The NCAA is not pleased with the Ohio Governor’s Executive Order.
The one time Republican Governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, is really annoyed with the present Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. Baker is now running the National Collegiate Athletic Association and DeWine as governor has decided he needs to do is best for the interests of Ohio State University and other big time sports schools like the University of Cincinnati and defy the NCAA. Governor DeWine signed Executive Order 2026-04D, which allows public and private colleges and universities in Ohio the option to grant a fifth year of athletic eligibility to student-athletes who graduated high school in the Class of 2022. Baker’s NCAA decided it would have an age-based model allowing student-athletes to compete for five seasons over five years. But the NCAA did not include members from the Class of 2022 who had already completed four seasons of competition. None of the schools have to follow DeWine’s executive order and it is getting late in the college football season. But there are basketball and other winter sports seasons ahead along with spring sports.
Baker’s NCAA filed a federal lawsuit against Governor DeWine in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. The NCAA claimed that the order unlawfully burdens interstate commerce, violates the First Amendment, and provides Ohio universities with a “hall pass to break the rules” to create an unfair competitive advantage. The NCAA and individual conferences want to maintain as tight a control of players and the college sports industry as possible, particularly the so-called “student-athletes”. But the NCAA, which is going against the governor of a state in this lawsuit, also wants the government to help regulate its industry. The college presidents, chancellors, the boards of trustees are pleading with the federal government to regulate their industry when it comes to paying players. The college sports industry is broken.
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