Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation
- Laurel Beeler
- 3:25-cv-04603
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 11
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate and have been consolidated across spelling variants.
In Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation, Magistrate Judge Beeler granted CIF's motion to dismiss the amended antitrust complaint challenging a high-school athletes' name, image, and likeness rule, with leave to amend.
California high-school student-athletes who wish to license their name, image, and likeness in connection with school-affiliated identities such as uniforms and team affiliation, and schools or organizations that may be subject to CIF's NIL rules.
What happened
Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation is a proposed class action filed by California high-school student-athletes challenging a rule by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) that bars athletes from licensing their name, image, and likeness (NIL) when tied to school-affiliated identities such as uniforms, insignia, and team affiliation. After an earlier dismissal, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint narrowing the case to the NIL rule, adding a new plaintiff, and revising their descriptions of the markets allegedly harmed by the rule. CIF moved to dismiss the amended complaint.
The court found two independent reasons to dismiss. First, the plaintiffs failed to plausibly define a relevant market as required under the antitrust "rule of reason" standard. The proposed statewide labor markets for varsity athletes failed because any suppression of those markets was caused by CIF's amateurism and transfer rules—which the court had already ruled are shielded from antitrust challenge—not by the NIL rule being challenged. The proposed national NIL market also failed because the plaintiffs did not adequately explain why California high-school athletes' NIL could not be substituted for NIL from athletes in other states or across different sports. Second, the plaintiffs did not plead a proper antitrust injury: both their theory of lost school payments for NIL use and their theory of a share of broadcast revenue were blocked not by the challenged NIL rule but by the immune amateurism rules and a California statute, meaning the injury did not flow from the conduct being challenged.
Magistrate Judge Beeler granted the motion to dismiss with leave to amend. The state-law claims under California's Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law were also dismissed because they rise and fall with the federal antitrust claims. The plaintiffs were given until September 10, 2026, to file an amended complaint, but were limited to repleading a plausible non-broadcast, school-affiliated NIL market and a matching injury theory; they may not reassert the dismissed labor-market or broadcast-NIL theories.
The detailed version
- Calhoun v. California Interscholastic Federation · No. 3:25-cv-04603
- Laurel Beeler
- Aug. 20, 2026
Background
This is a putative (proposed) class action brought by California high-school student-athletes against the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) and its ten regional sections. CIF governs California high-school athletics. The case challenges one specific CIF rule: a provision barring student-athletes from licensing their name, image, and likeness (NIL) when tied to school-affiliated identities, such as school uniforms, insignia, and team affiliation (CIF Bylaws 212(C)(3)–(4)).
In an earlier order dismissing the original complaint, the court held that CIF is shielded from antitrust challenge to its amateurism rules (which cap athletic awards and bar cash payments to student-athletes) and its transfer rules under the state-action immunity doctrine of Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943). That doctrine protects entities carrying out clearly articulated state policies from federal antitrust liability. However, the court held that the NIL rule was not similarly shielded. The court dismissed the original complaint because the alleged relevant markets were not plausibly pleaded, and gave the plaintiffs leave to amend those market allegations and to add a plaintiff with standing to seek prospective relief.
The Amended Complaint
The first amended complaint made four changes: (1) added Patrick Hall, a junior varsity football player at Mater Dei High School, who alleges he appeared in school promotional content without compensation for the school-affiliated use of his NIL; (2) stated that the plaintiffs do not challenge the amateurism rules except to the extent they might interfere with NIL monetization, and deleted prior discussion of the transfer rules; (3) narrowed the labor market to California high-school "varsity" athletes and alleged each varsity sport is a separate submarket; and (4) added allegations attempting to distinguish California high-school NIL from out-of-state and cross-sport NIL, including that advertisers value local audiences and that elite athletes in football and basketball would not switch to lesser sports if NIL rules for those sports were relaxed.
The amended complaint alleged two relevant markets: (a) statewide markets for the athletic labor of CIF varsity student-athletes, broken into sport-specific submarkets, described as "heavily suppressed" by CIF's restrictions; and (b) a national market for the commercial and promotional use of California high-school varsity athletes' NIL, including in broadcasts. The plaintiffs' alleged injuries were lost payments from schools for school-affiliated NIL licensing and a lost share of schools' broadcast revenue. Claims were brought under Section 1 of the Sherman Act (federal antitrust law), California's Cartwright Act, and California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL).
