Film Room: Court Decisions on Eligibility Challenges and Another Data Lawsuit

In this week’s Film Room, we provide updates regarding:

• court decisions on eligibility rule challenges
• a data privacy lawsuit filed against SeatGeek

Courts continue to return varying decisions on challenges to the membership’s eligibility rules.

Last week, a federal district court in Tennessee denied an application to enjoin certain eligibility rules by plaintiff Derrin Boyd, a men’s basketball student-athlete. Boyd attended a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) institution for several years and argued that the inclusion of NAIA time in the membership’s “five-year” rule violated the antitrust laws. Rejecting Boyd’s request, the court noted how the facts here differed from those in the Pavia case, which was decided by the same Tennessee federal court (and judge):

“The major differences are: (1) Boyd has exhausted both the four years of intercollegiate competition and the five-year period of eligibility, whereas Pavia had one year remaining on the eligibility clock; (2) Boyd challenges the ‘counting’ of his years of attendance and competition at Georgetown College, a four-year degree granting institution that is a member of the NAIA whereas Pavia challenged the ‘counting’ of his years of competition at New Mexico Military Academy, a two-year junior college from which he could not earn a four-year degree; (3) Boyd challenges the Bylaw allowing waiver of the time-limits to eligibility; Pavia did not challenge that Bylaw.” (at 11)

Also last week, a federal court in West Virginia granted several football student-athletes’ request for a preliminary injunction enjoining the application of the five-year rule to the plaintiff student-athletes who had previously attended junior college institutions.

The varying court decisions on eligibility rules add weight to calls for a legislative response. Relatedly, time flies, and it’s been over a month since President Trump’s Executive Order regarding college sports, which included a direction to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission that action be taken in connection with “Legal Protections for College Athletics from Lawsuits” within 60 days of the order. We’ll keep you posted.

Data privacy lawsuit targets SeatGeek

On August 22, a plaintiff initiated a class action lawsuit against SeatGeek, alleging that the popular ticket secondary market platform violated data privacy laws. In the complaint, the plaintiff argues that SeatGeek violated California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA)’s “trap and trace” provisions by installing trackers that provided user personal information to third parties without obtaining consent.

[View source.]