The NCAA lost in the highest court in the land

Whine all you want about the portal and NIL but it was never fair or even logical that the NCAA could require a student athlete to sit out a year if he or she transferred. What was the reason for such a rule? It certainly wasn’t in the best interest of the athlete…..it’s purpose of course was because it was in the best interest of the schools and coaches. How was it ever fair a coach could prevent a student athlete from transferring to certain schools (ex: a rival school)….this is a free country and the fact that was actually allowed to happen is nuts.

It was also never fair that a scholarship athlete would be prevented from earning whatever the market might pay them, while every other student, even those on academic scholarships, could earn unlimited amounts of money.

In last year’s Supreme Court case, Seth Waxman, NCAA lead attorney, argued that the NCAA’s business model is based on athletes being amateurs and the NCAA should get to decide on what compensation is considered “amateur or professional”. What Waxman essentially argued is that student athletes must be prevented from the same rights and opportunities as regular students, otherwise the NCAA’s business model wouldn’t work.

The Supreme Court, as we know, ruled against the NCAA. Justice Kavanaugh had some stinging comments:

"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," he wrote. "And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different."

The NCAA has “built a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student-athletes who are not fairly compensated.”

“all of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on the theory that ‘customers prefer’ to eat food from low-paid cooks. ... Hospitals cannot agree to cap nurses’ income in order to create a ‘purer’ form of helping the sick. ... Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor.” Kavanaugh adds that “it is not clear how the NCAA can legally defend its remaining compensation rules,” and concludes thusly: “The NCAA is not above the law.”