NCAA Sues Ohio Gov. DeWine Over Athlete Eligibility Order

The NCAA filed a federal lawsuit against Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday, escalating an unprecedented constitutional clash over who controls college athlete eligibility in the era of name, image and likeness compensation.

NCAA President Charlie Baker announced the legal action three days after DeWine signed an executive order granting an extra year of competition to athletes who entered college as part of the class of 2022. The 41-page complaint seeks both injunctive and declaratory relief, arguing the governor’s directive violates the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause by artificially advantaging Ohio-based programs in national recruiting, infringes on First Amendment protections governing voluntary association rules, and exceeds DeWine’s statutory executive authority under Ohio state law.

At the center of the dispute is the NCAA’s June adoption of a “five-for-five” eligibility framework. The policy allows athletes to compete in five seasons within a five-year window, effectively eliminating the traditional redshirt year that previously permitted players to sit out one season without losing eligibility. Crucially, the NCAA restricted the new model to incoming classes from 2023 onward, leaving athletes who enrolled in 2022 bound by the older four-seasons-in-five-years standard.

DeWine’s order attempts to close that gap specifically for athletes at Ohio universities. The mandate directly impacts 13 Division I programs in the state, including major athletic departments such as Ohio State, Cincinnati and Xavier.

The filing arrives amid a fractured national landscape of eligibility litigation. On Oct. 14, Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey and Missouri head coach Dennis Gates testified before the Kentucky Court of Appeals in support of North Carolina transfer Seth Trimble and Duke transfer Mark Mitchell, both seeking judicial intervention for additional playing time. One week prior, an Ohio appellate court reversed a lower-court ruling that had granted fifth seasons to several players, including Xavier forward Filip Borovicanin, who is named as a plaintiff in the NCAA’s new lawsuit against the governor.

Athletic directors outside Ohio have openly criticized the governing body’s handling of the transition. Tennessee athletic director Danny White called the situation “comical” in a post on X, accusing the NCAA of mismanaging the rule change, abandoning the high school class of 2022 and casting affected athletes as villains rather than correcting the oversight. White questioned whether the organization’s posture represents incompetence or calculated theater designed to demonstrate to Congress why the NCAA requires a formal antitrust exemption.

That skepticism reflects broader anxiety across college sports. Since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston dismantled longstanding restrictions on education-related benefits, the NCAA has faced continuous antitrust pressure. The organization recently agreed to terms in the House v. NCAA settlement, which establishes a revenue-sharing model and formally permits schools to compensate athletes directly. Within that shifting legal environment, any single state unilaterally altering eligibility standards threatens to destabilize conference scheduling, roster management and competitive balance nationwide.

Unlike the temporary restraining orders frequently issued by individual federal judges in recent player-eligibility cases — a mechanism that allowed hundreds of transfers to play immediately during the 2024 and 2025 seasons — an executive order from a sitting governor represents a structural challenge to the NCAA’s regulatory monopoly that cannot be resolved through standard waiver processes.

The urgency of the litigation is driven by the calendar. The 2026-27 college basketball season begins Nov. 1, when Notre Dame faces Villanova in Rome, Italy, leaving federal courts little time to determine whether Ohio rosters will include athletes the NCAA considers ineligible.