The NCAA’s five-year eligibility rule continues to face sustained antitrust scrutiny. The most recent challenge has been raised in the Southern District of Iowa by Cuban-born Division I wrestler Reineri Andreu Ortega in the case Ortega v. NCAA, No. 25-CV-00496. As with similar challenges, Ortega challenges the NCAA’s practice of starting an athlete’s eligibility clock before the athlete ever enrolls at an NCAA institution, arguing that the rule unlawfully restrains athlete labor markets in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

While this theory will undoubtedly sound familiar to readers of this blog, and as we previously discussed in the context of Martinson v. NCAA, courts are increasingly recognizing that eligibility rules are commercial restraints, not merely academic regulations. There is a unique nuance to Ortega’s challenge, as described below.

The Allegations

Ortega, an elite Cuban wrestler, enrolled at Iowa State University in spring 2023 after training with the Cuban national team. The NCAA ruled him ineligible because it deemed his five-year clock to have started in 2016, when he enrolled at a Cuban university that offered no intercollegiate athletics.

Ortega alleges that this application of the five-year rule is arbitrary and anticompetitive because it penalizes athletes who begin their postsecondary education outside the NCAA system — even when they did not compete in college sports — while allowing others (including prep school athletes and former professionals in other sports) full eligibility windows.

The complaint emphasizes that in the post-NIL and post-House settlement era, Division I competition is the only meaningful gateway to NIL and revenue-sharing compensation, making eligibility limits economically exclusionary rather than merely regulatory.

Alignment with Martinson v. NCAA

As in Martinson, Ortega frames the five-year rule as a horizontal restraint imposed by NCAA member schools that limits when, where, and for how long athletes can sell their athletic services. Both cases reject the notion that eligibility rules fall outside antitrust law simply because they are labeled “amateur” or “academic.”

Where Martinson focused on internal NCAA transfers, Ortega extends the challenge to athletes who developed entirely outside the NCAA ecosystem, including international athletes and late entrants — further exposing the rule’s market-foreclosing effects.

The Court’s Holding (So Far)

Ortega sought an ex parte temporary restraining order to allow him to compete during litigation. The court denied that request — but on procedural grounds, emphasizing the high bar for ex parte relief and the need to hear from the NCAA before altering the status quo.

Importantly, the court did not reach the antitrust merits and expressly reserved ruling on Ortega’s motion for a preliminary injunction, leaving the viability of the Sherman Act challenge fully intact.

Why Ortega Matters

Taken together, Martinson and Ortega reflect a clear trend: courts are being asked to evaluate NCAA eligibility rules as economic regulations governing access to a compensation market, not as untouchable features of college sports tradition.

Whether the NCAA can justify starting the five-year clock outside its own system — especially in a NIL-driven marketplace — remains an open and increasingly consequential question, and more litigation is likely given the financial stakes at issue.