Student athletes win U.S. Supreme Court confrontation against NCAA

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with student-athletes who filed an antitrust challenge against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, in a box office resolution that could reform the more than $ 14 billion American university sports industry.

The nine court judges unanimously held that the restrictions set by the NCAA, the governing body of American collegiate sports, on the benefits related to education for athletic students were unfair.

“By allowing colleges and universities to offer benefits related to education, [the lower court’s] the decision can promote school success and allow student-athletes to be more consistent with the value they bring to their schools, ”Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Brett Kavanaugh questioned NCAA practices more broadly and wrote, “The NCAA business model would be totally illegal in almost any other American industry.”

Judgment is the most important challenge for the American college sports business model, whose traditions go back more than a century and in some cases serve as a de facto talent channel for various professional leagues. top-level Americans, including football and basketball.

The NCAA and its member universities argued that preserving the amateur status of participating athletes is critical to the attractiveness of college sports, an argument the judges found unattractive.

“Colleges and universities across the country have taken advantage of sports to earn income, attract attention, increase enrollment and raise money from alumni,” the court wrote in its summary of the case. “This profitable company is based on ‘amateur’ student athletes competing under horizontal restrictions that restrict how schools can compensate them for their game.”

Current NCAA rules effectively limit the type of compensation that athletes competing at member universities can receive for scholarships or related benefits.

The current case, an amalgam of several lawsuits against the NCAA filed by current and former college athletes, argued that those rules violated U.S. Sherman law.

“We hope that this victory in the battle for the rights of college athletes will continue a wave of justice that elevates other aspects of athletes’ compensation, ”said Steve Berman, a lawyer who represented the athletes in the case. “That’s the fair treatment college athletes deserve.”