Last winter, the University of Cincinnati sued its former quarterback, Brendan Sorsby, in the federal court for breach of contract after he transferred to Texas Tech University for the upcoming season, allegedly violating his (NIL) revenue-sharing agreement by failing to pay a $1 million liquidated damages buyout upon his transfer.
That led to subsequent litigation when Sorsby acknowledged that he had bet on his own football team and the NCAA suspended him indefinitely, leading Sorsby to ultimately sue the NCAA.
Sorsby alleges in the lawsuit that he suffers from a diagnosed gambling addiction, that he entered a residential treatment facility for the addiction, that the NCAA’s handling of his eligibility has been arbitrary or overly punitive, and that his immediate ineligibility could irreparably harm his professional future.
This opens the door to a broader legal theory involving the Americans with Disabilities Act or related disability-discrimination concepts because compulsive gambling disorder can qualify as a recognized mental health disorder under some legal and medical frameworks.
However, there are important complications:
- The ADA expressly excludes certain conditions involving current illegal conduct or specific impulse-control behaviors from protection. Gambling disorder occupies a legally murky area because sports betting itself may be legal, but NCAA rules prohibit athletes from participating in it.
- Courts generally allow private associations like the NCAA to enforce eligibility rules if they are applied consistently and tied to competitive integrity.
- Sorsby’s case may be stronger as a “reasonable accommodation / rehabilitation / proportional punishment” argument than as a pure ADA discrimination case.
Still, his attorneys could allege that the NCAA:
- failed to account for a medically recognized addiction,
- treated addiction solely as misconduct rather than a health condition, or
- imposed penalties inconsistent with modern approaches to mental-health treatment and recovery.
In support, they could note:
- sports betting partnerships are now deeply embedded throughout college athletics,
- the NCAA and conferences profit from gambling-related sponsorships,
- yet athletes themselves face career-ending sanctions for gambling behavior.
That tension creates a potentially compelling public-policy narrative – the system normalized gambling culture while punishing an athlete who developed an addiction within that environment.
Legally, though, success on a straight ADA theory would still be an uphill battle. The injunction request currently appears more focused on timing, fairness, reinstatement procedure, and preserving Sorsby’s NFL prospects than on a direct disability-discrimination claim.
