Following the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee’s grant of a preliminary injunction in the recent case filed against the NCAA, captioned Tennessee and Virginia v. NCAA, the NCAA has decided to halt investigations into third-party involvement in name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation deals with Division I college athletes. In granting the injunction, the Court opined that the NCAA’s rules prevent athletes from “obtaining full, fair market value for [their NIL] rights,” and opined that such restrictions were “anticompetitive.”[1]

While the NCAA maintains certain policies regarding NIL compensation, such as prohibiting schools from directly paying athletes or tying compensation to athletic performance, it has opted to pause investigations involving third-party participation, or groups that are commonly known as NIL collectives.[2]