, and appellate courts are treating that as an abuse of discretion rather than a close call. Ask your counsel what market evidence is actually in your file before you count on an order surviving review. Second, Braham is a quieter warning, and it cuts against athletes and their schools rather than for them. Those two players finished their seasons and the NCAA's appeals were dismissed as moot — but the panel held that once the season ends, an expired injunction does not indefinitely shield the nonparty school you played for from a Rule of Restitution action, which is a narrower protection than schools have been assuming. Then it vacated both district-court orders under Munsingwear, so two athlete wins are erased as precedent even though the NCAA never beat them on the merits. Winning your own season, protecting the school that played you, and building law that helps the next athlete are three different things, and a preliminary injunction reliably accomplishes only the first.
Patterson v. NCAA & Zeigler v. NCAA
Denied below — briefing restarted
M.D. Tenn. (Chief Judge William L. Campbell, Jr.); E.D. Tenn. (Judge Katherine A. Crytzer) · Zeigler on appeal to the Sixth Circuit

Issue: Fifth-season claims under the four-seasons limit.

Where it stands: Patterson denied a preliminary injunction on January 15, 2026, holding the players showed harm to themselves but not to the market — and that the House cap and roster limits undercut their output theory. Plaintiffs filed renewed preliminary-injunction motions in July 2026 (Dkt. 107, 116), and on August 10, 2026 Chief Judge Campbell stayed the NCAA's deadline to respond to them pending further order, directing the parties to report on what the Tenth Circuit and the District of Colorado do in Wisne. The Tenth Circuit has now acted — it stayed the Wisne injunction on August 21, 2026 — so the event this court was waiting to hear about has happened, and it went the NCAA's way. The pause is now over: on September 8, 2026 the court restarted briefing on the renewed preliminary-injunction motions, so motions that had been frozen since August 10 are live again and will be decided on their own record rather than on whatever the Tenth Circuit does next. The discovery around them has turned contentious — the same day, the University of South Carolina and the University of Texas at Austin each filed new actions seeking to quash subpoenas the plaintiffs had served on them, which puts two non-party member schools in court over what they must hand over about how eligibility decisions actually get made. A third followed on September 9, 2026, when Texas A&M filed its own action to quash. Three member schools are now separately resisting the same discovery. Zeigler denied relief June 12, 2025; the appeal is pending, and on August 4, 2026 the Zeigler plaintiffs filed an amended complaint while the parties jointly moved to stay pending the MDL decision. On August 26, 2026 Zeigler's counsel went further and filed a brief supporting the NCAA's motion to centralize the eligibility cases — a plaintiff group affirmatively asking to be gathered in with the rest.

Patterson v. NCAA, No. 3:25-cv-00994 (M.D. Tenn. Jan. 15, 2026); order staying response deadline (Aug. 10, 2026) (Dkt. 129); order restarting preliminary-injunction briefing (Sept. 8, 2026); Zeigler v. NCAA, No. 3:25-cv-00226 (E.D. Tenn. June 12, 2025)
Why it matters to you: Same rule, opposite results depending on the court and the evidence — and other courts openly hit pause to wait on Wisne before ruling. That wait is over, and the answer they got was a stay in the NCAA's favor. If your claim sits in one of those paused cases, your season just turned on a Tenth Circuit docket you were never a party to. That is the argument for having your own case and your own record, not for waiting on someone else's. The September 8, 2026 restart is the practical version of that point — this court stopped waiting, and the athletes who kept their own motions alive now get a ruling on their own evidence. Watch the subpoena fight alongside it: when plaintiffs start subpoenaing member schools rather than only the NCAA, the record stops being about what the bylaw says and starts being about how it was applied to particular athletes.
The rest of the eligibility docket
70+ suits and counting
Federal and state courts nationwide

Issue: Individual and class challenges to the five-year rule, the JUCO-counting rule, and the new age-based model.

