Case studies for Diego Pavia's NCAA eligibility lawsuit for Vanderbilt football

Diego Pavia became the latest college athlete to sue the NCAA.

While many past NCAA lawsuits have concerned NIL, the Vanderbilt football quarterback is seeking an extra year of eligibility. His argument, in court documents filed Friday, concerns his two years at a junior college and the fact that NIL opportunities are scarce at that level.

It's hard to know what either the timeline or result of Pavia's case will be. Most likely, Pavia will have a hearing within the next few weeks that will determine if he's issued a preliminary injunction. Even if there's an injunction in his favor, though, it's not a guarantee that he will play for Vanderbilt in 2025.

Both Clark Lea and Paul Grindstaff, the director of the Anchor Impact NIL collective, stated that they would need certainty that Pavia will be eligible by the end of 2024, otherwise they will move on in their roster-building without him. Even if Pavia is granted an injunction, there's a possibility he could be ruled ineligible later unless the NCAA opts to settle the case.

Many of the recent lawsuits against the NCAA have been successful, but that's not the case for every player who has sued seeking eligibility. Here's how some other recent eligibility cases have played out:

ESTESCan Diego Pavia's NCAA lawsuit get him an extra Vanderbilt season? I have doubts | Estes

Result: Success

In December 2024, attorney generals in 11 states, plus the US Department of Justice, sued the NCAA seeking the removal of a rule that required athletes to sit out a year if they had transferred multiple times.

While the lawsuit was not brought by a specific player, nor was it specifically seeking an extra year of eligibility, the end result is that some players were granted extra eligibility.

In May, the NCAA opted to settle the case and part of the settlement was that any player who had to sit out because of multiple transfers in the past five seasons would get an extra year of eligibility.

A West Virginia judge granted a preliminary injunction on the case in December, allowing all multiple-time transfers to play for the remainder of the 2023-24 season while the rest of the case played out. Before the settlement, a full trial for the case was not scheduled to be held until June 2025.

Result: Failure − for now

In March, North Carolina tennis player Reese Brantmeier sued the NCAA seeking removal of the rule that prevents athletes in individual sports from receiving more than $10,000 in prize money per year. While Brantmeier was not specifically seeking extra eligibility for herself, a ruling in her favor would grant eligibility to some athletes who had previously not had it before.

While Brantmeier's case is still ongoing and a jury trial is still to come, she was not granted a preliminary injunction, with the judge arguing that the number of overall athletes impacted was small and unlikely to have a significant impact on the market. Additionally, a judge failed to accept her argument that the NCAA's rules reduced the number of players participating in certain tournaments because the party to the case was the NCAA rather than non-NCAA events.

Result: Failure

In November, Matt and Ryan Bewley, two brothers who were attending Chicago State, sued the NCAA over denying them eligibility due to having played basketball for Overtime Elite before enrolling in college. The brothers argued that they were denied eligibility for having received NIL compensation, something that is now legal in NCAA, as well as that the NCAA was artificially deflating their earning potential by having rules against former professional players having eligibility unless they received no more than necessary living expenses.

In January, a judge denied the brothers an injunction, saying that their contract with Overtime Elite was a professional contract and that they should have known signing the contract would have denied them eligibility in NCAA.

One potential relevance to Pavia's case is that part of Pavia's argument is that junior college is not part of the NCAA, thus the NCAA should not be able to bar eligibility based on participation in a league not under their jurisdiction. In both this and the Brantmeier case, judges upheld the ability for the NCAA to deny eligibility to players who had previously played in non-NCAA leagues or events.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.