For years in the post NIL landscape, the NCAA has found itself on the losing side of things in federal and state courts.
Quite frequently, at least to a reasonable person viewing the facts, those defeats likely seemed warranted.
Why shouldn’t a college athlete be entitled to the same rights to profit from their labor as every other hard-working person? Why would the NCAA prohibit players from transferring to another school when the coaches who lead them routinely leave for greener pastures or new opportunities? In what universe of fairness and equity does it matter that a player who played 5 games cannot obtain a medical redshirt despite a severe injury, but a player with the same injury that played only 4 games is eligible to redshirt?
These cases are not about the future of college sports. They are simply about fundamental notions of fairness.
The case of Charles Bediako, filed this week in Alabama state court, feels different. The Bediako case feels like a case about the viability and future of collegiate eligibility rules.
The outcome could inform college athletics fans and institutions alike as to whether there are any rules whatsoever or whether a new paradigm is inevitable. At a minimum, the outcome of the Bediako litigation will exact heavy influence on the future of the NBA Draft, college basketball, and high school basketball pathways to college across the United States.
For the uninitiated, Bediako, 23, played 2 seasons at Alabama, earning All-SEC defensive team honors as a sophomore for a Crimson Tide team that went 31-6, won the SEC Championship, and earned the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament before losing in the Sweet 16 to San Diego State. After the season, Bediako declared for the NBA Draft, remaining in the draft past the NCAA deadline to return to college, and thus, pursuant to NCAA bylaws, forfeiting his remaining collegiate eligibility.
Bediako was not drafted but signed an Exhibit 10 contract and then a two-way contract deal with the San Antonio Spurs. Bediako eventually signed a deal with the Denver Nuggets as well, bringing the total number of NBA contracts he signed to three. Bediako has never played a game in the NBA, but over the past 3 seasons, he has played in over 80 games in the G League, a professional, unionized basketball league that serves as the NBA’s developmental arm.
Judge Bediako’s decision to leave Alabama and play professional basketball however you’d like, but the reality is that until Wednesday, that type of choice was the end of every previous college athlete’s journey.
On Wednesday, Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge James H. Roberts (who also teaches law at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, not Alabama, as I’ve seen alleged on social media), granted a petition for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the NCAA, making Bediako immediately eligible to play basketball for the Crimson Tide. According to the Complaint filed by Bediako’s attorneys, Bediako is already enrolled back in school at Alabama.
The TRO remains in effect until January 27, when a hearing for a preliminary injunction will determine whether Bediako should be eligible to play for the remainder of the season.
Bediako’s attorneys, led by the outstanding sports lawyer Darren Heitner, maintain that Bediako should receive eligibility for a number or reasons. Most notably, their petition states that in 2023, when Bediako elected to leave Alabama and remain in the NBA Draft, “the resources available to student athletes” in terms of NIL compensation “were nowhere near as robust as they are today, which would have influenced Mr. Bediako’s decision to stay in school rather than leave for greater financial pursuits elsewhere.”
Bediako also notes that the recent House settlement has “fundamentally altered the economic landscape of college athletics” and created revenue-sharing opportunities Bediako did not foresee in 2023. Citing to the recent decision of the NCAA to grant eligibility to players like Baylor’s James Nnaji and Santa Clara’s Thierry Darlan, who both played professionally in the G League and internationally, Bediako argues that the NCAA has “taken the stance that participation in NBA G League games does not render an athlete ineligible for future competition.”
On the key issue of whether Bediako’s remaining in the NBA Draft forfeits his future NCAA eligibility, Bediako argues that the decision to grant eligibility to Nnaji, who was drafted 31st in the 2023 NBA Draft (the same draft in which Bediako went undrafted), means the NCAA has “determined that a player’s entering and remaining in the NBA Draft does not render the student-athlete ineligible for future NCAA competition.”
NIL and sports lawyers have braced for a lawsuit like Bediako’s since the Nnaji decision, largely because while there is a skill distinction between NBA players and G league players like Bediako, there is not necessarily a legal distinction between them: both types of players are professionals playing in unionized professional leagues. In other words, how do you justify permitting a player drafted to the NBA, such as Nnaji, returning to the NBA but not a player like Bediako, who signed multiple NBA two-way contracts but went undrafted?
Bediako may have a remedies problem.
For one, an injunction allowing Bediako to play is an equitable remedy. To obtain an injunction under Alabama law, a party seeking a preliminary injunction must produce evidence sufficient to demonstrate that a party would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, lacks a remedy outside of court, has a reasonable chance of success on the merits of the case, and the hardship of imposing the injunction on the opposing party does not unreasonably outweigh the benefit accruing to the party seeking the injunction. Red Mountain Diagnostics, LLC v. Black, LLC, 413 So.3d 725 (Ala. 2024). An “irreparable injury’ is an injury that is not redressable in a court of law through an award of money damages.” Perley v. Tapscan, Inc., 646 So. 2d 585, 587 (Ala. 1994).Mindful that money damages in the form of lost NIL opportunities and earnings will likely be insufficient to obtain an injunction, Bediako asserts that he will lose developmental opportunities and other associated benefits (obviously including NIL opportunities) associated with playing basketball at Alabama.