Where it stands: Results are split and moving weekly. Injunctions have issued in Blythe (Feb. 20, 2026), Kromah and Ondekane (July 1, 2026), and in Washington (July 31, 2026), which now has its own card above after the Tennessee Court of Appeals stayed it on August 26, 2026; in Godfrey, a Cobb County, Georgia state judge granted an interlocutory injunction in early August 2026 clearing sixteen Division I men's basketball players — including former Clemson and Georgia forward RJ Godfrey, former UCF forward Jamichael Stillwell and former Georgia Tech guard Lamar Washington — to compete in 2026-27 and barring the NCAA from penalizing schools or coaches who roster them, on a finding that the NCAA applied its eligibility rules arbitrarily and inconsistently to athletes caught between the old and new systems; Godfrey signed with Arizona, and the NCAA filed a notice of intent to appeal that injunction on August 18, 2026, and on September 9, 2026 the Georgia Court of Appeals stayed it pending appeal — it now has its own card above; in Poteat, a Pennsylvania state court had ordered the NCAA to decide a junior-college waiver by noon on August 3, 2026, the NCAA let that deadline pass, and on August 14, 2026 the court modified its injunction to order that the player be allowed to compete in 2026-27 — he committed to a new school days later; TROs and injunctions have been denied elsewhere, including Cruz, which was transferred to the Northern District of California in early August 2026 where the new judge denied an ex parte TRO and set a briefing schedule; the NCAA filed its opposition there August 9, 2026, and on August 11, 2026 the court stayed the case after both sides agreed a stay was warranted because Cruz falls inside the Wisne class. New complaints continue to be filed. Lorient was filed August 3, 2026. In Evans, an NC State defensive lineman denied a waiver sued August 7, 2026 in the Eastern District of North Carolina on Sherman Act, third-party-beneficiary and good-faith theories, and on August 10, 2026 Judge Louise W. Flanagan granted a temporary restraining order without notice and without bond, ordering the NCAA to treat him as immediately eligible for fourteen days through August 24, 2026 unless extended, with an administrative conference August 18 to set the preliminary-injunction schedule; the NCAA has since named Evans as a potential tag-along in the MDL petition. Briefing also continues in Morton and Larry, where plaintiffs filed notice of the Wisne ruling as supplemental authority. On August 12, 2026 a group of class-of-2022 athletes across basketball, football and baseball — including Missouri forward Mark Mitchell and two Louisville football players — sued the NCAA in Jefferson Circuit Court in Kentucky (Judge Brian C. Edwards), aiming squarely at the gap Wisne left open: they ask not only for a fifth season but for an order barring the NCAA from keeping them off any Division I roster because they never entered the transfer portal, and for the portal to be opened for them through August 18, 2026. A hearing set for August 13 was moved to August 14, 2026, when Judge Edwards heard roughly an hour of argument. He declined to grant immediate temporary relief opening the portal, and instead gave both sides until Tuesday, August 18, 2026 to file supplemental written argument, saying he expects to rule by the end of that week. The NCAA argued the Kentucky court should not reach the dispute at all because these athletes are already covered by the Colorado federal injunction; plaintiffs answered that their claims sound in contract rather than antitrust and that the Wisne relief is not enough to get them onto a roster. Supplemental briefing closed August 18, 2026 — the very date through which these athletes had asked to have the portal opened, which passed with no order. Judge Edwards then ruled on Friday, August 21, 2026, hours after the Tenth Circuit stayed Wisne: he granted a temporary restraining order for Mark Mitchell and twelve other athletes and ordered the transfer portal opened for them for one week, to roughly August 28, 2026. Mitchell, who had signed with the Denver Nuggets after his college eligibility expired, entered the portal the same day. The NCAA had argued the Kentucky court should not reach the dispute because these athletes were already covered by the Colorado federal injunction; that argument lost most of its force the morning the Tenth Circuit paused that injunction. Three more actions surfaced in the same stretch: an athlete sued August 18, 2026 in the Eastern District of New York (Edwards v. NCAA, No. 26-cv-05047) seeking 2026-27 eligibility, and on August 19, 2026 that court ordered the NCAA to show cause why an injunction should not issue and set a briefing schedule; on August 20, 2026 plaintiff Pearce dismissed a California filing and refiled in the District of Colorado with co-plaintiff Moore (No. 1:26-cv-03837); and on August 20, 2026 the plaintiff in Tettamble noticed a hearing on his TRO and preliminary-injunction motion in St. Louis Circuit Court in Missouri. The first business day after the Tenth Circuit stay produced two refusals of emergency relief. On August 24, 2026, in Koonin v. NCAA, No. ESX-C-000201-26 — a contract case filed August 14, 2026 — the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex County (Judge Cynthia D. Santomauro) dismissed every plaintiff except Jacob Koonin for lack of personal jurisdiction, denied Koonin's application for temporary restraints, and granted an order to show cause on a preliminary injunction with expedited briefing. The same day, in Deck v. NCAA, No. 26-cv-02765 (N.D. Tex.) — filed August 18, 2026 by a former SMU women's basketball player who had been covered by the Wisne class and was then told SMU would not keep her on its roster while the portal was closed — the court denied an ex parte temporary restraining order, ordered service on the NCAA and SMU, and set a preliminary-injunction briefing schedule. Neither is a merits ruling, but both declined to act on an emergency footing. Cruz went the other way: on August 22, 2026, with the Wisne injunction stayed, the court granted the plaintiff's motion to reinstate the preliminary-injunction motion that had been shelved on the premise that he was already covered by the class, set a reply deadline, and said it would consider the motion on an expedited basis. Ramirez v. NCAA, an antitrust challenge to a waiver denial filed