Legal Standards
Antitrust claims that do not qualify as per se violations must be evaluated under the "rule of reason," which requires a plaintiff to plead a plausible relevant market defined by "reasonable interchangeability" — meaning products or services that consumers would treat as substitutes for one another. A market definition that does not encompass all reasonably interchangeable substitutes is legally insufficient and may be dismissed at the pleading stage. Additionally, to establish antitrust injury, a plaintiff must show an injury that flows from the conduct that makes the defendant's behavior unlawful; injuries caused by independent, lawful constraints do not qualify.
Ruling
Ground One: No Plausible Relevant Market
Statewide Varsity Athletic-Labor Markets
The court identified two flaws. First, the amended complaint attributed the suppression of any labor market to the amateurism and transfer rules — which the court has already held are immune from antitrust challenge under Parker — not to the NIL rule at issue. A market that can only exist if immune rules are lifted is not a market suppressed by the challenged NIL rule. Second, the markets were not defined by reasonable interchangeability. The complaint did not explain why a student playing a given sport would treat every high school in California as interchangeable, or why a school recruiting for a sport would treat every athlete as interchangeable. The "switching" allegations about athletes not moving to different sports addressed cross-sport substitution, not interchangeability among schools or among athletes within a sport. The geographic scope — statewide — was also unexplained, particularly since the complaint also acknowledged that top athletes cross state lines.
National NIL Market
The court had previously flagged two interchangeability problems with this market: the pleadings did not explain (1) why California high-school athletes' NIL is not reasonably interchangeable with NIL from athletes in other states, or (2) why the NIL of elite athletes is interchangeable with that of other varsity athletes. The amended complaint did not fix either problem. New allegations that advertisers buy local audiences supported the existence of a local market, not the national market the plaintiffs alleged, and did not address advertisers seeking national audiences. The complaint also still lumped together thousands of varsity athletes of varying skill without adequately explaining how they form a single market. The group-licensing theory also failed because the complaint did not plead facts about how NIL is licensed on a group basis, and California Civil Code § 3344(d) provides that broadcast use of a student-athlete's NIL does not require the athlete's consent, so there is no plausible market for broadcast group licenses the law does not require.
No Exception for Direct-Effects Evidence
The plaintiffs argued that direct evidence of anticompetitive effects excuses the need to define a market. The court rejected this: that approach is available only for per se or "quick look" antitrust claims, not for a full rule-of-reason claim like this one. Even if direct effects are alleged, a plaintiff must still plead the rough contours of a relevant market defined by reasonable interchangeability.
Ground Two: No Antitrust Injury
The court also independently held that the plaintiffs failed to plead antitrust injury on their two principal theories.
School-payment theory
The amateurism rules — which are immune from antitrust challenge — prohibit payment to student-athletes for school-affiliated NIL use, whether in cash or through a license of school insignia. Because this immune, independent restraint forecloses school payments regardless of whether the NIL rule exists, the injury cannot be traced to the challenged NIL rule.
Broadcast revenue theory
The court held this theory also fails. California Civil Code § 3344(d) permits the uncompensated use of NIL in broadcasts, and the immune amateurism rules independently bar any payment from schools. The plaintiffs' argument that the amateurism rules cover only cash and enumerated awards did not survive the text of the rules, which cap athletic awards by total "value" and are not limited to cash.
State Law Claims
The parties agreed, and the court had previously held, that the Cartwright Act and UCL claims are analyzed under the same standards as the Sherman Act claims. Because the Sherman Act claims were dismissed, the state law claims were dismissed as well.
Leave to Amend
The court granted leave to amend, finding that the dismissal rested on pleading deficiencies that are not necessarily incurable as to a narrowed, non-broadcast theory, and noting it had not previously addressed antitrust injury. The plaintiffs may refile by September 10, 2026, limited to repleading a plausible non-broadcast, school-affiliated NIL market and a corresponding injury theory. They may not reassert the dismissed labor-market or broadcast-NIL theories.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.