Supreme Court rules unanimously in favor of college athletes against NCAA limitations.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1406982213565095937?s=19

[emailking]

From Kavanaugh's opinion, it sounds like the NCAA would lose a case for non-education payments (which this case does not address).

"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. 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."

[GeorgiaModerate]

Good decision.

[Damocles]

Based.

[Dereich]

A ruling against the NCAA looked fairly certain from the start; this is what I said at the time of the oral arguments:

SCOTUS heard arguments today in NCAA v. Alston, the college athlete compensation/antitrust case. The results? Ain't looking too hot for the NCAA; Thomas, Alito, and Kagan in particular sounded pretty done with the fig leaf of "amateurism" that the NCAA uses to justify not paying players. See the quote below from Alito:

As to today's opinion, it's fairly narrow; it focuses only on the NCAA's arguments against the lower court decision and does not go further than the district court decision to strike ALL NCAA compensation rules as many wanted. Instead, the only NCAA rules struck down relate to educational/school specific compensation. It does lay the groundwork for a broader player pay case though; the NCAA has long argued that its compensation rules should be given wide deference by courts under antitrust rules as it is a joint venture with many members offering a unique product. Some previous decisions on the issue have given the NCAA the wider latitude they wanted. The Court did definitely reject that and say that anti-trust challenges to the NCAA get the normal ("rule of reason") level of review of potentially anti-competitive features.

Kavenaugh's concurring opinion is very useful. It points out that while everything in the opinion is correct, the NCAA's other rules against paying players are highly suspect. It also points out, like I did, that the Court's opinion knocks the NCAA off its pedestal of antitrust special-treatment. It then goes further and says that he believes the NCAA lacks any justification under the rule of reason to deny payment to players. After proclaiming open season on the NCAA, Kavanaugh encourages (one might even say "threatens") the NCAA to try to settle the payment issue with players without needing more lawsuits through legislation or collective bargaining by the students. It can be basically guaranteed from this that if the full compensation issue came up Kavanaugh would side with the students.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

I personally don’t think that players should be paid, but it is unfair that the NCAA gets rn make millions off their likeness and work.

[WindowPhil]

These 9-0 decisions make me wonder when we'll see a justice who's not an originalist, but says they "think how liberal justices decide cases and do the opposite" and also say "as long as there's liberals on the court, there'll be no 9-0 decisions when I'm on it.".

Or would such a person be Bork'd even by Mitch McConnell?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Does it mean anything that no one else joined Kavanaugh’s concurrence?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Does it mean anything that no one else joined Kavanaugh’s concurrence?

Not really as justices don't always like to make opinions beyond the scope of the case. Kavanaugh has been a bit of an exception to that. If he's supporting striking down a ban on payment than I can't see see such a case failing unless Roberts isn't or one of the liberals takes a surprising stance against it.

[Dereich]

Does it mean anything that no one else joined Kavanaugh’s concurrence?

On this case in particular I don't think so. The concurrence doesn't really say much about the case at hand, it just sort of expresses Kavanaugh's opinion as to future cases and how he thinks relevant parties should act moving forward. No reason for the others to put their name to something that doesn't add anything to the present case. Most of the others already made their opinions on the NCAA pretty clear at oral arguments; the NCAA doesn't have too many friends on the Court.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Gorsuch's opinion was actually pretty simple, it was basically "The lower courts upheld this as an anti-trust violation and we don't see any reason why they're wrong." Kavanaugh obviously wanted to speak a bit more on it, but not doing so doesn't equal disagreement.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I personally don’t think that players should be paid, but it is unfair that the NCAA gets rn make millions off their likeness and work.

They get full scholarship and if they are good enough some get millions, the Baseball and NBA contracts are getting ridiculous 30 M for Pitcher, QB and High priced Basketball players

Anthony Davis and kuzma and Kyrie Irving and Bellinger got injured

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Does it mean anything that no one else joined Kavanaugh’s concurrence?

Not really as justices don't always like to make opinions beyond the scope of the case. Kavanaugh has been a bit of an exception to that. If he's supporting striking down a ban on payment than I can't see see such a case failing unless Roberts isn't or one of the liberals takes a surprising stance against it.

A lot of stuff like this (along with the sports betting case) have actually seen the conservative justices more supportive of the plaintiffs.  I imagine that it was due to a free market sort of belief (i.e. the NCAA is violating capitalism by restricting what players can make).

[GP270watch]

 Eventually they're gonna have to pay the top tier athletes at D1 schools for Basketball and Football, they bring in too much money to not enjoy a share of it. It's exploitation and unsurprisingly there is a racial component to it that is blatant and obvious.

 In something like 40 states, sports coaches are the highest-paid public employees, that is crazy.

[Dereich]

Eventually they're gonna have to pay the top tier athletes at D1 schools for Basketball and Football, they bring in too much money to not enjoy a share of it. It's exploitation and unsurprisingly there is a racial component to it that is blatant and obvious.

 In something like 40 States, Sports Coaches are the Highest-Paid Public Employees, that is crazy.

Kavanaugh actually highlighted those points in his opinion.

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. 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.

[PSOL]

Good decision.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

I personally don’t think that players should be paid, but it is unfair that the NCAA gets rn make millions off their likeness and work.

They get full scholarship and if they are good enough some get millions, the Baseball and NBA contracts are getting ridiculous 30 M for Pitcher, QB and High priced Basketball players

Anthony Davis and kuzma and Kyrie Irving and Bellinger got injured

Oh no I agree, in most cases their scholarships should be enough. But there are some *extremely* talented student athletes that the schools make obscene amounts of money on.

I’d love for college sports just to get regulated back into the amateur level (cap coaches’ & adminstrators’ pay, etc.), but paying athletes just seems to be the simpler move.

[Alben Barkley]

From Kavanaugh's opinion, it sounds like the NCAA would lose a case for non-education payments (which this case does not address).

"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. 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."

[NewYorkExpress]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

[SteveRogers]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

Wut?

[NewYorkExpress]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

Wut?

Personally, if I were on the court, I would have written a dissent arguing that the concept of amateur sports violates the thirteenth amendment. It's basically slavery in another form.

[emailking]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

Wut?

Personally, if I were on the court, I would have written a dissent arguing that the concept of amateur sports violates the thirteenth amendment. It's basically slavery in another form.

It's not because nobody has to participate in an amateur sport.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I think it's outrageous that a billion+ dollar institution like this is tax exempt. 

[Bootes Void]

The Court should have gone a step further and declared the entire existence of either amateur or professional sports (take your pick as to which one) unconstitutional.

Wut?

Personally, if I were on the court, I would have written a dissent arguing that the concept of amateur sports violates the thirteenth amendment. It's basically slavery in another form.

No it's not

[dead0man]

If the NBA and the NFL (and the NHL and WNBA to a lesser extent) paid for their own minor leagues, this would be much less of an issue.