August 21, 2026 with a TRO and preliminary-injunction motion, is running against a game clock: the court has indicated it intends to rule before Idaho State's opening game on August 29, 2026, and on August 24, 2026 it entered an order confirming that intention, setting the NCAA's response deadline and a preliminary-injunction briefing schedule. The following two days cut both ways. On August 26, 2026 the Eastern District of New York denied the motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in Edwards, with leave to amend — the show-cause order entered a week earlier did not produce relief. The same day, two state courts granted ex parte restraining orders. In Wooden v. NCAA, No. 72CV-26-4118, filed that morning in the Circuit Court of Washington County, Arkansas, Judge Doug Martin granted an ex parte temporary restraining order to a group of class-of-2022 athletes led by former Auburn safety Caleb Wooden, who pleaded state-law theories rather than antitrust — unconscionable and discriminatory conduct contrary to Arkansas public policy, breach of the NCAA bylaws as third-party beneficiaries, promissory estoppel and tortious interference — and sought protection against the Rule of Restitution. The court found a reasonable probability of success resting in part on the athletes' reliance on the now-stayed nationwide Wisne injunction, which is a theory the stay created rather than foreclosed. In Warren v. NCAA, No. 26-002488-CV-272 (272nd Judicial District Court, Brazos County, Texas), Judge John Brick granted an ex parte temporary restraining order at 9:45 a.m. ordering the NCAA to declare Texas A&M guard Bryson Warren eligible to play at Texas A&M or any other member institution in 2026-27, barring enforcement of the Rule of Restitution against Warren or the school, and setting a hearing for September 4, 2026; Warren had spent three seasons in the NBA G League and had his waiver denied the week before. In Evans, the Eastern District of North Carolina is reported to have extended the August 10 restraining order past its original August 24 expiry through August 29, 2026, covering NC State's opener, with preliminary-injunction briefing running into September. Overhanging all of it: on August 25, 2026 the SEC and the Big Ten each barred athletes with professional experience from their member-school rosters, which reaches athletes holding court orders — Warren's G League seasons put him squarely inside the SEC rule the day after he won his TRO. The last two days of August produced more denials than grants. On August 27, 2026 the NCAA moved to stay the Kromah preliminary injunction pending appeal, filed opposition briefs against the preliminary-injunction motions in Evans and in Dalley, and the Trotter plaintiffs filed a renewed preliminary-injunction motion. On August 28, 2026 the court in Cruz — which had reinstated the motion a week earlier once the Wisne stay removed the premise for shelving it — denied the preliminary injunction outright; the court in Fuller heard argument and denied a renewed temporary restraining order from the bench; and in Pavia the court let plaintiff Jaden Mosley dismiss himself without prejudice and ordered the remaining plaintiffs to answer the NCAA's contentions that some of them are eligible under the new rule anyway and that others have already used up the eligibility the new rule allows. Relief did issue in two matters that day: the court in McQuaide granted a preliminary injunction against the Patriot League — notable because the restrained party is a conference, not the NCAA — and in the newly filed Tu'akoi case the court granted the plaintiff's motion and consolidated briefing and argument on the Tu'akoi and Ramirez preliminary-injunction motions on a set schedule. That consolidation is worth noting on its own terms: Ramirez was the case in which the court had said it intended to rule before Idaho State's August 29, 2026 opener, and the schedule it actually entered pushes the decision past that game. New filings also kept coming — amended complaints with preliminary-injunction and class-certification motions in Moore, an amended complaint plus an expedited briefing schedule and hearing on an emergency temporary restraining order in James, and a hearing set in Steen. The last day of August and the first day of September kept the split going in both directions. On August 31, 2026 the court in Boyd denied the NCAA's motion to dismiss the amended complaint, letting that case proceed; the plaintiff in Webb amended his petition to add the University of Missouri as a defendant and moved for a temporary restraining order; the NCAA filed responses opposing the preliminary-injunction motions in Ramirez, Tu'akoi and Iwuchukwu; the NCAA filed a clarifying notice in Morton about the scope of the House settlement bar; two plaintiffs dismissed themselves from Moore; and a court granted a temporary restraining order in Tice and Monroe and set a preliminary-injunction hearing. On September 1, 2026 a court granted a temporary restraining order in Tettamble; the court in Dalley signaled that an order denying the preliminary injunction would issue within ten days; the parties in Wooden stipulated to move the preliminary-injunction hearing back a week and extend the restraining order with it; the court in Jimmori Robinson granted the NCAA's motion to dismiss in part, knocking out the per se antitrust theory while leaving the rest of the case alive; the Lorient plaintiffs amended to add two plaintiffs and moved for a preliminary injunction; the Trotter plaintiffs filed their reply in support of a preliminary injunction; and a new action, Helms, was filed with a temporary restraining order and preliminary-injunction motion attached. Note the caption trap in that list: Jimmori Robinson is a trial-court eligibility case and has nothing to do with Robinson v. NCAA, No. 25-2003, the Fourth Circuit appeal the NCAA won on the appellate card above. The week of September 4 through 8, 2026 added four more cases and held the same split. Three drew immediate relief. Daley, filed September 4, 2026 on contract theories for four-year athletes out of the high-school class of 2022, drew a temporary restraining order the day it was filed. Sane, filed the same day and aimed at the NCAA's professional-league rule on contract grounds, drew a restraining order and a preliminary-injunction hearing date. And in Pratt, filed September 4, 2026 on the same