The latest antitrust lawsuit to hit the NCAA comes from a group of more than 1,000 current and former volunteer coaches at the Division I level who claim to be victims of a wage-fixing conspiracy.
What the plaintiffs allege is an illegal $0 salary cap was lifted on July 1, but that hasn’t stopped them from seeking monetary damages and class action certification. The volunteer Division I coaches argue that they are employees performing unpaid labor similar to other paid coaches, such as technical instruction, strategy, and recruiting that total over 40 hours a week.
The coaches’ attorneys pointed to a case from 25 years ago, Law v. NCAA, where an NCAA rule capping a group of basketball coaches’ salaries at $16,000 was deemed to be illegal wage-fixing under antitrust law. As a result, the NCAA and its members were ordered to pay $54.5 million in damages.
“Here, [the] NCAA fixed these coaches’ wages not at $16,000, but even lower, at $0,” wrote Michael Lieberman of Fairmark Partners, one of the lawyers for the coaches.
On the other hand, the NCAA contends that volunteer coaches cannot calculate their financial losses because there’s no way to know whether they would have otherwise been hired as paid coaches.
“In order to show that they lost money and were injured as a result of NCAA bylaws limiting the number of paid coaches, each plaintiff must show that the Division I institution they volunteered for would have hired an additional paid coach in the sport they coach if the bylaws did not exist,” the NCAA wrote. “Plaintiffs have not alleged those facts.”
The NCAA listed several paid alternatives to volunteer Division I coaching, such as Division II, Division III, high school, or the minor leagues. But Lieberman countered that number of coaches willing to work for free at the Division I level just goes to show that it’s “a separate market from high school or the like.”
The two sides are slated to present their arguments at a July 24 hearing with presiding judge William Shubb, who will decide whether to deny the NCAA’s motion to dismiss filed last month. The lawsuit was filed in a California federal court in March, with former Fresno State volunteer wrestling coach Joseph Colon acting as the lead plaintiff.
The NCAA approved its policy change regarding the volunteer coaching designation back in January. Whereas combined swimming and diving programs could previously employ a maximum of nine coaches — a head swimming coach, head diving coach, four assistants, two volunteer swimming coaches, and a volunteer diving coach — they now have a limit of eight, though all can now be paid as opposed to just six in the past.
Colon v. NCAA is the latest legal challenge threatening the NCAA since successful lawsuits from Ed O’Bannon and Shawne Alston deemed the organization subject to ordinary antitrust scrutiny. Johnson v. NCAA, which is currently being reviewed by the Third Circuit, is also seeking employee status for college athletes. Another lawsuit, House v. NCAA, is looking for NIL backpay and broadcast revenue sharing totaling more than $1 billion.
The NCAA has tried to convince Congress to enact legislation defining college athletes as non-employees, but even with former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker now leading the organization, that appears to be an unlikely escape route.
Attorneys just need more money
Dumbest thing I’ve heard… you volunteer and then complain you didn’t get paid.
’bout time
volunteer; plural noun: volunteers
a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
I mean it’s kind of in the title, right?