The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that limits on education-related benefits for college athletes violate federal antitrust laws. The opinion, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, is seen as a victory for athletes’ rights and a strong rebuke of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s argument that increasing benefits for athletes will undermine what it says is the enterprise’s signature appeal — that its athletes are considered unpaid amateurs.
The case, NCAA v. Alston, No. 20–512, considered whether the association had the authority to limit scholarships to the cost of attendance and to bar colleges from providing any additional compensation or benefits, even if they were related to an athlete’s education. The federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that scholarships and direct compensation could continue to be limited but that education-related benefits could be as much as $5,980 — the amount that the NCAA allows colleges to award athletes for their sports achievements.
The NCAA has argued that a ban on such benefits was necessary to preserve “amateurism” in college sports and to prevent wealthy colleges and athletics boosters from gaining an unfair advantage in recruiting athletes. But Gorsuch questioned the very premise of amateurism in the first paragraph of his opinion, writing that the lucrative enterprise of college sports “relies on ‘amateur’ student-athletes who compete under horizontal restraints that restrict how the schools may compensate them for their play.”
Dionne L. Koller, director of the Center for Sport and the Law, at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said that the NCAA has argued for decades that it was the creator and protector of a “magical model” of college sports that would be sullied by compensating athletes in any way. “It’s nice to see the court not falling for that,” Koller said.
The justices also weren’t swayed by the argument that limits were necessary to preserve an even playing field, said Helen Drew, director of the Center for the Advancement of Sport, at the University at Buffalo School of Law. If the NCAA and colleges really believed that, they could put restrictions on coaches’ salaries, she said, “but that hasn’t happened.”
Martin D. Edel, chair of the college-sports-law practice at the law firm Goulston & Storrs, said that although the ruling is a win for some college athletes, it is relatively narrow. Under the Supreme Court’s decision, the limits on scholarships and direct compensation remain, but the justices removed the limit on education-related benefits.
The court’s opinion also leaves lots of unanswered questions, including who will define what “education-related” means. For example, it’s clear that colleges can give athletes a computer, Edel said, but it’s not clear if providing training to use that computer would also be acceptable.
In a news release, the NCAA said that the decision “notes that the NCAA remains free to articulate what are and are not truly educational benefits, consistent with the NCAA’s mission to support student-athletes.”
Edel said that if the NCAA or athletics conferences set those definitions, they could still be at risk of violating antitrust laws. The association would be better off providing a guide for things that did not fit educational benefits rather than trying to narrowly restrict everything that would be acceptable, he said.
There are also potential tax issues for colleges and athletes, depending on who or what entity pays for the benefits. If a college provides the money, it could be giving athletes a form of compensation that would qualify them as employees, Edel said. If an athletics booster pays for the benefit, such as an internship or job training, it’s not clear who would ensure the legitimacy of that training, he said.
For some advocates of increasing athletes’ rights, Monday’s ruling didn’t go far enough. “This is a good first step,” said Eddie Comeaux, executive director of the Center for Athletes’ Rights and Equity, at the University of California at Riverside.
Comeaux said the ruling, especially with the scathing concurrence from Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, could open the door — through more legal challenges or legislation — to actually sharing the money generated by college sports with the athletes who attract the fans and television contracts.
“How do we ensure that athletes are fairly compensated for their labor?” Comeaux asked. “I think there’s a way we can do it and maintain a distinction with professional sports. We certainly need to reimagine the model of college sports.”
