It’s Time to Fix the NCAA Waiver System Before It Breaks More Athletes
OPENING STATEMENTS
As the NCAA gathers at its annual convention this week, eligibility debates and waiver litigation continue to pile up. At the same time, the volume of eligibility questions coming into our office keeps rising, especially from athletes who were told “you’re done” or “it’s not worth filing,” only to learn later that the situation was more nuanced, or the analysis was flat-out wrong.
The core problem is structural: under current NCAA rules and practice, eligibility waivers must be submitted by the institution, not the athlete. That design matters because schools are not neutral advocates. Compliance offices are tasked with protecting the institution. They are stretched thin even on their best days - especially as you get further and further away from P4 schools. And they may not be as invested in cases where student-athletes intend to leave their school via the transfer portal.
The NCAA received 1,450 waiver requests for extended eligibility last academic year (which, again, had to be submitted through the athlete’s institution), about two-thirds of which were granted. That number alone should end the fiction that this is a niche issue affecting only a few edge cases. But also think of how many never even went through the process because they were advised against it by their schools.
As such, it is time to change the system and to empower student-athletes - or their authorized representatives - with the ability to submit eligibility waiver claims directly to the NCAA office. If eligibility is determined based on the athlete’s individual circumstances, then athletes must have a procedural right to file and participate directly in that determination. No one understands their cases better than they do.
Our team has seen the failures of the current structure up close. Athletes’ requests are ignored, submitted late, or stripped of context vital to understanding hardship, medical history, or extenuating factors. Many end up hiring outside counsel to redraft waiver materials, only to return to the institution for the ministerial act of filing. At that point, the compliance office is no longer serving as an advocate or even a filter; it is simply a conduit.
Direct filing would fix that. Here’s how:
Removes the gatekeeper problem. Direct filing would bring the process outside of partisan institutional control and into the hands of the athletes. This creates a neutral, athlete-centered pathway. One that eliminates discouragement and one that doesn’t ask schools to act against their own incentives, including roster plans, budget, competitive advantage, and risk – all of which can directly conflict with an athlete’s right to pursue another season.
Improves accuracy and completeness. Waiver decisions frequently hinge on nuanced documentation: medical reports, legal records, timelines, or personal statements. When athletes can submit directly – or work with counsel they trust – the NCAA receives a fuller account of the facts and context. This supports more consistent and defensible outcomes.
Reduces litigation pressure. Incomplete or delayed filings are a major factor driving denial-based lawsuits. Of the 1,450 eligibility waivers last year, nearly 50 have already led to lawsuits. Allowing athletes direct procedural access could resolve more disputes administratively and reduce reliance on the courthouse as the default “appeal” mechanism.
Eliminates institutional inequity. The further you get from the Power 4, the less time and staffing a compliance officer typically has to spend assembling waiver submissions, even though the stakes for the athlete are identical. Direct filing ensures athletes from smaller programs or lower divisions can get a fair process by standardizing access.
One of the concerns with this approach would be a significant increase in filings. Which is fair. But the NCAA has a responsibility to evolve and better establish rules around eligibility. And direct athlete filing need not open the door to frivolous claims, as the NCAA could implement straightforward safeguards, such as:
Identity and enrollment verification through the NCAA Eligibility Center or institution confirmation.
Document authentication protocols (especially for medical-based clock extensions).
Clear deadlines, including expedited tracks where seasons/portal windows create irreparable harm.
These are not radical innovations; they mirror frameworks used in other administrative systems, from federal disability benefits to civil rights complaints under Title IX and Title VII.
All of this matters now more than ever as the transfer portal is creating unprecedented movement, and with that comes more eligibility complexity and more waiver need. That reality is showing up publicly in Ole Miss quarterback Tristan Chambliss eligibility waiver fight, which includes division changes, completeness, motivations, and the portal – reinforcing how process and narrative can decide careers.
Redshirt expansion may help some athletes on the margins in specific sports. But it does not solve the athlete-rights problem at the heart of waiver disputes: athletes need a consistent, athlete-centered pathway to be heard – across all divisions, not just the schools with the most compliance bandwidth.
EXHIBIT A
Great snapshot in this Yahoo story from this week’s NCAA meetings about the enforcement crisis in college sports (namely football). And the bigger problem it exposes is leadership: the NCAA and the conferences keep pointing at each other instead of owning a workable solution. As NIL money keeps flowing through intermediaries, the system starts to look less like regulation and more like a game of plausible deniability. Texas A&M AD Trev Alberts seems to understand that patchwork solutions won’t restore credibility, that the “best option” may be to sit down and ask, “what if we started from scratch?”
EXHIBIT B
It’s hardly a secret that the College Sports Commission has a credibility challenge, and Sportico’s reporting on schools’ financial reporting only sharpens it. A regulator can’t convincingly enforce “guardrails” if the underlying financial picture is incomplete, delayed, or inconsistent across the membership. And because the CSC was created (and effectively empowered) by the same enterprise it now oversees, every transparency gap reads like self-regulation protecting itself rather than independent accountability.
So, it will be interesting to watch what comes of the investigations the CSC recently said it would pursue into alleged NIL violations, especially given the Commission’s shaky legal footing after schools declined to sign the proposed participant agreement.
ON THE DOCKET
In the good news department from the NCAA meetings, the organization just put real wind at the back of women’s flag football by adding it to the Emerging Sports for Women program. The sport is surging in interest, and this is an important step toward eventual championship status. With flag football set to debut at the 2028 Olympics, the timing couldn’t be better for colleges to invest in a fast, accessible sport that creates new roster spots and scholarship pathways. Last month, the New York Jets and ECAC helped fuel the momentum by announcing the launch of the largest collegiate women’s flag football league in the country, which is slated to launch in February.
FOOTNOTES
39.
College basketball players, on 17 NCAA Division I teams, reportedly involved in a point-shaving scheme that was announced Thursday.