Will this be sufficient?
The loss of money and NIL opportunities is certainly a worthwhile part of Bediako’s argument, but to prevail, he must show that his rights are injured in a way for which money damages are inadequate. That may be difficult.
First, NIL opportunities existed, even for international players, at the time Bediako played for Alabama. Whether Alabama’s NIL program was robust enough to handsomely compensate Bediako and incentivize him to return to school as a 21-year-old man in 2023 is arguably a question for the University of Alabama, not a fault caused by the NCAA or an unforeseeable change in circumstances caused by a financial “paradigm shift”, as alleged by Bediako.
Second, the NCAA may argue that Bediako’s case is different from every other case considered to date because Bediako already played college basketball and did so at a time when he (1) had NIL opportunities and (2) was aware of the NCAA’s rules regarding forfeiture of future college eligibility for college players who declare and remain in the NBA draft.
That argument is technically correct.
The question for a court will be whether a player like Nnaji, who immediately turned professional and played extensively in professional leagues, to whom the NCAA’s prior college enrollment rule never applied, is somehow legally different than a player like Bediako, who played two full years of college basketball and then went professional. That may be a tough needle for the NCAA to thread, but it seems a more viable path for the NCAA than defending some mystical difference between a “NBA Contract” and the type of contract signed by a player like Nnaji in a high-level league in Europe.
Aware of the fact the prior college enrollment rule was in effect at the time Bediako made his decision to remain in the draft, Bediako suggests that there is no reason to treat players like Nnaji and Bediako differently simply because Bediako elected to attend college before competing professionally while Nnaji did not. He argues this NCAA rule is arbitrary and that there is “no principled justification for treating these groups of student athletes differently.”
This may be true, but as noted above, this argument may not be responsive to the reality that Bediako (1) knew the NCAA’s prior enrollment rule when declaring for the draft at (2) made his choice at a time when NIL opportunities existed for college basketball players, including internationals like Bediako.
To win, Bediako may need to show a legitimate change in material circumstances from when, aware of the prior enrollment rule, Bediako made the decision to depart college (turning down NIL opportunities in the process) anyway for the professional ranks.
Bediako’s argument that he simply lacked the foresight to “see the paradigm-shifting changes coming to compensation for NCAA athletes” speaks directly to this point. But are higher NIL compensation and revenue sharing truly a paradigm shift or a natural progression of life after NIL?
More to the legal point, how will Bediako demonstrate a material change in paradigm that warrants a court functionally excusing his decision to leave college in spite of the prior enrollment rule?
Until recently, the NCAA rejected the requests of former professionals to compete collegiately. This brightline stand for amateurism softened as the NCAA grappled with antitrust litigation and state NIL statutes. Bediako’s decision to remain in the NBA Draft also comes after the House settlement, which permits colleges to directly pay athletes a share of their athletic revenues. This distinction may matter, because the NCAA does not control who receives NIL compensation (or how robust collectives are at helping athletes obtain it), but the NCAA’s member institutions do control revenue sharing after House.
Potentially, Bediako could argue that his challenge to the NCAA’s prior enrollment rule makes sense given the decision the new world of higher NIL compensation and revenue sharing, just as a plaintiff can now challenge agency rules anew after the elimination of Chevron deference.
Finally, worth noting, a reasonable jurist could hold that Bediako’s request for an injunction does not serve the public interest, as the Eastern District of Tennessee recently did in another college basketball eligibility suit, Zakai Zeigler v. NCAA, 3:25-cv-226-KAC-JEM, (E.D. Tenn., June 12, 2025). Zeigler, an All-American guard at Tennessee, sought a fifth year of eligibility and the benefits of the attendant paradigm-shifting NIL opportunities by challenging the NCAA’s “Four Seasons” Rule, arguing it was arbitrary, harmed students in good standing like himself seeking graduate degrees, and violated antitrust law.
In ruling against Zeigler, the Court noted that roster spots in Division I basketball are precious, and allowing Zeigler (or others similarly situated) to play a fifth season would take away opportunities from current players and incoming high school recruits. To the extent Zeigler would be able to win at trial, the Court noted that his asserted harms functionally were lost NIL payments, all of which could adequately be addressed without an injunction that caused upheaval to longstanding NCAA eligibility rules.
Bediako’s case, with much higher stakes and implications for the future of basketball (and potentially, NCAA) rules, could reasonably be decided similarly.
