Brantmeier v. NCAA: As a Matter of Principle, Tennis Players and Other Individual-Sport Collegiate Athletes Should be Able to Keep Their Professional Earnings in a Post-NIL World

In 2022, high school senior Reese Brantmeier was the number one girl’s college prospect in the United States.[1] Accordingly, because Brantmeier was at the upper echelon of American junior tennis, she had a choice to make – turn professional or go to college. Brantmeier ultimately chose the latter and “accepted a scholarship to play for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill [UNC], a perennial tennis powerhouse.”[2] Despite choosing the college life, Brantmeier still had ambitions to become the next American tennis sensation. Thus, Brantmeier began entering professional tennis tournaments leading up to her enrollment at UNC. This was a great move by the incoming Tar Heel because she could not have asked for a better start to her professional career. Specifically, Brantmeier had competed in the 2021 and 2022 U.S. Opens, and had recently beaten “Great Britain’s Katie Boulter, who was ranked 27th in the world . . . .”[3] As a result of Brantmeier’s early success, she was entitled to prize money worth about $50,000 in 2021 and about $18,000 in 2022 (i.e., at the 2021 U.S. Open, Brantmeier lost in the first round of the mixed doubles tournament and the third round of the qualifying singles tournament; and at the 2022 U.S. Open doubles tournament Brantmeier lost in the second round of the main draw).[4]

When the time came for Brantmeier to collect her prize money she faced some issues. The NCAA “doesn’t prohibit students from playing professional events but says they can only accept enough prize money to cover their expenses. Accepting any more means they lose eligibility for intercollegiate competition. There is an exception for incoming collegiate players, who are allowed to keep up to $10,000 per year in professional winnings.”[5] (emphasis added). Unfortunately for Brantmeier, the NCAA deemed several of her expenses “unwarranted” including “the purchase of a portable scanner to track receipts and her mother’s portion of lodging costs in New York during the 2021 U.S. Open.”[6] (emphasis added). Hence, Brantmeier was found ineligible to play her freshman fall season at UNC due to a dispute over a few hundred dollars. However, Brantmeier made a triumphant return to the court in the spring of 2023, and helped lead UNC to its first women’s national championship in program history.[7]

Despite Brantmeier’s on-court success both on the professional level and at UNC, she and other individual collegiate sport athletes (i.e., golf, bowling, track & field, etc.) have faced little success in securing coveted name, image, and likeness (NIL) sponsorships, which for the most part are not barred by NCAA regulations.[8] For context, former USC collegiate basketball player Bronny James, son of Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, was reported to have an NIL value of $5.9 million.[9] James was worth this staggering amount of NIL value despite the following sub-par resume: (1) missing most of the season due to health reasons (i.e., James suffered cardiac arrest in a pre-season workout); (2) being a first-year on the team (i.e., less seasoned than his other teammates); (3) leading USC to a meager 15-18 record during the 2023-24 season; and (4) falling early in the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament.[10] But on the flip side, Brantmeier, who does not have any NIL deals, had/has the following stellar resume: (1) 2023 NCAA Doubles National Runner-Up; (2) member of the 2024 ACC Championship team; (3) ended the 2024 season ranked No. 9 in singles and No. 5 in doubles; (4) and won both the 2023 ITA Fall Championships singles and doubles titles.[11]

Wanting to fight the good fight for the “little guy,” Brantmeier has become the “named plaintiff in a class-action suit against the NCAA in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The suit doesn’t seek damages but calls for an end to bylaws that prevent players like Brantmeier from ‘retaining full and just compensation for monetary prizes earned through their athletic performance.’”[12] In essence, Brantmeier is suing the NCAA for the principle. In other words, if athletes like Bronny James – who don’t even play a full season and have sub-par athletic resumes – are able to generate millions of dollars in NIL deals merely based on the fact that they compete in a more “notable” sport, then shouldn’t smaller sport athletes like Brantmeier be able to reap the benefits of their hard work in the form of prize money (i.e., the only realistic realm where these athletes can even be “fairly” compensated)?

At the moment, there is no answer to this question, and no court date for a trial has been set. But on a slightly promising note, Brantmeier’s lawyers have asked for an injunction that would allow several collegiate players who competed in this year’s U.S. Open to keep their prize money.[13] Additionally, in recent years there has been a flood of litigation challenging the NCAA’s eligibility restrictions barring compensation as being in violation of the Sherman Act.[14] Moreover, Brantmeier’s lawyer’s may want to turn to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion in NCAA v. Alston (2021) to bolster their argument(s): “It is highly questionable whether the NCAA and its member colleges can justify not paying student athletes a fair share of the revenues on the circular theory that the defining characteristics of college sports is that the colleges do not pay student athletes.”[15] Henceforth, only time will tell to see how the NCAA will respond to Brantmeier and her claims, but in the meantime, small individual-sport collegiate athletes will continue to suffer if Justice Kavanaugh’s words fall on deaf ears.

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[1] https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/player.asp?sessionid=025953B608494D24.

[2] Wachter, Paul, Reese Brantmeier v. NCAA, The Assembly (September 2, 2024) https://www.theassemblync.com/culture/sports/tennis-ncaa-us-open-reese-brantmeier/#:~:text=via%20AP%20Images)-,Brantmeier%20v.,to%20keep%20their%20professional%20earnings.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] See generally, NCAA v. Alston (2021); Atwood, Chris, Reimaging the Role of the NCAA in the Era of the Employee-Athlete, UB Sports Law & Entertainment Forum (August 30, 2024) https://ublawsportsforum.com/2024/08/30/reimagining-the-role-of-the-ncaa-in-the-era-of-the-employee-athlete/#_ftnref5; Schmidt, Greg, Name, Image, and Likeness in College Sports, UB Sports Law & Entertainment Forum (August 30, 2024) https://ublawsportsforum.com/2024/08/30/name-image-and-likeness-in-college-sports/.

[9] Treacy, Dan, Bronny James NIL deals, explained: How USC star landed the most lucrative endorsements in college sports, The Sporting News (December 10, 2023) https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-basketball/news/bronny-james-nil-deals-usc-endorsements-college/441c56c48b713013a480792c.

[10] See Medcalf, Myron, Bronny James has congenital heart defect, expected to return ‘in very near future,’ ESPN (August 25, 2023) https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/38260006/bronny-james-cardiac-arrest-caused-congenital-heart-defect; https://usctrojans.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule.

[11] https://goheels.com/sports/womens-tennis/roster/reese-brantmeier/26053.

[12] Supra note 2 (quoting Brantmeier v. NCAA (Case No. 1:24-CV-00238)) https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/dwvkeqxjqvm/Brantmeier%20v%20NCAA%20-%20NCMD%20-%2020240318.pdf.

[13] Supra note 2.

[14] See generally, Tymber W. Long, Nice Try, NCAA—The Sherman Antitrust Act Applies to You, Too, 61 Washburn L.J. Online 71 (2022) https://www.washburnlaw.edu/publications/wlj/online/volume/61/long-nice-try-ncaa-pdf.pdf.; Billion-Dollar Settlement to Resolve Antitrust Litigation Will Impact Student-Athletes and NCAA Enforcement, Duane Morris (June 6, 2024) https://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/billion_dollar_settlement_resolve_antitrust_litigation_impact_student_athletes_ncaa_0624.html.

[15] Supra note 8.