class-of-2022 theory, the parties did something no other case on this card has produced: they stipulated. The court entered their agreement temporarily allowing Pratt to compete during 2026-27 while the preliminary-injunction motion is briefed, and the plaintiff filed a further memorandum in support on September 8, 2026. Council refiled in New York on September 8, 2026 — a contract challenge to the junior-college counting rule, with a restraining-order motion and an order to show cause. The NCAA pushed back harder elsewhere: it filed a response opposing the restraining-order and preliminary-injunction motions in Helms on September 8, 2026, having been given a briefing schedule there on September 3; and in James the court held a hearing on September 8, 2026 and took the matter under advisement, allowing the NCAA to file a surreply. Two matters came off the emergency track altogether. In Evans the court decided on September 4, 2026 to rule on the preliminary-injunction motion on the papers and dispensed with the hearing it had set, so that decision is pending with no argument to come. In Bewley the court set a date for the parties to report on the status of settlement talks — the first settlement posture to surface anywhere in this docket. One case left the docket entirely: on September 8, 2026 the Koonin plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, ending the New Jersey action that had already lost every plaintiff but one on personal jurisdiction. The source for this stretch of docket movement is the College Sports Litigation Tracker, which does not identify the court for most of these entries; the courts are therefore not restated here. September 9, 2026 closed out three matters on this card. In Trotter v. NCAA, No. 3:26-cv-523 (S.D. W. Va.), Judge Robert C. Chambers issued the written opinion and order denying the preliminary injunction he had announced from the bench on September 2. The plaintiffs are fourteen class-of-2022 athletes from Marshall University and Ohio University, in football, baseball, soccer, tennis, women's basketball, softball, cross-country and track, who sought to compete in 2026-27. In Evans — the NC State defensive lineman whose preliminary-injunction motion was to be decided on the papers — the court entered an order tentatively dismissing the case after the NCAA told it the parties had reached a settlement allowing Evans to play. Reporting describes the resolution as the NCAA granting the waiver it had denied on July 24, 2026, which clears him for the rest of the season. And in Gayle, the NCAA filed its opposition to the preliminary-injunction motion ahead of the hearing set for September 17, 2026. Separately, the Georgia group order in Godfrey was stayed on appeal the same day and now has its own card above. That same September 9 brought NCAA oppositions to the preliminary-injunction motions in Wooden, Council and Pratt, a new action by Texas A&M to quash a plaintiffs' subpoena in Patterson, and a notice in Baylor University v. Boston University that those parties had settled. Two matters drew relief that day. The court in Kaufman-Renn granted a temporary restraining order giving provisional eligibility while the preliminary-injunction motion remains pending. And in Harris the court split the group, granting temporary restraining relief to Harris, Mahdi, Hall, Moon and Ma'afu, denying it to the remaining nine plaintiffs, and setting a preliminary-injunction hearing. A new appellate front opened in South Carolina, where the NCAA filed notice that it will appeal the temporary injunction granted to Tristan Smith to the South Carolina Court of Appeals — a fifth appellate court asked to review an athlete order. The next two days ran the same way. Ogbole filed on September 9, 2026 with a motion for an order to show cause, and on September 10 the court issued that show-cause order without granting the requested restraining order and set a hearing on interim relief. The NCAA moved to dismiss Elliott for failure to state a claim; the plaintiffs filed a reply in support of their restraining-order motion in Helms; the NCAA filed a surreply in James rebutting the plaintiff's expert declaration; and the hearing in Tettamble was rescheduled. September 11, 2026 produced a denial and a new filing: the court in Steen issued an opinion and order denying the motion for temporary and preliminary injunction, Aberdeen filed a complaint and a motion for a temporary injunction, and the NCAA filed its opposition to the preliminary-injunction motion in Tice. Running underneath all of it is the Ninth Circuit's September 9 decision in Blythe, which reached these dockets immediately — the court in Ramirez and Tu'akoi ordered briefing on September 10, 2026 on what Blythe means for those cases, and the NCAA filed a notice of supplemental authority in Helms on September 11, 2026. The source for this stretch of docket movement is again the College Sports Litigation Tracker, which does not identify the court for most of these entries; the courts are therefore not restated here. The next stretch produced the most durable individual order on this card. On September 14, 2026, in Wooden v. NCAA, No. 72CV-26-4118, Washington County Circuit Judge Doug Martin issued an opinion and order granting a preliminary injunction to Arkansas football players Caleb Wooden and Sean Williams, following the hearing the parties had moved to September 9 by stipulation. The injunction bars the NCAA from enforcing against them Bylaw 12.6 — the age-based rule adopted this summer, which extends a fifth season to the high-school class of 2023 and later but not to the class of 2022 — and from enforcing the Rule of Restitution. The court found a reasonable probability of success on the players' claim as third-party beneficiaries and found the NCAA's eligibility framework inconsistent with the fairness commitments the association makes. It also gave legal weight to the athletes' reliance on the now-stayed Wisne injunction, writing that "[t]he court cannot treat the period from July 31 through August 21 as though it did not occur." Wooden and Williams had played in Arkansas's season opener under the August 26 restraining order. No appeal had been reported as of this update. Also in that stretch, the Fuller plaintiff filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction on September 11, 2026, after the court denied a renewed restraining order from the bench on August 28.

