Former college baseball player sues NCAA, power conferences over scholarship limits

A former college baseball player is suing the NCAA and power conferences, accusing the leagues of wage fixing through scholarship limits.

The federal antitrust cases was filed in Colorado this week by former TCU baseball player Riley Cornelio and seeks class-action status for college baseball and hockey players.

“Defendant and its members operate as a cartel, and the capping of scholarship money at artificially low levels in these sports results in wage fixing amongst horizontal competitors in a market for services,” the complaint says. “The anticompetitive effects are as clear as with any other wage fix, and it is an unlawful restraint under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”

The NCAA, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference have an agreement in place to settle three antitrust lawsuits that challenged compensation rules for $2.78 billion in damages to former and current college athletes.

The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, also includes a plan to allow schools to implement a revenue-sharing system with athletes and increase the number of scholarship schools would be permitted — though not required — to hand out in most Division I sports. Scholarship limits would be replaced by roster caps.

“Even if the rule is finally repealed, there will still be a need to make whole the athletes who suffered,” the lawsuit says.

The scholarship limit for baseball has been 11.7 per team. Most teams break those scholarships into pieces, leaving players with partial scholarships. Under the new proposed system, baseball rosters will be capped at 34 players and schools can choose to fund them all with full scholarships.

The NCAA and conferences are hoping the settlement helps put an end to the constant legal battles that have chipped away at the foundation of college sports over the last decade.

But the enterprise is still ripe for challenges.

The Cornelio lawsuit was filed by the same attorneys who are leading an antitrust case against the NCAA that has similarities to those that are part of the settlement. In that case, former Colorado football player Alex Fontenot filed his lawsuit last November, claiming NCAA rules have illegally prevented college athletes from earning their fair share of the millions of dollars in revenue schools bring in.

The plaintffs’ attorneys in the House case requested that Fontenot be joined with another lawsuit that is part of the settlement, but a Colorado judge denied the request.