Supreme Court Justices Grill NCAA, Calling Arguments “Circular”

The Supreme Court’s justices on Wednesday expressed significant questions about the NCAA’s athlete-compensation limits, but they also showed concerns that a case challenging those limits could destroy college sports as they currently exist.

According to USA Today, their comments came during oral argument in a case appealed by the NCAA and 11 major-conference co-defendants after lower courts ruled that the association’s compensation limits violate antitrust trust law and that there should be no nation-wide limits on the education-related benefits athletes playing Division I men’s or women’s basketball or Bowl Subdivision football can receive.

The arguments were heard by teleconference, as has been the high court’s procedure during the COVID-19 pandemic. A ruling is expected later this spring or in early summer.

Among the benefits that would be allowed by the lower courts are cash payments for various academic achievements, scholarships to complete undergraduate or graduate degrees at any school and paid internships after they have completed their collegiate-sports eligibility.

The NCAA’s lawyer, Seth Waxman, contended that legal precedents and the law itself should allow the NCAA to set the compensation rules because the public benefits from having a choice between pro and amateur sports, as the NCAA defines amateur sports.

However, he faced pointed inquiry from nearly all of the justices, with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh asserting that “the antitrust laws should not be a cover for exploitation of the student-athletes.”

Kavanaugh added: “It does seem … schools are conspiring with competitors — agreeing with competitors, let’s say that — to pay no salaries for the workers who are making the school billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing. And that just seems entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.”