Supreme Court Favor Athletes in Narrow Ruling on NCAA Rules

[HoosierHoopster 6,994]

Mods, not sure if there's a thread up somewhere on this, merge if needed -- but a pretty big ruling today out of the Supreme Court.

It's a fairly narrow ruling as written (a unanimous ruling), but has potentially major impact. This is the case in which college athletes have maintained that NCAA Rules (limiting educational benefits for college players as part of their schollys, Div. 1 basketball and football, capping scholarships at the cost of attending)  effectively act as a restraint of competition, violating antitrust laws. The NCAA essentially countered that its Rules were largely exempt from the antitrust laws, because they're directed at maintaining amateurism in college athletics. The NCAA sought immunity from antitrust laws. the Rules at issue limited education-related benefits, e.g., computers, that colleges offer to student athletes. The Court (unanimously) held that the NCAA Rules are not reasonably necessary to distinguish between college and professional sports.  The Court found the suit involved admitted horizontal price fixing in a market in which the defendants exercise monopoly control. The decision does not directly address 'name, image and likeness' rules, but it does likely push the NCAA to work with Congress going forward in addressing compensation to college athletes. Now, the NCAA cannot bar a school from adding in extra education-related benefits to Div 1 bball and football players, though the individual conferences apparently still can.

One of the quotes:

“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The N.C.A.A. is not above the law.”

-- edit, just noticed this in the college bball thread. 

[Lebowski 2,744]

Thought this piece was interesting. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-can-only-blame-itself-for-supreme-court-blow-180112658.html

[go iu bb 6,103]

39 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

Thought this piece was interesting. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-can-only-blame-itself-for-supreme-court-blow-180112658.html

I agree with that and have thought much the same myself. The ineptitude of the NCAA runs deep, not just in its policing of its own rules but also includes the making of those rules in the first place. They've dragged their feet for so long and it's going to bite them in the a$$.

[IU Scott 2,375]

4 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Mods, not sure if there's a thread up somewhere on this, merge if needed -- but a pretty big ruling today out of the Supreme Court.

It's a fairly narrow ruling as written (a unanimous ruling), but has potentially major impact. This is the case in which college athletes have maintained that NCAA Rules (limiting educational benefits for college players as part of their schollys, Div. 1 basketball and football, capping scholarships at the cost of attending)  effectively act as a restraint of competition, violating antitrust laws. The NCAA essentially countered that its Rules were largely exempt from the antitrust laws, because they're directed at maintaining amateurism in college athletics. The NCAA sought immunity from antitrust laws. the Rules at issue limited education-related benefits, e.g., computers, that colleges offer to student athletes. The Court (unanimously) held that the NCAA Rules are not reasonably necessary to distinguish between college and professional sports.  The Court found the suit involved admitted horizontal price fixing in a market in which the defendants exercise monopoly control. The decision does not directly address 'name, image and likeness' rules, but it does likely push the NCAA to work with Congress going forward in addressing compensation to college athletes. Now, the NCAA cannot bar a school from adding in extra education-related benefits to Div 1 bball and football players, though the individual conferences apparently still can.

One of the quotes:

“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The N.C.A.A. is not above the law.”

-- edit, just noticed this in the college bball thread. 

They are not employees

[go iu bb 6,103]

3 hours ago, IU Scott said:

They are not employees

The Supreme Court doesn't agree with you.

Their work brings income to the university. Sounds like an employee to me, too.

[Schreckbagger 620]

The Supreme Court doesn't agree with you.
Their work brings income to the university. Sounds like an employee to me, too.

The only job with free room and board plus free education is the military. And the military doesn't have a portal.

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[Chips&Dipo 1,464]

55 minutes ago, Schreckbagger said:

The only job with free room and board plus free education is the military. And the military doesn't have a portal.

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I didn't serve, and I don't want to equate the two things, but don't people in the military get paid on top of the free room and board and education?

[Hollywood Mike Miranda 852]

53 minutes ago, Schreckbagger said:

The only job with free room and board plus free education is the military. And the military doesn't have a portal.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using BtownBanners mobile app
 

Military also doesn't make a zillion dollars off the backs of it's "players" via TV contacts, merch, etc. It's just not a good comparison. College football and basketball players may not be traditional employees, but they make big money for a lot of people who aren't them.

[Hardwood83 4,774]

I don't agree that scholarship athletes are employees, they enter into an entirely voluntary relationship in which both parties benefit. No reason it has to be of equal benefit. Players don't like it? That's where the "voluntary" part comes in, leave and do something else. Unfortunately, it appears that concept is completely and utterly dead now. 

Does the Pony league owe a cut of the concessions to the 11 yr old baseball players now? Do we have to pay charity volunteers at the bake sale? To be clear, I am super pro-capitalism and profit. That doesn't mean amateur sports can't exist though. The NCAA may be stupid and greedy but that doesn't equate to College sports ceasing to exist (exactly what is happening.) 

NIL I can get behind. The schools paying players? That is ridiculous. Schools should get rid of scholarships and go the unofficial club teams route. Let the pro-leagues set up their own minor league system. 

[Stuhoo 80,905]

2 minutes ago, Hardwood83 said:

I don't agree that scholarship athletes are employees, they enter into an entirely voluntary relationship in which both parties benefit. No reason it has to be of equal benefit. Players don't like it? That's where the "voluntary" part comes in, leave and do something else. Unfortunately, it appears that concept is completely and utterly dead now. 

