In N.C.A.A. Case, Supreme Court Backs Payments to Student-Athletes

[TheMadLionsFan]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that the N.C.A.A. cannot bar relatively modest payments to student-athletes in a decision that questioned the association’s monopoly power at a time when the business model of college sports is under increasing pressure.


Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that the N.C.A.A. was not free to limit benefits tied to education for Division I football and basketball players. The decision allowed payments for things like musical instruments, scientific equipment, postgraduate scholarships, tutoring, study abroad, academic awards and internships. It did not permit the outright payment of salaries.

The court rejected the N.C.A.A.’s argument that compensating athletes would alienate sports fans who prize students’ amateur status. “Uncapping certain education-related benefits would preserve consumer demand for college athletics just as well as the challenged rules do,” Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco.


“Such benefits are easily distinguishable from professional salaries,” he wrote, as they are linked to education and could be provided in kind rather than in cash. “The record furnishes ample support,” Judge Thomas added, “that the provision of education-related benefits has not and will not repel college sports fans.”

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from The New York Times

The Supreme Court last considered how antitrust laws applied to the association in 1984, ruling that its restrictions on television coverage of college football games were unlawful. But the decision, National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, included an influential passage on student-athletes.

“The N.C.A.A. plays a critical role in the maintenance of a revered tradition of amateurism in college sports,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority in that case. “There can be no question but that it needs ample latitude to play that role, or that the preservation of the student-athlete in higher education adds richness and diversity to intercollegiate athletics and is entirely consistent with the goals of” the antitrust laws.

The Biden administration filed a brief supporting the athletes in the new case, National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, No. 20-512, saying that the Ninth Circuit had struck the right balance by focusing on educational expenses.

Aside from the pandemic, no issue has engaged the N.C.A.A. more in recent years than the rights of student-athletes, including whether they may profit from their fame.

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Mister]

 

[TheMadLionsFan]

NCAA can blame only itself for Supreme Court blow

Dan Wetzel
·Columnist
Mon, June 21, 2021, 2:01 PM·6 min read


For decades upon decades now, even as public sentiment and evolved thinking have broken against it, the NCAA has tried to hold the hardest of lines.
It dragged its feet on things as reasonable as granting small stipends to student-athletes who need basic spending money and can’t get part-time jobs due to the demands of being a Division I athlete. Why? Because it could, until it finally couldn’t.
It refused to act on Name, Image and Likeness rules that prohibit players from making money from other people. Why? Because it could, until, starting July 1 in a handful of states, it won’t be able to any longer.
It has tried to pretend this was still 1974, even begging politicians and federal judges to save it.
The lack of leadership, the lack of compromise, the lack of foresight to do anything but keep kicking the can down the road has now left college athletics in a precarious spot where it no longer controls its future.
It’s a failure that falls on NCAA president Mark Emmert, sure, but also his predecessors, his bosses on the Board of Governors, even the massively paid conference commissioners who really pull the strings.
They all refused to do the work. Now they are staring at a potential mess.
Monday was a bad day for the NCAA status quo. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against it in the case NCAA v. Alston. That decision isn’t a major one, it simply prohibits the association from blocking schools from providing student-athletes with so-called “education-related expenses” — laptops, internships, academic awards and needed scientific equipment for example.


However, the ramifications of that ruling could prove significant. And it was easily avoidable. It was the NCAA that fought all the way to the Supreme Court. This was the hill it wanted to die on — denying a college athlete a laptop? This needed to be litigated?

Couldn’t the NCAA have worked with the players and their advocates and made a concession — free laptops, more internships — and declared it a victory for all sides while placating demand for more and more, rather than spend millions in a legal defense that just left it swinging like a piñata?

This was incredibly dumb.

By going to the Supreme Court, the NCAA risked not just losing the case, but the possibility of the court offering guidance that all but invites additional lawsuits that will have a far greater impact on how the money is distributed in college athletics — a development that may prove unintentionally disastrous for many student-athlete backers who are cheering this ruling.

And that’s precisely what happened.

"The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the 9-0 decision. "Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. 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 ...

"To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges maintain important traditions that have become part of the fabric of America," Kavanaugh continued. "... But those traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated.

“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,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."

Ouch. Just like that, by trying to fight the distribution of laptops, the NCAA could quickly be staring at unionized athletes, a pay-for-play model, lifetime healthcare due to injuries and who knows what else. These are the real things the NCAA wanted to avoid.


However, the ramifications of that ruling could prove significant. And it was easily avoidable. It was the NCAA that fought all the way to the Supreme Court. This was the hill it wanted to die on — denying a college athlete a laptop? This needed to be litigated?

Couldn’t the NCAA have worked with the players and their advocates and made a concession — free laptops, more internships — and declared it a victory for all sides while placating demand for more and more, rather than spend millions in a legal defense that just left it swinging like a piñata?

This was incredibly dumb.

By going to the Supreme Court, the NCAA risked not just losing the case, but the possibility of the court offering guidance that all but invites additional lawsuits that will have a far greater impact on how the money is distributed in college athletics — a development that may prove unintentionally disastrous for many student-athlete backers who are cheering this ruling.

And that’s precisely what happened.

"The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the 9-0 decision. "Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. 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 ...


"To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges maintain important traditions that have become part of the fabric of America," Kavanaugh continued. "... But those traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated.

“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,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."

Ouch. Just like that, by trying to fight the distribution of laptops, the NCAA could quickly be staring at unionized athletes, a pay-for-play model, lifetime healthcare due to injuries and who knows what else. These are the real things the NCAA wanted to avoid.

NCAA can blame only itself for Supreme Court blow

The NCAA's lack of leadership, compromise and foresight has now left college athletics in a spot where it no longer controls its own future.

sports.yahoo.com