THIS IS BIG: BREAKING: Unanimous Supreme Court Rules for Student Athletes Against NCAA.. “The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court, upholding the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence.
Gorsuch painstakingly went through each of the NCAA’s arguments, dismantling them, one by one. The NCAA argued that its compensation rules should not be subject to a “rule of reason” analysis because it is a joint venture to offer consumers the unique product of intercollegiate athletic competition. Gorsuch explained that the NCAA has monopoly power in the market, so it deserves no such deference. He also dismissed the NCAA’s argument that it should be exempt because it offers societally important non-commercial benefits.