NCAA grants waiver to athletes in Pavia’s position
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Eli Lederman, ESPN Staff Writer
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors on Monday approved a blanket waiver granting an additional year of eligibility to former junior college transfers in similar positions to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, opening the door for a wave of college athletes across all sports to spend one more year in college athletics.
According to an NCAA memo, the waiver extends an extra year of eligibility in 2025-26 to athletes who previously “competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years” and otherwise would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility following the 2024-25 season.
The decision from the NCAA comes five days after a federal judge in Tennessee granted an injunction to allow Pavia, a former junior college transfer who played his first season at Vanderbilt in 2024, to pursue an additional year of college eligibility next fall.
In its memo announcing the waiver, the NCAA also announced that it has filed a notice of appeal to the ruling in Pavia’s case.
Pavia sued the NCAA in November over its eligibility standards, arguing that the organization’s rule of counting a player’s junior college years against his overall NCAA eligibility violates antitrust laws by restricting an athlete’s ability to profit from their name, image, and likeness.
Last week’s injunction applied solely to Pavia and would have prevented the NCAA from barring the Vanderbilt quarterback from returning next fall. However, Monday’s ruling from the NCAA will now allow other athletes in similar situations — former junior college players who would have been out of eligibility following this season — to return for an additional year in 2025-26.
The waiver does not extend to all junior college athletes, only those who would have completed their NCAA eligibility this year.
Pavia’s lawsuit and the subsequent injunction have potentially paved the way for hundreds of former junior college athletes to gain an additional year of eligibility in 2025-26.
Pavia completed 59.2% of his passes for 2,133 yards and 17 touchdowns to four interceptions while leading Vanderbilt to a 6-6 finish in 2024. He joined the Commodores following two seasons at New Mexico State after beginning his college career at New Mexico Military Institute, a two-year junior college.
Under NCAA rules, athletes are typically given five years to play four seasons. Among the arguments in Pavia’s lawsuit is that the NCAA unfairly counted his time in junior college — played outside the purview of the organization — against his NCAA eligibility, and in turn limited his ability to earn money off of his name, image and likeness.
Under the new waiver, Pavia will be granted a sixth year of NCAA eligibility next fall.
Florida State wide receiver Malik Benson thought he’d used his final year of eligibility after playing for the Seminoles in 2024, Alabama in 2023 and the prior two seasons at Hutchinson Community College. He told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Monday that he plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal in the wake of the ruling and feels blessed to have an opportunity to play one more year.
Benson and his agent had been in touch with attorney Darren Heitner, who works in the college sports space, about filing for an extra year. They had a 28-page complaint prepared, but never had to file it.
“I’m just glad that the Lord blessed me with another opportunity and another year,” Benson told Thamel. “I will not take this for granted.”
Benson is expected to be one of many who either return to school or enter the portal to take advantage of the ruling.
News surrounding the NCAA waiver and Pavia’s lawsuit comes days before Vanderbilt takes part in its first bowl game since 2018. Pavia and the Commodores will meet Georgia Tech in the Birmingham Bowl on Dec. 27 (3:30 p.m., ESPN).
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
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Jorge Castillo
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.
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