Representative: Blythe (D. Nev.), Kromah, Ondekane, Washington, Campbell (N.D. Ill.), Cruz, Lorient, Morton, Larry, Coly (N.D. Ind.), Hasz (D. Neb.), Hamilton (E.D. La.), Martinson (D. Nev.), Boyd (M.D. Tenn.), Godfrey v. NCAA (Cobb Cnty., Ga. Super. Ct.) (stayed pending appeal Sept. 9, 2026; own card above), Evans v. NCAA, No. 5:26-cv-00552 (E.D.N.C.) (tentatively dismissed on settlement Sept. 9, 2026), Poteat v. NCAA, No. 260702939 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl.), Mitchell v. NCAA (Jefferson Cir. Ct., Ky.), Edwards v. NCAA, No. 26-cv-05047 (E.D.N.Y.), Tettamble v. NCAA (St. Louis Cir. Ct., Mo.), Koonin v. NCAA, No. ESX-C-000201-26 (N.J. Super. Ct., Essex Cnty.) (voluntarily dismissed Sept. 8, 2026), Deck v. NCAA, No. 26-cv-02765 (N.D. Tex.), Wooden v. NCAA, No. 72CV-26-4118 (Ark. Cir. Ct., Washington Cnty.) (prelim. inj. granted Sept. 14, 2026), Warren v. NCAA, No. 26-002488-CV-272 (Tex. Dist. Ct., Brazos Cnty.), Gayle v. NCAA (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Niagara Cnty.) (Justice Frank A. Sedita III), Tockery v. NCAA, No. CJ-2026-1542 (Cleveland Cnty. Dist. Ct., Okla.) (Judge Thad Balkman), Pearce v. NCAA, Index No. 72314/2026 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Westchester Cnty.) (Justice Charles D. Wood), Fely v. NCAA, Helms v. NCAA, Braham v. NCAA, Ramirez v. NCAA, Tu'akoi v. NCAA, Trotter v. NCAA, No. 3:26-cv-523 (S.D. W. Va.) (prelim. inj. denied Sept. 9, 2026), McQuaide v. NCAA, Dalley v. NCAA, Steen v. NCAA, James v. NCAA, Fuller v. NCAA, Wiley v. NCAA, Pavia v. NCAA, Webb v. NCAA, Iwuchukwu v. NCAA, Tice v. NCAA, Monroe v. NCAA, Helms v. NCAA, Jimmori Robinson v. NCAA (not the Fourth Circuit Robinson appeal above), Sane v. NCAA, Pratt v. NCAA, Daley v. NCAA, Council v. NCAA, Bewley v. NCAA
Why it matters to you: The courthouse is now a real option if your season depends on a waiver — and Evans shows a judge will move in days when practice, medical care and meals are on the line. But short-fuse relief is exactly that: a fourteen-day order is a chance to be heard, not a season. The Kentucky suit is the tell on where this is heading: winning eligibility and being able to use it are now two separate fights, and athletes who did not enter the portal in the spring are having to sue a second time for a place to play. It is also a caution about speed — that judge took the emergency request under submission rather than granting it, set another round of briefing, and the portal date the athletes asked for arrived with nothing entered. He did rule, in their favor, three days later; the point is that the date they planned around was not the date they got. Poteat is the other half of that lesson: that athlete won because his court was willing to go back and enforce its own order when the NCAA let a deadline lapse. Do not build a fall plan around relief a court has not actually entered. After the Tenth Circuit stayed Wisne on August 21, 2026, this card stopped being the overflow file and became the main event: with no nationwide injunction, an individual order in your own case is the only thing that puts you on a roster, and plaintiffs' counsel has said more state-court applications are already being prepared. Expect the map to be a patchwork all season — and note that most of what is on it is measured in days, not months. Watch one second-order effect: cases that courts had parked because the plaintiff was already covered by the Wisne class are now being un-parked, with plaintiffs moving to revive the injunction motions they had shelved. If your case was stayed on that reasoning, that stay has lost its premise, and the move is to say so on the docket rather than wait. The August 24, 2026 rulings add two cautions. Courts are no longer handing out same-day relief just because the class injunction is gone — both Koonin and Deck were sent off to brief a preliminary injunction instead — so plan in weeks, not hours. And Koonin is a reminder that where you file matters: a single suit gathering athletes from many states lost every plaintiff but one on personal jurisdiction before any court reached the merits. Weigh any of it against the NCAA's Rule of Restitution, which can claw back results if an injunction is later vacated — and note that the newest orders, in Wooden and Warren, were drafted to enjoin that bylaw by name, which is what a well-built application now looks like. The August 26 orders carry two further lessons. State-law theories are outperforming antitrust in state court: Wooden won on contract, estoppel and public-policy grounds without pleading the Sherman Act at all, and the reliance athletes placed on the stayed Wisne injunction is being used as a reason to grant relief rather than deny it. But winning is no longer the last step. The SEC and Big Ten rules adopted August 25, 2026 mean an athlete can hold a valid court order against the NCAA and still have no conference that will let a school