Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—E.D. Mich.: Court follows Chalmers reasoning and tosses decades-old claims of former student-athletes against the NCAA, (Sep 29, 2025)

By Justin Marcus Smith, J.D.

The court found former University of Michigan football players Denard Robinson, Braylon Edwards, Michael Martin, and Shawn Crable slept on their rights.

National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) control over the NIL (name, image, likeness) rights of former University of Michigan athletes over the decades did not involve an overt act under the continuing violations doctrine, held the federal district court in Detroit, Michigan. The athlete’s amended complaint did not allege that any agreement to surrender NIL rights occurred within, or close to, the four-year period before the athletes filed their suit. The court adopted the reasoning of two other recent cases, found the athletes’ claims were time-barred under the four-year Sherman Act antitrust limitations period, and dismissed the claims with prejudice (Robinson v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 2:24-cv-12355-TGB-KGA (E.D. Mich. Sept. 26, 2025)).

Background. Former University of Michigan football players Denard Robinson, Braylon Edwards, Michael Martin, and Shawn Crable brought this putative class action for alleged violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and unjust enrichment claims against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and one of its member athletic conferences, The Big Ten Conference, Inc., as well as against the Big Ten Network (BTN, collectively, defendants).

The players alleged the NCAA unlawfully conspired to restrain the rights of student athletes to trade their rights of publicity and then unjustly enriched itself to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by monetizing television replays of their on-field exploits. While the players initially claimed to sue on behalf of all former University of Michigan football players who played before 2016, the proposed definition was much broader insofar as it sought to include all NCAA student-athletes.

The NCAA moved within days after the O’Bannon ruling to overturn its rules on NIL, announcing a rule change in June 2021 that allowed college athletes to have an immediate opportunity to benefit from their name, image and likeness. See O’Bannon v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 802 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2015). But the rule change was not retroactive, and it did not define the scope of NIL.

The instant Michigan football players moved for class certification, as did others around the country, and the NCAA defendants moved to dismiss the players’ amended complaint for failure to state a claim, as time-barred, and as barred by prior releases in other cases or res judicata. The court granted R. 12(b)(6) dismissal, denied the players’ motion to change venue, and denied the players’ class certification as moot.

Venue. The court denied the players’ motion to transfer venue to the Southern District of New York, the venue for Chalmers v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 1:24-cv-05008-PAE (S.D.N.Y.). The defendants argued the instant action was a “copycat” of Chalmers. However, in April 2025, the federal district court in New York City dismissed Chalmers with prejudice as untimely and otherwise precluded as a matter of law. The Chalmers plaintiffs played college sports before June 15, 2016, the start date of the settlement class period in a prior case the NCAA preliminarily settled in 2024. Because there were no longer two duplicate lawsuits pending in two federal courts of equal rank, there was no judicial economy to be had in transferring the instant action.

Limitations expiration. The court held the players sufficiently alleged deprivation of NIL compensation, injury-in-fact for standing; however, the claims were time barred by the applicable statutes of limitations, requiring dismissal.

The defendants argued the players challenged the signing of forms that effectively transferred their publicity rights to the NCAA between 12 and 24 years ago and potentially even longer for some proposed class members. The players relied on the doctrines of equitable tolling and continuing violations.

Continuing violations. As for continuing violations, the players argued they continue to feel the adverse impact of decreased NIL compensation to the present day, but the court did not find any overt acts after 2012 to keep the clock ticking. The defendants alleged the continued commercial use of the athletes’ NIL rights after 2012 was a “manifestation” or “reaffirmation” of the defendants’ past conduct, not a new and independent act. The court agreed with the defendants. The athletes were really arguing about the future damages they might have claimed if they had brought their suit within four years of the last alleged antitrust violation. Chalmers and another recent case that did not control here, Pryor v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 2025 WL 2022123, at *7 (end citations omitted), reached the same conclusion.

Equitable tolling. As for equitable tolling, the court found the athletes slept on their rights. The athletes made several arguments here including that the NCAA took advantage of their naivete and maintained a culture of secrecy and misinformation about its commercial use of the athletes’ NIL. The court noted, however, that the athletes repeatedly pleaded that the NCAA rules and bylaws required them to sign forms transferring their publicity rights to the NCAA as a “non-negotiable condition of participation” in college athletics, a longstanding practice. The court said it did not find any secrecy here, and the athletes also did not plead that they did not know what they were doing when they gave up their rights. Accordingly, the athletes did not plead fraudulent concealment “with particularity.”

Unjust enrichment. The limitations period in Michigan was at most six years, and again, the claims here plainly expired. The unjust enrichment claim accrued at the time the athletes signed their NIL rights away, at the latest, in 2012. There was no sign of fraudulent concealment to apply to equitable tolling. The court found the NCAA defendants also correctly stated that Michigan no longer recognizes the continuing violations doctrine.

The Case is No. 2:24-cv-12355-TGB-KGA.

Judge: Berg, T.

Attorneys: Ethan Vinson (Cummings, McClorey, Davis & Acho, PLC) for Denard Robinson, Braylon J Edwards, Michael Martin and Shawn Crable. Calanthe Arat (Wilkinson Stekloff LLP) for National Collegiate Athletic Association a/k/a NCAA. Bradley Richard Hutter (Fafinski Mark & Johnson, P.A.) for Big Ten Network a/k/a BTN. Britt M. Miller (Mayer Brown LLP) for Big Ten Conference.

Companies: National Collegiate Athletic Association a/k/a NCAA; Big Ten Network a/k/a BTN; Big Ten Conference

Cases: Antitrust MichiganNews