A federal judge has greenlit a sweeping legal volley against the NCAA, allowing two college tennis players to represent a class of roughly 12,000 student-athletes in a lawsuit that challenges the organization’s restrictions on prize money.
The decision came from Chief U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro, North Carolina, who ruled that players competing in Division I college tennis since March 2020 can join forces in a nationwide class action against the NCAA. At the heart of the case is the long-standing prohibition that bars these athletes from collecting more than \$10,000 a year in third-party tournament winnings — a policy the plaintiffs claim is a blatant violation of federal antitrust law.
Among those leading the charge is Reese Brantmeier, a standout player at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who says she had to walk away from significant earnings just to stay eligible to compete at the collegiate level. Her co-plaintiff, Maya Joint, crossed the NCAA’s line by accepting too much prize money and is now ineligible to play college tennis at all.
Their argument is clear: the NCAA’s prize money cap isn’t just unfair — it’s illegal. The lawsuit alleges that these restrictions choke off healthy competition in the market for elite college tennis talent, all while forcing student-athletes to make impossible choices between career advancement and education.
The NCAA isn’t backing down quietly. It insists the plaintiffs don’t meet the legal bar for class certification and warns that letting pro-level players compete in college could threaten team balance — and team spots.
This legal rally arrives just as the NCAA tries to shake off other antitrust entanglements. In a major development earlier this year, the organization agreed to a \$2.8 billion settlement in a trio of California cases, finally allowing schools to compensate athletes for their names, images, and likenesses. The tennis lawsuit adds yet another layer to the growing resistance to the NCAA’s amateurism model.
A trial in the tennis case is tentatively penciled in for summer 2026.
The case: *Reese Brantmeier et al v. National Collegiate Athletic Association*, U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina, No. 1:24-cv-00238-CCE-JEP.
