Plaintiffs who file antitrust complaints against the NCAA have compelled the organization to rest sportsmanship laws from Ed O’Bannon to Shawne Alston to the lawyers general of Virginia and Tennessee.
Rylan Masterton may soon be added to the list of people who demand NCAA measures. If that happens, the 19-year-old Ontario hockey player may have Braxton Whitehead, a 20-year-old on the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, and Arizona State University to bless.
Whitehead, ESPN reports, has made a verbal commitment to meet ASU’s Division I software next month despite the fact that a recent NCAA legislation renders big junior hockey players unsuitable. The action comes in the wake of Masterton becoming the most recent antitrust lawsuit to target the NCAA.
As Sportico detailed, Masterson sued the NCAA and 10 universities in a New York federal court last month over a “boycott” of Canadian Hockey League players. He anticipates that his case will be classed as a result. The defenseman is ineligible to play NCAA D-I hockey because he participated in two exhibition games for the Windsor Spitfires, a division of the OHL, in 2022, which earned him a professional athlete in the eyes of the NCAA.
Masterson’s basic argument is the defendants, which as competing businesses can run afoul of antitrust laws in limiting how they compete—including for payers—have unlawfully conspired to exclude CHL players.
Given that the NCAA permits former professional hockey players on European teams to play D-I hockey and allows college athletes to sign lucrative, professional-like NIL deals, that policy denies players of educational and athletic opportunities and is arguably hypocritical. The policy effectively compels teenager hockey players to make difficult choices, such as whether they want to preserve their ability to play D-I hockey years later or to give up valuable experience to improve their skills. Additionally, since D-I hockey would be bolstered by the infusion of more talented players, consumers and hockey fans are arguably harmed.
The NCAA’s decision to settle the legal dispute between Whitehead and ASU is high on the agenda prior to Whitehead’s enrollment at ASU’s fall of 2025. Both Whitehead and ASU are” confident those restrictions will be lifted before he joins the Sun Devils in 2025,” according to ESPN.
Antitrust class actions, as shown in O’Bannon and Alston, can take nearly a decade to resolve. The NCAA would need to win a motion to dismiss, which Masterston would then appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in order for the litigation to be settled by the fall. Alternately, the parties could reach a settlement in which case the NCAA will repeal the bylaw and pay Masterson and possibly other players who have suffered harm as a result.
This will be the first of many, according to attorney and retired hockey player Jonathan Calla, who has been preparing for the CHL with players who are prepared to pursue NCAA hockey opportunities and with NCAA programs who are eager to recruit elite level players from the CHL.
Prior to joining Northeastern University, Calla, a director at Goulston &, Storrs in Boston and an outside general counsel for Winners Alliance and the Professional Women’s Hockey League, tallied 103 points for the Cowichan Valley Capitals in the British Columbia Hockey League in 1994-95.
” The expansion of the player pool ( that is, the Elite Young Player Services Market ) will make NCAA Hockey more competitive”, Calla said, “resulting in more NHL-ready players from the NCAA”.