Supreme Court Punts On Real Change for NCAA Players With Narrow Decision
Despite affirming athletes’ trial win, Court sidesteps calls to void employer attempts to put consumer benefits above players’ rights
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court today unanimously upheld the district court’s decision in NCAA v. Alston, which struck down the NCAA’s rules prohibiting payments to players tied to education. In this decision, however, the Supreme Court preserved the NCAA’s general collusive scheme against college basketball and football players and chose to ignore the case’s larger legal and policy implications.
In response, Sandeep Vahessan, legal director of the Open Markets Institute, issued the following statement:
“Don’t be deceived: The Supreme Court just did the bare minimum that it could for college athletes. And, in doing so, it implicitly affirmed the lower courts’ use of cross-market balancing, which potentially opens the door for employers across the economy—whether colleges in the NCAA, Uber, or Amazon—to impose restraints on workers and escape liability by pointing to theoretical benefits to consumers.
“We’re glad the Supreme Court ended the NCAA’s collusive rules blocking student-athletes from education-related payments, but the Court still tolerated the rest of the NCAA’s exploitative and racialized collusion against athletes. The Court also expressed general skepticism about antitrust rules governing business conduct—language that could have adverse effects on future antitrust action against powerful corporations across the economy.
“When associations of employers like the NCAA point to ‘consumer benefits’ to unjustly defend worker restraints, they’re using cross-market balancing. In Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence, he noted that the NCAA's anti-worker collusion would be plainly illegal in most sectors of the economy.
“Under a long line of case law, the Sherman Act protects workers and other producers, like athletes, from employer collusion. The Supreme Court failed to uphold that protection today. We hope that Congress and agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, which wields expansive fair competition power, stop such collusion and move swiftly to protect all workers from employer cartels and other unfair practices.”
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