By: Evan Stewart

Reform to college sports as a result of antitrust litigation is not limited to student-athletes. While Name, Image, and Likeness litigation changed the compensation opportunities for current and former student athletes, former unpaid college coaches are now also looking to be compensated for their work as volunteer coaches, a position the NCAA eliminated in 2023.

History of the NCAA and Antitrust Litigation among Athletes and Coaches

In recent years, current and former student-athletes have targeted the NCAA with antitrust lawsuits aimed at dismantling its anti-competitive practices. From the landmark decisions in O’Bannon and Alston, to the upcoming House and Hubbard settlements, the NCAA has faced constant challenges stemming from its previous rules prohibiting college athletes from receiving Name, Image, and Likeness compensation. However, until recently, there has only been one significant antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA regarding its limits on compensation for coaches.

Law v. NCAA

In Law v. NCAA, decided in 1998, a group of assistant college coaches, called “restricted earnings coaches,” (REC) challenged an NCAA cost-cutting rule that limited their potential salaries to $16,000. The REC were full-time, entry-level assistant coaches, but, unlike the head coaches and other assistant coaches, had capped salaries regardless of their experience or skills. The REC alleged that this cap was price-fixing, illegal under § 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, for which the NCAA could not provide pro-competitive justifications. The 10th Circuit granted a permanent injunction against the NCAA’s restricted earnings rule and awarded the coaches $54.5 million in damages, holding that the salary cap was a price-fixing agreement between competing employers, which was an illegal restraint of trade under the Sherman Act. 

Twenty-five years later, the NCAA’s compensation limit for coaches was challenged again by former “volunteer coaches. 

What is a Volunteer Coach

Until January 2023, the NCAA allowed certain sports to hire an additional “volunteer coach” under Bylaw 11.01.06. Volunteer coaches were unpaid members of a team’s coaching staff who usually performed the same duties as paid coaching staff members. Volunteer coaches often worked over forty hours per week, traveled with their teams, and helped with other coaching and supervision duties. Despite performing the same duties as paid coaching staff members, volunteer coaches “[c]ould not be paid by the institution’s athletic department or any organization funded by the athletic department.” The only compensation available to volunteer coaches was shares of revenue generated by events like camps or clinics. As a result, volunteer coaches at mid-sized or smaller schools rarely earned more than $15,000 a year and did not receive any medical or housing benefits. 

In January 2023, the NCAA Division I Council voted to eliminate the voluntary coach designation across Division I schools and transformed the volunteer position into an additional paid position. Interestingly, some coaches are wary of these NCAA changes. University of Nebraska head baseball coach Will Bolt, whose career started as a volunteer coach, believes that the new payment model may cause schools with fewer resources to avoid hiring more coaches, leading to fewer opportunities for coaches trying to begin their coaching careers.

Volunteer Coach Class Action Antitrust Lawsuits

Despite eliminating the volunteer coaching position, the NCAA still faces two class action lawsuits from former volunteer coaches who claim to have suffered antitrust injury due to the NCAA’s repealed rule.

Smart v. NCAA Class Action

The first of the two class-action lawsuits is Smart v. NCAA. In Smart, filed in November 2022, Taylor Smart (Arkansas) and Michael Hacker (UC Davis) represent a class of volunteer baseball coaches at Division I Institutions. Smart was an unpaid volunteer baseball coach at the University of Arkansas from 2018 to 2020, where the head baseball coach’s annual salary was more than $1 million.

Colon v. NCAA Class Action

The next volunteer coach lawsuit against the NCAA is Colon v. NCAA, filed in March 2023.. Joseph Colon (Fresno State wrestling), Shannon Ray (Arizona State track and field), and Kyle McKinley (University of Oklahoma track and field) represent more than 1,000 individuals who held volunteer coaching positions in sports other than baseball between March 17, 2019, to June 30, 2023.

Plaintiff’s Theory of Harm

The basis for Smart’s and Colon’s allegations is similar to the argument that the plaintiffs prevailed on in Law.

Both Smart and Colon sued the NCAA under § 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which makes “every contract, combination, . . . or conspiracy in restraint of trade . . . illegal”. Colon and Smart allege that the NCAA and its member institutions created a price-fixing scheme that set the price for volunteer coaches at $0. Price-fixing is one of the most common violations of the Sherman Act and occurs when competitors in a market agree to set or tamper with their prices.

In Law, for example, the capped salary figure was price fixing because universities competing in the same labor market agreed not to pay more than $16,000 for restrictive earning coaches. Similarly, Smart and Colon allege that the NCAA and its Division I member institutions created a “buyer side cartel” agreeing to fix the price of labor for an assistant coach position at $0.

The former volunteer coaches also allege that they suffered multiple types of economic damage as a result of the NCAA’s price fix. The damages included lost salary, health insurance, housing, and other benefits that paid assistant coaches received.

NCAA’s Response and Failed Motion to Dismiss

The NCAA raised three main defenses against Smart and Colon’s theories. First, the NCAA claimed that the volunteer coaches’ allegation that they would have been hired as paid assistants but for the volunteer coach bylaw was conclusory and lacked factual backing. Second, the NCAA claimed it does not hold market power in the assistant coach labor market. Lastly, the NCAA claimed that there were other competitive coaching positions available in high school and professional sports.

These defenses, however, were not sufficient. In July 2023, both Smart and Colon survived the NCAA’s motion to dismiss. United States District Judge William Shubb rejected the NCAA’s motion and held that the allegation of horizontal price-fixing based on the creation of the volunteer coach position was sufficient to show possible antitrust injury. Specifically, Judge Shubb wrote that “it was not implausible that plaintiffs would have been paid a salary above $0 but for the NCAA’s adoption of [bylaw 11.01.6].”

This assumption that colleges would have paid for these assistant coaches has been supported by the fact that more than half of Division I schools began paying their former volunteer coaches within a year. This further disproves the NCAA’s claim that the plaintiff’s allegations that teams would not have hired volunteer coaches as paid assistants were conclusory.

Current Status of Litigation and Next Steps

Both Smart and Colon are seeking more than $5 million in damages from the NCAA. Originally, the jury trial for Smart was scheduled to begin in September 2025. However, on January 31, 2025, Smart reached a settlement in principle with the NCAA. While the terms of the settlement have not been finalized or released, this could still be an encouraging sign for the Colon. Because Colon raises many of the same arguments and theories of harm that Smart does, the NCAA may also look to settle with the Colon class as well, especially if the class is certified following the March 3, 2025 certification hearing.