Pavia v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n: Antitrust Considerations in the NIL Era of College Sports

Alex Smith

This past fall, the Vanderbilt Commodores football team finished their season with a 10-3 record, earning a spot in College Football’s Top 25 and consideration for the NCAA’s new College Football Playoff tournament.[1] One of the team’s biggest contributors was quarterback Diego Pavia.[2] Pavia finished second in Heisman Trophy voting, college football’s biggest individual honor.[3]

Since 2021, NCAA College Football has become increasingly commercialized.[4] As financial considerations and repercussions of each decision become more pronounced, so does the opportunity for litigation and creation of a new body of law. In October 2025, the Sixth Circuit dismissed the defendant’s appeal in Pavia v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n.[5]

NCAA bylaws state that college athletes are limited to no more than four seasons in one sport.[6] The NCAA also allows for a “red-shirt” year,[7] as well as a blanket COVID-19 waiver for all athletes during the 2020 season.[8] Pavia began his football career at New Mexico Military Institute (“NMMI”), a two-year junior college, during the 2020 season.[9] Pavia played two seasons at NMMI, using only one year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 waiver, before transferring to New Mexico State University, a Division I program.[10] He spent two seasons at NMSU, using another two years of eligibility, before transferring again, to Vanderbilt. In his first season at Vanderbilt, Pavia led the team to their best record in years.[11] According to NCAA bylaws at the time, Pavia had used his fourth and final year of eligibility and was unable to compete in the 2025 season.[12]

Nowadays, an extra year of Division I eligibility is much more than an additional season of competition. With the introduction of NIL, in addition to the national media coverage, Pavia’s exclusion from the 2025 season would cost him both millions of dollars in compensation as well as professional football opportunities.[13] Barring Pavia from the 2025 season would also prevent him from competing for the Heisman Trophy.[14]

In 2024, Pavia sued the NCAA alleging that by counting his junior college (JUCO) season under his four-year limit, the NCAA violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.[15] Pavia’s suit included requests for injunctive relief that would deem him eligible for the 2025 and 2026 seasons, a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction for the 2025 season specifically, and a preliminary injunction to prevent the NCAA from punishing Vanderbilt after the 2025 season.[16] The Middle District of Tennessee U.S. District Court granted Pavia’s requested injunctions and the NCAA appealed.[17] Ultimately, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed the NCAA’s appeal as moot.[18]

Whereas the majority opinion focuses on the issues of the preliminary injunction and remedial mootness, the two concurrences, written by Judge Thapar and Hermandorfer, address the anti-trust consideration of the JUCO Rule.[19]

The Sherman Antitrust Act provides that “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.”[20] Antitrust law defines market foreclosure as a denial of access or limitation of access on an organization or group to either suppliers or buyers of a good or service.[21] In the context of this case, the plaintiff-appellee argues that the NCAA has unlawfully restrained labor competitions in the college football market by limiting the playing careers of student-athletes from junior colleges.[22] The effects of career limitation have become exacerbated with the introduction of NIL deals. This presents an antitrust issue that has yet to be addressed by the courts.[23]

Judge Hermandorfer notes in her concurrence the viability of Pavia’s antitrust claim.[24] The JUCO Rule’s anticompetitive effects on the labor market will need to be scrutinized to determine if the NCAA will face antitrust liability.[25] Further legal considerations will include the NCAA’s justification behind the rule, other less restrictive means, and the rules context within the larger market of NCAA’s governance on the eligibility of college athletes.[26] Pavia v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n is likely just one of many cases that will attempt to define the new landscape of college sports in the NIL era.

[1] Vanderbilt Commodores Schedule 2025, ESPN, https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/238/vanderbilt-commodores [https://perma.cc/FT24-534U] (last visited Jan. 21, 2026).

[2] Diego Pavia Finishes Second in Heisman Voting, Vanderbilt Commodores Official Athletic Site, https://vucommodores.com/diego-pavia-finishes-second-in-heisman-voting/ [https://perma.cc/FT24-534U] (Dec, 13, 2025).

[3] Id.

[4] See Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69 (2021); Murphy v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, No. 16-476, 584 U.S. 453 (2018); Complaint for Declaratory Judgement, Pac-12 Conference v. Mountain West Conference, No.: 4:24-cv-6685 (N.D. Cal., Sep. 24, 2024).

[5] Pavia v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, No. 24-6153, 2025 WL 2787816 (6th Cir. Oct. 1, 2025).

[6] Bylaw 12.8 Certification of Eligibility, NCAA (Jul. 1, 2025), https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/search/bylawView?id=144924#result [https://perma.cc/3TRF-3NHH].

[7] Redshirt, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(college_sports) (last visited Jan. 29, 2026) A redshirt is a delay of a college athlete’s participation in a sport to extend their eligibility for another season.

[8] Pavia, 2025 WL 2787816 at *3.

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] See Id. at *2; Vanderbilt Commodores Schedule 2024, ESPN, https://www.espn.com/college-football/team/schedule/_/id/238/season/2024 [https://perma.cc/G34M-EVUG] (last visited Jan. 29, 2026) (Vanderbilt finished the 2024 season with a 7-6 record and became bowl eligible for the first time since 2018).

[12] Pavia, 2025 WL 2787816 at *3.

[13] See Id. (stating that Pavia expected to make more than a million dollars in 2025 from NIL endorsements).

[14] Id.

[15] Id. at 4.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Id. at 9.

[19] See Id. at 10 (Thapar, J., concurring); at 16-17 (Hermandorfer, J., concurring).

[20] 15 U.S.C. §1.

[21] See Pavia, 2025 WL 2787816 at 17 (Hermandorfer, J., concurring) (describing the exclusion of former JUCO athletes from playing four seasons at Division I schools as market foreclosure).

[22] Id.

[23] Id. at 20.

[24] Id. at 17-18.

[25] Id. at 17.

[26] Id.