Does the Pony league owe a cut of the concessions to the 11 yr old baseball players now? Do we have to pay charity volunteers at the bake sale? To be clear, I am super pro-capitalism and profit. That doesn't mean amateur sports can't exist though. The NCAA may be stupid and greedy but that doesn't equate to College sports ceasing to exist (exactly what is happening.) 

NIL I can get behind. The schools paying players? That is ridiculous. Schools should get rid of scholarships and go the unofficial club teams route. Let the pro-leagues set up their own minor league system. 

 

Fair enough, but each of the comparables you cite has commonalities and are not exact replicas.

Appellate courts, and in this case up to the Supreme Court are so interesting because they look at statutes, legislation, and precedent and decide based on them, but deal with the scenarios that aren't an exact match for statute and precedent.

In this case a 9-0 Supreme Court looked (primarily) at precedent and basically said "lots of things are kinda like what has happened here, but nothing is exactly like it." Then, the Supreme Court decided that this slightly different scenario should set new precedent in a certain way. 

This is why the most common Supreme Court decisions are 9-0 (36% of them over the past 20 years). A Justice takes the lead, interprets precedent, and when the interpretation logically follows, the other eight Justices join in the opinion.

 

[HoosierAloha 30,068]

Military also doesn't make a zillion dollars off the backs of it's "players" via TV contacts, merch, etc. It's just not a good comparison. College football and basketball players may not be traditional employees, but they make big money for a lot of people who aren't them.

I disagree that college athletes and military members are on the same playing field. The military compensates its employees for housing and food but they pay a salary on top of that.

However, the military absolutely makes zillions (slight exaggeration) off of its employees. It’s just in a different fashion. I won’t get into that for obvious political reasons.


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[Stuhoo 80,905]

Also--it's worth remembering that the Supreme Court does not accept certiorari (agree to take a case) for decided issues.

As a prima facia fact, if the Supreme Court accepts a case, they have decided that there is no exact precedent.

[Hovadipo 56,266]

16 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

Also--it's worth remembering that the Supreme Court does not accept certiorari (agree to take a case) for decided issues.

As a prima facia fact, if the Supreme Court accepts a case, they have decided that there is no exact precedent.

Whatever, Judge Stu-dy.

[Stuhoo 80,905]

5 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

Whatever, Judge Stu-dy.

[IU Scott 2,375]

11 hours ago, go iu bb said:

The Supreme Court doesn't agree with you.

Their work brings income to the university. Sounds like an employee to me, too.

In college the front of the jersey is what sells and not individual players.  Players come and go yet fans still come and watch the games

[HoosierTownie 160]

The real question here is, do no-show classes count as an education related benefit...

 

[HoosierHoopster 6,994]

16 hours ago, IU Scott said:

They are not employees

I guess you can take it up with the Supremes? :)

[Lebowski 2,744]

1 hour ago, IU Scott said:

In college the front of the jersey is what sells and not individual players.  Players come and go yet fans still come and watch the games

Couldn't that be said for all sports at all levels?  I mean I still wear my Pacers t-shirt that I bought back during the Reggie Miller days from time to time.

[go iu bb 6,103]

Just now, IU Scott said:

In college the front of the jersey is what sells and not individual players.  Players come and go yet fans still come and watch the games

What does that have to do with whether they're an employee or not?

I go to a restaurant because of the food they serve, not because of the servers or any other specific employee. Servers come and go but I still go to eat the food. The servers are still employees.

[woodenshoemanHoosierfan 6,225]

Interesting article. Especially this part:

“You can see a path where there is some consensus that something ought to be done in terms of giving the NCAA some leeway,” Grow said. “If you look at the baseline numbers, and polls are all over the place, but people are generally more supportive of compensating student athletes, but I saw something fairly recently that when it comes down to universities putting basketball and football players on salary, only like 15 percent of Americans support that. There’s this weird scenario where everyone hates the NCAA, but at the same time, I don’t know if the majority supports full on pay-for-play. I can see that if the NCAA played that right, it could gain some traction.”
That’s especially true, Grow said, because the ability of the United States to compete athletically on a global international scale comes from its ability to use its college campuses as training grounds. Though the non-revenue sports do not add to the bottom lines of athletic departments, they do help shape Team USA in the Olympics and other international competitions. That’s likely to appeal to Congress in its deliberations.
“It’s not just, ‘Oh, we lose women’s tennis,’ from the perspective of the schools themselves,” Grow said. “The whole Olympic framework in this country depends heavily on the colleges and universities training the track stars and the swimmers, etc. That’s going to be the first thing that’s going to get cut. You could see some scenario in which Congress says, ‘Hey, this is a little untenable to have totally unregulated competition here.’ They’re worried about the Olympic part of it. I wouldn’t expect them to sign off and say the NCAA gets a blank check, but if they had enough protections in place that athletes would get some kind of more meaningful voice, you could see them getting more traction. I’m not a political scientist, I’m not sure how likely that is, but it’s not implausible in my mind to think they could find some momentum there at some point.”





https://www.thedailyhoosier.com/iu-professor-opinions-in-alston-v-ncaa-spell-long-term-trouble-for-amateurism-model/

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