play them — Warren won his order on August 26 and was reported facing exactly that problem the same day. Before you spend money on an emergency application, ask the question in the right order: not only whether a court will declare me eligible, but whether there is a roster, in a conference, that can actually use me if it does. The August 27 and 28 rulings sharpen both halves of that. On the first half, the trial-court welcome is cooling: Cruz lost its preliminary injunction, Fuller lost a renewed restraining order from the bench, Edwards lost with leave to amend, and in Pavia the court is now asking plaintiffs to show they still need relief at all. A stayed nationwide injunction did not turn every individual case into a winner. On the second half, the answer improved: McQuaide drew an injunction against the Patriot League, and the Dallas and Baton Rouge orders reached the SEC — conferences are now defendants, not just bystanders with a veto. And take the Ramirez schedule as the standing lesson on timing. A court saying it intends to rule before your game is not the same as a ruling before your game; that one consolidated into a briefing schedule and the opener came first. Do not commit a season, a transfer or a contract to a date a court has mentioned but not ordered. The newest filing shows how little professional history it now takes to be caught by these rules. On August 31, 2026 former Ohio State and Michigan guard Roddy Gayle Jr. — a class-of-2022 athlete, enrolled at Michigan and practicing with the team — sued the NCAA and its president, Charlie Baker, in Niagara County Supreme Court in New York, asking for a temporary restraining order signed immediately and without a hearing. What disqualified him was a Summer League contract that paid him $1,700, with no professional regular-season game ever played; his argument is that had the NCAA applied its new rule to the class of 2022 the way it applied it to the class of 2023, he would never have signed that deal at all. Two practical lessons. First, professional experience as these rules are written can mean a single summer contract worth less than a semester of books — if you have any professional contact at all in your history, do not assume it is too small to matter, and tell your counsel about it before someone else finds it. Second, look at what he asked the court to order: not only that the NCAA stop declaring him ineligible, but that it stop interfering with Michigan's decision to play him and stop punishing the school, its coaches and his teammates for following the order. That is the second gate this page keeps describing, now built into the prayer for relief from the first day of the case. The caption and index number of that filing could not be confirmed as of this update. One ruling from the first of September is worth more than its size suggests. In Jimmori Robinson the court threw out the per se antitrust theory but kept the rest of the case, which is the pattern the eligibility docket keeps producing: courts are not willing to call these rules automatically unlawful, but they are willing to let athletes prove they are unreasonable. If your counsel is drafting, that is an argument for pleading the rule-of-reason case properly rather than leading with per se and hoping. And watch the September calendar rather than the August one — Wooden's hearing moved a week by stipulation and its restraining order moved with it, Dalley has been told a denial is coming, and Boyd survived a motion to dismiss. None of that is a season; it is a docket that will keep turning over every few days while games are being played. The first week of September bears that out, and it splits cleanly in two. On the winning side: Roddy Gayle Jr. got his order. On September 2, 2026 Justice Frank A. Sedita III of Niagara County Supreme Court granted him a temporary restraining order barring the NCAA from declaring him ineligible under the five-year rule, barring it from penalizing him or any school that plays him under the "ghost transfer" rule or the Rule of Restitution, and protecting his NIL agreements and endorsement contracts from adverse action based on his eligibility status — with a preliminary-injunction hearing set for September 17, 2026. That answers the question this card raised when he filed: he asked for relief against the second gate as well as the first, and he got it. Two brand-new cases won the same week. In Tockery v. NCAA, No. CJ-2026-1542, Judge Thad Balkman of the Cleveland County District Court in Oklahoma granted an ex parte temporary restraining order on September 3, 2026 for eight class-of-2022 athletes. In Pearce v. NCAA, Index No. 72314/2026, filed September 2, 2026, Justice Charles D. Wood of Westchester County Supreme Court entered an order to show cause and a temporary restraining order the next day. Fely, Tice, Monroe and Tettamble also drew restraining orders on September 1, and Webb went further — on