10th Circuit reverses fifth-season order for Division I athletes

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Nov. 6 reversed a preliminary injunction that had required the NCAA to let a class of Division I athletes compete for a fifth season. The court found the athletes’ proposed antitrust market, covering all Division I sports nationwide, lacked evidentiary support. The injunction had already been stayed while the appeal was pending, so the ruling did not newly lift an order that was then in effect.

The case, Wisne v. NCAA, concerns athletes who began their college athletic careers in the 2022–23 academic year and competed for four consecutive seasons. The named plaintiffs entered college in 2022 and completed their fourth season during the 2025–26 academic year. The case began in Colorado’s federal district court.

The rule change did not apply to this class i

Before the NCAA changed its rule in June 2026, Division I athletes generally could compete for four seasons within five years. The new rule generally allows eligible athletes up to five seasons within five years. The NCAA did not apply the change retroactively to athletes who had already used four seasons under the old rule.

The plaintiffs challenged that decision not to extend the new rule to them, arguing that it restrained trade in a labor market for Division I athletes. They were not asking the court in this case to invalidate the new rule for all athletes. The injunction issued by the district court would have required the NCAA to allow the plaintiffs and certified class to compete for a fifth season.

What does the reversal mean for athletes in the class? The injunction no longer requires the NCAA to grant them a fifth season. But it was already stayed during the appeal, so the Nov. 6 ruling did not newly change an active order. The decision also does not resolve eligibility claims in separate state-court cases.

The court ruled on the proposed market, not the full antitrust case i

The appeals court focused on how the plaintiffs defined the labor market. It reasoned that athletes seek positions on teams in their own sports, rather than treating positions in other sports as reasonably good substitutes. The NCAA had argued that the proposed market treated athletes in different sports and across genders as interchangeable. In district court, the NCAA also argued that retroactive eligibility could disrupt rosters and athletes’ expectations; those were the NCAA’s arguments, not findings by the appeals court.

To illustrate its analysis, the opinion cited 366 Division I universities, including 265 with football teams and 63 with women’s gymnastics programs. The court’s finding was that the proposed market encompassing all Division I athletics lacked evidentiary support; the program counts were examples in that analysis.

The court did not decide whether the NCAA’s policy had anticompetitive effects, whether the NCAA had a procompetitive rationale, or whether less anticompetitive alternatives were available. The appeal was limited to the preliminary injunction. The class-certification order and the plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract and declaratory-judgment claims were not before the appellate court.

The Associated Press reported that about 200 state cases involving as many as 850 athletes remained unresolved. The 10th Circuit’s ruling does not determine their outcomes.