CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey applauds the decision by a West Virginia federal court judge to order a temporary restraining order against the NCAA.
The federal court ruling came out Wednesday morning and granted a temporary restraining order against the NCAA, barring the association from enforcing its transfer rule and will be in effect for 14 days.
"This order paves the way for student-athletes, like RaeQuan Battle, to play in the sport they love and continue improving themselves,” Morrisey said. “We are looking forward to proving definitively that the NCAA has violated the Sherman Act by failing to maintain a consistent and defensible transfer rule and by denying these student-athletes the chance to play.”
Morrisey has been working with a bipartisan coalition of seven states, and sued the NCAA, challenging its transfer eligibility rule.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of the NCAA’s decision to deny Battle a transfer waiver so he can play basketball for West Virginia University.
Battle testified in support of the temporary restraining order at the hearing early Wednesday.
Morrisey said restraining transfers by hundreds of student-athletes each year violates the antitrust laws by depriving them of the chance to pursue the athletic and educational opportunities of their choice.
Those missed opportunities are often tied to name, image and likeness agreements that in turn provide substantial commercial benefits to athletes at Division I institutions like West Virginia University.
Morrisey's lawsuit was filed Dec. 7 in federal court in Clarksburg, and alleges the NCAA rule violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
“The NCAA’s transfer policy, for far too long, has been flawed," Morrisey said in a press release about the filing last week. "The Association has failed to maintain a consistent and defensible transfer rule."
In October, the NCAA denied Battle’s waiver for immediate eligibility, which he needed because he's already transferred as an undergraduate student-athlete. The 6-foot-5 wing played two seasons at Washington before moving to Montana State for two more seasons. Battle, Morrisey, interim WVU basketball coach Josh Eilert and other college basketball followers – including ESPN analyst Jay Bilas – have pushed for the NCAA to allow Battle to play for the Mountaineers.
The attorneys general contends the NCAA’s transfer rule “artificially deters players and teams from achieving optimal matches by forcing college athletes to weigh the one-year ineligibility period against the benefits of moving to a better matched school. It is ironic that this rule, stylized as promoting the welfare of college athletes, strips them of the agency and opportunity to optimize their own welfare as they see fit," also noting “the connection between the rule and academic well-being or athletic amateurism is tenuous at best and is outweighed by the harm it does to college athletes and consumers of college athletics.”
"This agreement plainly violates the Sherman Act," the AGs state in their complaint. "The fact that it was created under the auspices of the NCAA does not shield it from antitrust scrutiny. In contrast to college athletes, students with academic or music scholarships can freely transfer to institutions without facing similar restraints on their ability to practice their craft.
"Likewise, coaches and administrators face no comparable barriers. The Transfer Eligibility Rule requires a year of academic residency before a transferring Division I college athlete is eligible to participate in NCAA athletic competition. Underscoring its anticompetitive nature, the rule is not universally applied. A college athlete’s first transfer is excepted from this process, and there is a discretionary waiver process. But the rule remains the default for Division I college athletes who transfer a second time."
The AGs argue that the NCAA rule is anti-competitive and an unlawful barrier for certain athletes and schools to compete against each other.
"States bring this action to put a stop to defendant’s unjustified overreach into the lives and careers of college athletes, to prevent the unjustified anticompetitive restriction on universities who seek to compete for college athletes, and to restore freedom of economic opportunity," the complaint states.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 1:23-cv-100