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What the FTC rule was and how it ended
The FTC issued its final noncompete rule in 2024. It would have barred employers from entering new noncompete agreements with workers and would have treated existing agreements differently depending on whether the worker was a senior executive. The rule’s effective date was September 4, 2024. A federal district court stopped its enforcement before that date, so it never applied to anyone.
The FTC appealed the court’s decision. In September 2025 the agency moved to dismiss its appeals and accepted vacatur, which means the rule was set aside. The sequence is summarized below.
| Date | Event | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | FTC issues its final noncompete rule | Announced, but not yet in force |
| Before September 4, 2024 | A federal district court stops enforcement of the rule | The rule never becomes enforceable |
| September 2025 | FTC moves to dismiss its appeals and accepts vacatur | The rule’s legal status is closed off in court |
| February 12, 2026 | FTC removes the rule from the Code of Federal Regulations | The FTC’s rule page states the rule is not in effect and not enforceable |
The FTC’s current rule page and its 2024 press release are the primary sources for this chronology. The Federal Register text of the final rule shows what the agency intended, but it is historical text, not current law.
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Why the headline is misleading for WWE
The word “ban” in the headline refers to a rule that was proposed and adopted but never took effect. Reading it as a current nationwide prohibition would be wrong. Three claims are often made about WWE that the available evidence does not support:
- That all WWE wrestlers are employees, or that all are independent contractors.
- That every wrestler is subject to the same uniform 90-day noncompete.
- That the FTC rule voided existing WWE clauses.
Each of these depends on facts about specific agreements that have not been established in any public source reviewed here.
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What a public WWE filing shows
A WWE executive agreement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission contains a clause that bars the executive, for twelve months after employment ends, from providing services to certain competitors engaged in professional-wrestling programming. The same agreement includes a nonsolicitation restriction. This shows that at least one WWE executive agreement used a restrictive covenant.
It does not show that wrestler talent agreements contain the same terms, that this agreement is a current company template, or that the clause would be enforced in any particular situation. An executive’s contract is also not a performer’s contract.
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The “90-day noncompete” label
The phrase “90-day noncompete” circulates in news coverage and fan discussion, but the available sources do not include an authoritative, representative, current wrestler talent contract or an official WWE explanation that confirms it. Some arrangements described publicly may be notice periods or continuing contract status rather than a restraint that begins after termination. Those are legally different things: a notice period typically keeps a person under contract while the relationship winds down, while a post-employment noncompete restricts what the person may do after the relationship ends. Which one applies to a given performer can only be determined from that performer’s documents.
Official statements and the FTC’s own estimate
During the rulemaking, the FTC estimated that the rule would lead to more than 8,500 additional new businesses being created each year. That figure was a forecast attributed to the rule, not an observed result, and the rule never took effect, so no measured effect exists. FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in the 2024 announcement: “Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned.” That is the advocacy position of the agency at the time, not a neutral finding by a court.
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What to check in any wrestler’s contract
When a real agreement is available, the questions below separate a genuine post-employment restraint from other contract terms. Do not infer enforceability from a clause’s label.
- Timing: Does the restriction apply during employment, after termination, or both?
- Type: Is it a notice period with continuing pay or status, or a restraint that starts when the relationship ends?
- Duration and consideration: How long does it last, and what pay or benefit, if any, is given in exchange?
- Scope: Which competitors and which activities are covered, and in what geographic area?
- Classification: Is the performer an employee or an independent contractor, and does the agreement say so?
- Governing law and forum: Which state’s law applies, and does the agreement require arbitration or a particular court?
- How the relationship ended: Was it a release, a resignation, an expiration, or a negotiated exit? Each can change the analysis.
State law and the limits of this explainer
The FTC rule’s text contemplated that state law would continue to govern. Now that the federal rule has been vacated and removed, state law is the central question in most noncompete disputes. Florida’s statute on restrictive covenants is one example of a state framework. It does not set the standard for the rest of the country, and its rules should not be assumed to apply to a wrestler working or living elsewhere.
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Individual agreements can also raise questions of choice of law, arbitration, worker classification, and contract interpretation. This article does not resolve those questions for any named wrestler or contract. Anyone facing an actual dispute needs the agreement itself and advice from a lawyer licensed in the relevant jurisdiction.
For background on how restrictive covenants work in general, see the rest of thefinancebase.com’s coverage of employment and contract terms.
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