September 2 the court denied the NCAA's motion to dismiss and added the University of Missouri to the existing order, so the school itself is now covered rather than left to decide on its own. On the losing side: Trotter's preliminary injunction was denied on September 2, 2026, with the opinion to follow. The pattern from late August holds — trial courts are still granting short-fuse relief case by case, but a stayed nationwide injunction has not made anyone a favorite. One procedural development is worth more than a single order. In Campbell, the District of Colorado granted a joint motion on September 2, 2026 to postpone briefing on the preliminary-injunction and class-certification motions until the Tenth Circuit resolves the Wisne appeal. That is the opposite of the un-parking trend this card described in August, and it is a real fork: some plaintiffs are reviving shelved injunction motions now, and others are agreeing to wait for the appeal that will likely govern them anyway. Which is right depends entirely on whether your athlete can afford to miss this season while the Tenth Circuit rules — under the expedited schedule in Wisne the appellees' brief was filed September 8, 2026 and the reply is due September 11, 2026, so that court has the case fully briefed this week. If waiting costs a season, waiting is not a neutral procedural choice, and it should not be made by stipulation without the athlete understanding what is being traded. The first full week of September adds one genuinely new option to weigh. In Pratt the parties stipulated that the athlete could compete during 2026-27 while his preliminary-injunction motion is briefed — relief by agreement rather than by order. If your counsel can negotiate that, it is worth more than a fourteen-day restraining order, because it removes the cliff edge the rest of this card keeps warning about. Ask for it before you spend the money on an emergency application. And note the two matters that slowed down rather than sped up: Evans will be decided on the papers with no hearing at all, and Bewley is reporting on settlement talks. Neither is a loss, but both mean the athlete waits — so ask your counsel what happens to your season if the ruling lands in October rather than this week. Evans then answered that question in the best available way: the case never reached a ruling, because the NCAA granted the waiver and the suit came down. A lawsuit that ends in the waiver the athlete asked for in the first place is a complete result, and a negotiated resolution is worth raising with your counsel before a judge decides the motion on the papers. Trotter is the other outcome — a full written opinion against fourteen athletes across eight sports, issued the same day a state appeals court stayed the Georgia group order. Plan for either. The newest appellate decision changes what a good application looks like, and it matters more than any single trial-court order on this card. After Blythe, borrowing the market definition from Alston — or from another district judge who borrowed it from Alston — is an identified error rather than a shortcut. If your sport is not Division I basketball or FBS football, the market has to be built for your sport on your own evidence, and courts are now asking whether Division II, Division III and junior-college programs are substitutes and whether revenue sharing has changed the answer. Ask your counsel whether there is an expert in your file. If there is not, the order you win is the kind that gets vacated. The same week supplies the counterweight, and it is not nothing: courts are still granting short relief every few days, Kaufman-Renn drew a restraining order that expressly provides provisional eligibility while the motion is briefed, and Pratt still has relief by stipulation. But look hardest at Harris, because it is the most honest picture of this docket right now — one order, fourteen plaintiffs, five protected and nine not. Being in the caption is not the same as being in the order. Before you plan a season around a filing, ask which plaintiffs the court actually covered, and confirm in writing that you are one of them. Wooden is this week's lesson on durability. A restraining order runs out; a preliminary injunction that names the Rule of Restitution does not, and while it stands it takes away the NCAA's after-the-fact remedy against the school that plays you. That is the strongest form of individual relief on this card right now — for two named players, in one Arkansas courtroom, and still open to appeal. It is also the clearest written endorsement yet of the reliance argument: a court has now said, in a preliminary-injunction ruling, that the three weeks the Wisne injunction was in force created commitments it will not pretend away. If you changed schools, signed or enrolled between July 31 and August 21, 2026 because of that injunction, tell your counsel exactly what you did and when.

