NCAA’s Threat To Ban California Member Colleges Could Lead To Antitrust Lawsuit Reminiscent Of 1984

By Marc Edelman (Senior Contributor)

Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the Fair Pay to Play Act—a law that, effective January 1, 2023, will require colleges within the state of California to allow athletes to earn money from licensing their own names, images and likenesses. The NCAA, in response, has threatened to ban all California member colleges from competing in national championship sporting events, once the new law takes effect.

Yet, even despite the NCAA’s recent threats to punish California member colleges based on their state’s new law, there is Supreme Court precedent that calls into doubt whether the NCAA can legally ban a member college for refusing to comply its financial mandates – even if state law were not to mandate this non-compliance.

Indeed, the last time the NCAA made the threat to ban a member college for not going along with its concerted, financial rules was back in 1981, when the NCAA publicly announced its intent to “take disciplinary action” against any member college that defied the association’s imposed limits on the number of football games they may play on national television.

In response to the NCAA’s proposed “disciplinary action,” two of the most powerful college football schools at the time – the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia – sued the NCAA under federal antitrust laws, arguing that the NCAA’s longstanding cap on the number of football games that any college may broadcast on national television amounted to an illegal market allocation, as well as that their threatened punishment amounted to an illegal group boycott.

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