The Supreme Court handed down its decision in NCAA v. Alston today, ruling unanimously that the NCAA can’t limit what kind of education-related benefits college athletes receive.
What does it mean?
I’m hesitant to say, except to say that many of those who aren’t hesitant to say should probably be more hesitant to say. There are plenty of possibilities. Here are a few:
One possibility is that this means nothing, that schools have been finding ways to max out student athletes’ benefits already and that this—which presumably matters mostly for recruiting—isn’t going to make a significant difference.
One possibility is that this means nothing, especially for major sports, that boosters have substantially robust systems of under-the-table payments that for big-money sports, the scale of new benefits schools can allowably bestow on athletes is too small to make much of a difference.
One possibility, a companion to the last, is that this will create bigger giants in small-money sports through a backdoor channel in which schools build out strong internship programs, specifically for athletes, which then don’t move the needle much with the big-money sports but create some bigger titans in sports like track and cross country.
One possibility is that this means something, and that schools will pack significant value into these channels, which I guess the NCAA will now try to regulate in a what-counts-as-education-related sense?
But it’s another possibility that’s probably the most noteworthy, and that’s the one generating the biggest reactions.
In a concurring opinion—so not the official opinion of the Court, but one added alongside it by the justice who wrote it, explaining his own vote—Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to pave the way for follow-up lawsuits, basically saying that because the NCAA is withholding the value athletes generate from the athletes themselves, they’re breaking laws, which some are reading as an invitation to sue the NCAA for prohibiting payments of all kinds, education-related or otherwise.
This would take a long time to work out. Someone would have to file a lawsuit. The lawsuit would have to work its way up through a circuit. My impression is that for said lawsuit to apply nationally (as opposed to simply addressing one specific grievance, which would be the one the lawsuit would be based upon—again, this is all my impression, I am no lawyer and no Supreme Court expert but again, neither are many of the others talking to you about this), the Supreme Court would have to agree to take it on. Then, of course, the NCAA would have to lose the case.
It’s possible Name/Image/Likeness, however it shakes out, would by that point be ruled to be enough. It’s possible it will move the needle enough that any subsequent case couldn’t move said needle much further. Name/Image/Likeness, judging by its current legislative significance, both nationally and within so many specific states, is a bigger deal than this case. But if you’re enjoying the NCAA losing a case at the Supreme Court, and losing it unanimously, I’m not going to stop you.
