NCAA Must Face a Pair of Antitrust Class Action Lawsuits Over Volunteer Coach Compensation

In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge William Shubb in Sacramento ruled Thursday that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) must face a pair of class actions filed in California federal court claiming a curbing in compensation for thousands of volunteer coaches violated federal antitrust law.

According to Reuters, the lawsuits had been filed in November and March by two prospective classes of volunteer coaches in baseball and in other sports — including soccer, swimming, and track and field — for the period between 2019 and 2023. According to the lawsuits, each class seeks damages of more than $5 million.

The complaints had alleged that the NCAA and its member schools had conspired to fix compensation for Division I volunteer coaches at zero, based on an NCAA bylaw that has since been withdrawn. The volunteer coaches are challenging what they depict as the NCAA’s ‘$0 salary cap’ policy. Until a bylaw change that took effect this month, the NCAA had limited the number of assistant coaches a school can hire while allowing for a ‘volunteer coach’ position.

Read the source article at CPI