According to CBS Sports, Wisconsin men’s basketball player Nigel Hayes and Middle Tennessee football player Anfornee Stewart have replaced three former named plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the NCAA. Hayes and Stewart were added after three plaintiffs left the lawsuit due to an expiration of their college eligibility. Hayes and Stewart now join class representative Martin Jenkins, a Clemson football player, in a lawsuit led by sports labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn. The plaintiffs are suing the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences (the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC) for unfairly limiting compensation for student-athletes through the enforcement of rules that prevent schools from “negotiating, offering, or providing remuneration” to the players “in compensation for their services as athletes.” The lawsuit seeks an injunction to force the creation of a free market system to compensate college athletes. The Jenkins plaintiffs are scheduled to file a motion for class certification on November 6, 2014 to represent all Football Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men’s basketball players. The NCAA is moving to delay the class certification filing until February 13, 2015, claiming a need for a longer discovery period.
Elisa Hevia is a Sports Highlight contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2017).
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