The Supreme Court on Monday sided against the NCAA in a case concerning player compensation in college sports.
In a unanimous ruling, the court found that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit correctly ruled that the league’s limitations on how schools can compensate athletes violated antitrust law. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurrence.
The 9th Circuit had struck down NCAA rules limiting the education-related benefits schools could offer to student-athletes. At the same time, the court had upheld the league’s rules about compensation related to athletic performance. The Supreme Court’s ruling upholds both of those findings, allowing players greater access to academic perks such as laptops and internships that the league had previously barred.
SUPREME COURT HITS NCAA WITH FULL-COURT PRESS IN PLAYER COMPENSATION CASE
During oral arguments in March, every justice took issue with the way the NCAA currently treats players.
Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative members, hinted that there may be a double standard in how the league treats its amateur athletes because colleges do not regulate the compensation of their coaches, who often earn millions of dollars.
“You can look at the limitations of benefits or pay to players, but is there a similar focus on the compensation to coaches to maintain that distinction between amateur coaches as opposed to coaches in the pro ranks?” Thomas asked.
Gorsuch made this point a major part of his argument against the NCAA in his opinion, writing that at the heart of its claims to promoting amateur sports is a “massive business.”
“Those who run this enterprise profit in a different way than the student-athletes whose activities they oversee,” Gorsuch wrote, pointing out that NCAA President Mark Emmert makes nearly $4 million per year.
Gorsuch acknowledged that for fans of college sports, many of whom want to see student-athletes treated like pro-athletes, the decision may not feel like a big enough win. But, Gorsuch wrote, the question of salaries was not before the court, and, just as the 9th Circuit did not seek to answer it, neither would the Supreme Court.
“The national debate about amateurism in college sports is important,” he wrote, quoting the 9th Circuit’s decision. “But our task as appellate judges is not to resolve it. Nor could we. Our task is simply to review the district court judgment through the appropriate lens of antitrust law.”
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh praised Gorsuch’s opinion as an “overdue course correction” to the NCAA’s limitations on compensation. But, Kavanaugh added, he would like to see the case for player compensation pushed even further, writing that the NCAA’s arguments for its remaining restrictions are “circular and unpersuasive.”
“The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America,” Kavanaugh wrote, adding that the NCAA makes billions each year and seems to send it to everyone “except the student athletes.”
“College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.”
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The case, which was heard just as the league’s annual March Madness tournament entered its final round, attracted much attention from players and fans alike, many of whom believe that the NCAA should relax its restrictions on player compensation. As the tournament began, an association launched an initiative to raise awareness for players’ causes.
