NCAA, Member Schools Agreed to Not Pay Volunteer Coaches, Class Action Claims [UPDATE]

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action alleges the NCAA and its member schools have suppressed competition in the labor market for college coaching services by conspiring to fix the wages of Division I volunteer coaches at zero.

Want to stay in the loop on class actions that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.

The 15-page antitrust lawsuit claims the NCAA and its member schools agreed to bylaws that restrict Division I institutions to a limited number of paid coaches in each sport yet allow the schools to hire one or more additional coaches for no pay. The NCAA bylaws, which are a binding agreement among the association’s 1,100 member schools, refer to these unpaid workers as “volunteer coaches,” the suit relays.

The case adds that football and basketball programs exempt from these rules.

Although the NCAA and member schools voted in January 2023 to eliminate the volunteer designation across Division I and include those coaches within a new limit for countable coaches in each applicable sport beginning on July 1, the past economic damages suffered by volunteer coaches nevertheless remain, the case contends. 

According to the filing, these unpaid coaches perform all or many of the same duties as the paid coaches and frequently work more than 40 hours per week, including weekends, early mornings and late nights. The alleged price-fixing agreement not only denies volunteer coaches pay for their work but also prohibits member schools from providing them with health insurance, housing or other employee benefits that the coaches would generally receive in an open market, the complaint claims.

The case explains that in a properly functioning labor market, member schools would “vigorously” compete for head and assistant coaches by offering competitive salaries that reach up to six or seven figures. However, the bylaws create an “artificial restraint” that “prevents these unpaid assistant coaches from being paid the fair market value of their worth to the team and university or even wage and hour law minimum wages,” the lawsuit argues.

Per the complaint, the “vast majority” of Division I sports programs employ unpaid volunteer coaches. The lawsuit says the bylaws at issue are strictly enforced as member schools that fail to comply risk facing penalties such as fines, scholarship reductions, recruiting restrictions or even bans from competition.

In sum, the case alleges the NCAA and its member schools, which already possess a dominant position in the college coaching market, have violated the federal Sherman Act by engaging in “unlawful agreements” that result in anti-competitive effects, including “(a) fixing the compensation of Plaintiffs and the Proposed Class at the artificially low level of zero; and (b) eliminating or suppressing, to a substantial degree, competition among Defendants for skilled labor in the market.”

The lawsuit looks to cover anyone who, from March 17, 2019, to June 30, 2023, worked for an NCAA Division I sports program, other than baseball, in the position of “volunteer coach,” as designated by NCAA bylaws.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.