Marty Jackley (R-SD)
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – A South Dakota lawsuit against the NCAA will stay in state court rather than move to federal court, a judge has decided.
The NCAA is the governing body for the highest level of collegiate athletics. State Attorney General Marty Jackley and the South Dakota Board of Regents sued the NCAA last year, alleging that a proposed $2.8 billion settlement meant to compensate college athletes would disproportionately burden smaller colleges, including schools like South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota.
The NCAA filed a motion to move the case into federal court, saying the settlement’s provisions and implications stretch across state lines.
U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier signed an order Friday denying the NCAA’s request to move the lawsuit out of state court. Jackley praised the decision in a Monday news release.
Dates for further state court proceedings in Brookings County have not been scheduled.
The proposed $2.8 billion nationwide settlement for college athletes that motivated the lawsuit is an outgrowth of a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the NCAA’s previous practice of banning payments for student athletes violated antitrust laws. The settlement would require NCAA member schools to contribute to the settlement fund over the course of a decade.
Jackley said South Dakota wants a court order requiring an NCAA vote on how it intends to have schools pay for the settlement. That would allow South Dakota’s and other states’ universities to have a voice in the settlement that the NCAA has so far denied them, Jackley said.
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