Antitrust Law Comes For The NCAA

September 22, 2023 6:02 PM

Today, Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, who had overseen the initial O'Bannon and Alston trials, granted class action status to House vs. NCAA, in which the plaintiffs are arguing that the NCAA's remaining restrictions on name, image, and licensing rights prohibiting direct payment of players by schools and conferences represent an unlawful restraint of trade violating antitrust law.

Judge Wilken's ruling follows a contentious hearing between the NCAA's legal team and the plaintiffs', where the judge showed considerable skepticism of the arguments brought forth by the NCAA.

posted by NoxAeternum (10 comments total)

To say that this is bad news for the NCAA is akin to saying the Pacific is wet. The NCAA's arguments in the court pretty much went over like a lead balloon. Most notably, when the NCAA tried to argue that payments would violate Title IX, both the plaintiff's counsel and judge shot down the argument, pointing out that such issues were due to the way schools and the NCAA structured their deals - and thus were responsible for Title IX compliance. Again, this is a judge who has heard (and rejected) many of these arguments before, and this being the first post-Alston case has to have the folks in Indianapolis looking scared.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:10 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

The NCAA makes Mos Eisley look like a convent.
posted by Windopaene at 6:35 PM on September 22, 2023 [11 favorites]

Good.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:59 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

So does this only affect NIL limits, or could it result in schools paying players?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:28 AM on September 23, 2023

So does this only affect NIL limits, or could it result in schools paying players?

This case is aiming for removing the NCAA's restrictions on direct payment of players (which, after Alston, are some of the few regulations on NIL left.) And honestly, we're getting to see the brilliance of Jeff Kessler's long term strategy here - he realized that you couldn't take down the NCAA in one blow, but instead had to chip away at the foundations. So he starts with O'Bannon, establishing that players have a right to their NIL rights and that there is value to them. Then we get Alston, establishing the NCAA is not exempt from antitrust law. By getting those rulings, it's clearly undercut the NCAA here in House, which is where Kessler is going for the killing blow.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:51 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is not to defend the NCAA in any way, but I wonder if 20 years from now we'll be looking back on these as the comparatively-good-old-days. Because if there's one thing I'm pretty confident about, it's that given the amount of money at stake and the stark power differentials between the controlling institutions and individual players, I have close to zero hope that the NCAA system, as corrupt as it is, will be replaced with something more beneficial to the athletes.

Which is a shame, because clearly a system more beneficial to the athletes is desirable. I just don't expect one to develop organically and I don't see anyone else in the picture with the political will and authority to impose a fairer system than whatever money-driven hellscape is going to fill the void.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:49 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Because if there's one thing I'm pretty confident about, it's that given the amount of money at stake and the stark power differentials between the controlling institutions and individual players, I have close to zero hope that the NCAA system, as corrupt as it is, will be replaced with something more beneficial to the athletes.

Except that the system is becoming more beneficial to the athletes, and that's happening by the legal system letting athletes operate in their own interests, after decades of the NCAA taking that from them. And athletes are fighting to protect themselves - there's an NLRB case going on to fight for the right of college athletes to unionize currently.

The NCAA was enabled in their abuse of athletes by the idea that those athletes needed to be "protected". If you want to help bring about a better future for them, then support them, instead of arguing that they aren't capable of looking out for their own interests.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:36 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's not that I think they're incapable of recognizing their own interests and trying to work toward them. Rather, I believe that the universities, conferences, television networks, and other parties benefiting in this ecosystem are likely in stronger positions to occupy the void that will be left if/when the NCAA deservedly goes down and I am skeptical of the ability of not-yet-educated young adult athletes with few other options to organize successfully to defend their interests.

I'm not opposed to tearing the current system down but I wish there was a clear plan for what will replace it because the other parties in this fight include billion dollar enterprises that have already demonstrated their ruthless willingness to exploit student athletes for generations.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:53 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's not that I think they're incapable of recognizing their own interests and trying to work toward them. Rather, I believe that the universities, conferences, television networks, and other parties benefiting in this ecosystem are likely in stronger positions to occupy the void that will be left if/when the NCAA deservedly goes down and I am skeptical of the ability of not-yet-educated young adult athletes with few other options to organize successfully to defend their interests.

First off, while the NCAA is the primary defendant in the lawsuit, they're not the only ones - the lawsuit is arguing the NCAA and the conferences are a wage-fixing cartel whose rules restricting the way players can make money on their name, image, and likeness are an unlawful restraint of trade. The whole point of this lawsuit (and the chain of lawsuits leading to it) is to establish that college athletics is actually a job, and should be treated as such. Which comes to the second point.

Second, to be blunt, your "babes in the woods" argument is quite ignorant of what these athletes - many of whom have been operating in some degree as professionals - are doing and what they do actually understand. Again, your position is how the NCAA was able to abuse athletes and steal their labor, and it doesn't actually help them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:46 AM on September 24, 2023

I don't know enough to have any real opinions, but a couple of questions:

1. How many is the "many of whom have been operating in some degree as professionals?" Isn't that an exceedingly small number of athletes compared to the whole population?

2. Is tuition considered as a kind of payment now, or would it become one?
posted by fncll at 9:07 AM on September 26, 2023