While House v. NCAA has dominated most of the headlines lately, it is far from the only active lawsuit against the NCAA in this  litigious environment in college athletics. Ever since the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Alston case and Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s scathing concurrence to go with it, the NCAA has been in an extremely vulnerable position. 

This week, another lawsuit has been filed against the NCAA, this time by a former college baseball player. Riley Cornelio, a former TCU pitcher, is suing the NCAA and power conferences, "accusing the leagues of wage fixing through scholarship limits." The federal antitrust case was filed in Colorado this week and "seeks class-action status for college baseball and hockey players."

The timing of this suit is noteworthy because it appears like scholarship limits in college baseball and other college sports might no longer exist in a couple of years. 

The NCAA, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC already have an agreement in place to settle recent antitrust litigation, including House, where scholarship limits would be replaced by roster caps. The settlement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, also includes a plan to allow schools to implement a revenue-sharing system with athletes and increase the number of scholarship schools would be permitted — though not required — to hand out in most Division I sports. 

The scholarship limit for baseball has been 11.7 per program. With most college baseball programs carrying 35-40 man rosters, nearly all players have been on partial scholarships. Under the new proposed system, baseball rosters will be capped at 34 players and schools can choose to fund them all with full scholarships. While it’s uncertain the exact number of scholarships certain programs will fund moving forward, it’s reasonable to assume power programs will far exceed the previous 11.7 limit. 

However, just because the scholarship limitation may be going away, the settlement is still not final by any means. Moreover, the plaintiffs are seeking retroactive relief. “Even if the rule is finally repealed, there will still be a need to make whole the athletes who suffered,” the lawsuit says. 

The suit also alleges that “Defendant and its members operate as a cartel, and the capping of scholarship money at artificially low levels in these sports results in wage fixing amongst horizontal competitors in a market for services,” the complaint says. “The anticompetitive effects are as clear as with any other wage fix, and it is an unlawful restraint under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”

The suit was filed by the same attorneys who are leading the Fontenot case against the NCAA. In that case, a former football player at the University of Colorado filed a lawsuit last November, claiming NCAA rules have illegally prevented college athletes from earning their fair share of the millions of dollars in revenue schools bring in. The plaintiffs' attorneys in House requested that Fontenot be joined with another lawsuit that is part of the settlement, but a Colorado judge denied the request.

It seems like change and litigation are the only constants you can count on right now in college athletics. The advent of NIL, conference realignment, and sweeping litigation have dominated the landscape in recent years and does not appear to be slowing down. Clemson and Florida State have active cases against ACC that will likely end with the two institutions in new conferences. College athletes will likely gain employee status in the near horizon. But when and how these changes will come about is up in the air as we sit here today.

Outcomes of court cases like House will undoubtedly shape the future of college athletics. With every lawsuit that is brought, the NCAA becomes weaker and weaker. In this era, nearly every decision being made is guided by the potential of a future lawsuit. Therefore, it’s important to monitor each case that comes in, including this scholarship case brought by Riley Cornelio.

Brendan Bell is a 2L at SMU Dedman School of Law and is the Southwest Regional Rep on Conduct Detrimental's Law School Student Board. He can be followed on Twitter (X) @_bbell5