Tennis player sues NCAA over prize money taboo

The NCAA is being sued again over rules that restrict the earnings of college athletes, this time over prize money won by college athletes at outside sporting events like the US Open in tennis.

Reese Brantmeier, a top women’s tennis player at North Carolina, filed the federal suit Monday in North Carolina. She is seeking class-action status and wants the court to strike down the rules that prevent athletes from accepting prize money from such events.

“This lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s arbitrary and anticompetitive Prize Money restrictions, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief so that studentathletes competing in Individual Sports may finally retain full and just compensation for Prize Money earned through their athletic performance outside of NCAA competitions,” the lawsuit states.

Her complaint details how she had to forfeit most of her $48,913 in prize money from the US Open in 2021 because of an NCAA rule that cracks down on such prize money earned before and during college. She was even forced to sit out of NCAA competition in the fall of 2022 because the NCAA challenged some of the expenses she submitted for her participation in that same event.

Why is prize money taboo?

To boost her case now, her complaint points out how the NCAA’s restriction of prize money in these cases appears to be arbitrary and unfair in light of other NCAA rules that now allow athletes to receive money for their names, images and likenesses (NIL).

The NCAA even allows money to be paid to Olympic athletes in college under the Operation Gold program.

Yet “prize money” is still taboo because the NCAA wants to preserve its notion of “amateurism.”

In her case, NCAA rules restricted what she could earn before enrolling in college, allowing her to accept no more than $10,000 in prize money on a total annual basis for all tennis competitions during 2021, when she was in high school, as well as reimbursement for undefined expenses associated with such competitions.

After college enrollment, the lawsuit notes the NCAA prohibits student-athletes from accepting prize money earned for their athletic performances except to cover “actual and necessary expenses.”

Similarly, another North Carolina tennis player, Fiona Crawley, also couldn’t accept about $81,000 in prize money from the US Open last year without losing her eligibility to play tennis in college.

“While Brantmeier’s Prize Money pales in comparison to the pay-for-play amounts received by many studentathletes in profit generating sports, these amounts are even more critical to athletes in non-revenue, Individual Sports where professional opportunities to earn compensation after college may be fleeting and where the highest and most-prestigious levels of competition are open to student-athletes,” the lawsuit states.

Part of a larger legal movement versus the NCAA

The NCAA has faced a torrent of legal challenges in recent years that continue to threaten its viability as the governing body of college sports.

Many of the challenges, like this one, essentially say that rules that restrict player compensation and mobility are arbitrary, unfair and illegal under antitrust laws.

This lawsuit seeks an injunction to restrain the NCAA from enforcing ”unlawful and anticompetitive rules that restrict the ability of student-athletes, before or during their collegiate careers, to accept Prize Money in connection with non-NCAA competitions.”

“We’re solely seeking to invalidate the NCAA prize money rule without demanding monetary damages,” Joel Lulla, an attorney on the case, told USA TODAY Sports.

The NCAA didn’t return a message seeking comment.

Brantmeier, a sophomore, suffered a knee injury earlier this year and is out for the season.