Are Athletes Employees?

The structural question no settlement has answered — and the one that would change taxes, workers' compensation, and every revenue-share contract in the country.

Johnson v. NCAA
Pending on remand
E.D. Pa. (Judge John Padova), on remand from the Third Circuit

Issue: Whether Division I athletes can be employees entitled to minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Where it stands: The Third Circuit held on July 11, 2024 that athletes are not categorically barred from employee status and set a four-part economic-realities test, then remanded. The case remains pending in the district court.

Johnson v. NCAA, 108 F.4th 163 (3d Cir. 2024)
Why it matters to you: If athletes are employees, everything downstream changes — withholding, workers' compensation, immigration status for international athletes, and the structure of every school contract you sign.

Civil Rights, Health & The State Attorneys General

Cases outside the compensation fight that still reshape NCAA authority — and, in the health cases, carry the association's largest single verdicts.

Gaines v. NCAA
Narrowed — targeted discovery
N.D. Ga. (Judge Tiffany R. Johnson)

Issue: Title IX and related claims over the NCAA's former transgender-participation policy.

Where it stands: Most claims were dismissed September 25, 2025. A narrow Title IX claim survived and is in targeted discovery on whether the NCAA is a recipient of federal financial assistance. Plaintiffs point to the Supreme Court's June 30, 2026 decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J.

Gaines v. NCAA (N.D. Ga.), order of Sept. 25, 2025
Why it matters to you: The federal-funding question is the hinge for whether the NCAA can be sued under Title IX at all — which reaches far beyond this case.
Concussion & CTE litigation
Active — $140M verdict in 2026
N.D. Ill. (MDL) and state courts nationwide

Issue: Failure to warn about and protect against the long-term effects of repetitive head trauma.

Where it stands: Hundreds of personal-injury and wrongful-death suits remain pending, with cases continuing to consolidate into the MDL. In Davis a Dallas County jury awarded $30 million compensatory damages on April 27, 2026 and $110 million punitive damages on May 4, 2026.

In re NCAA Student-Athlete Concussion Injury Litig. (N.D. Ill.); Davis v. NCAA (Dallas Cnty., Tex. 2026)
Why it matters to you: The NCAA's largest financial exposure outside the compensation cases, and a live issue for families of former athletes.
Tennessee v. NCAA & Ohio v. NCAA
Injunctions in force
E.D. Tenn.; N.D. W. Va.

Issue: The ban on discussing NIL during recruiting, and the year-in-residence penalty on multi-time transfers.

Where it stands: In Tennessee — joined by New York, Florida, Virginia and the District of Columbia — the preliminary injunction was made permanent by consent judgment approved March 21, 2025. The NCAA may not enforce its NIL-recruiting ban and must publish proposed NIL rules at least 30 days before any vote for five years. In Ohio, brought by seven states, the court enjoined the multi-transfer eligibility rule and sharply criticized the NCAA's Rule of Restitution.

Tennessee v. NCAA (E.D. Tenn.), consent judgment approved Mar. 21, 2025; Ohio v. NCAA (N.D. W. Va. 2024)
Why it matters to you: These are why you can talk real NIL numbers during recruiting and why a second transfer no longer costs you a year. They are settled law — use them.

Case statuses change weekly — injunctions are granted, stayed, and vacated on days-long timelines, and the eligibility docket alone runs to more than seventy separate suits, of which the cases above are the significant and representative ones. This is an educational summary of publicly available court records, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for checking the docket in your own case before you act.

NIL law moves fast. These summaries are educational and are not legal advice. State-level summaries are current as of September 14, 2026; the NCAA and federal layer was updated September 14, 2026 and the litigation section September 15, 2026. Rules cited here change frequently and many remain subject to the pending litigation above. Confirm the current rule before acting on it, or ask us. Attorney advertising.

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