Defendant(s)

National Collegiate Athletic Association

Law(s)

State(s)

California

A proposed class action alleges the NCAA and its member schools have suppressed competition in the labor market for college coaching services by conspiring to fix the wages of Division I volunteer coaches at zero.

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The 15-page antitrust lawsuit claims the NCAA and its member schools agreed to bylaws that restrict Division I institutions to a limited number of paid coaches in each sport yet allow the schools to hire one or more additional coaches for no pay. The NCAA bylaws, which are a binding agreement among the association’s 1,100 member schools, refer to these unpaid workers as “volunteer coaches,” the suit relays.

The case adds that football and basketball programs exempt from these rules.

Although the NCAA and member schools voted in January 2023 to eliminate the volunteer designation across Division I and include those coaches within a new limit for countable coaches in each applicable sport beginning on July 1, the past economic damages suffered by volunteer coaches nevertheless remain, the case contends.

According to the filing, these unpaid coaches perform all or many of the same duties as the paid coaches and frequently work more than 40 hours per week, including weekends, early mornings and late nights. The alleged price-fixing agreement not only denies volunteer...

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