Your comparison is way off. Universities aren't anything like a company town. These are students, not employees. You can still go to school without playing sports at all.
Supreme court ruling
- Thread starter pitt90seven
- Start date
I know people who have jobs that don't work ....... never mind ..... off on tangent
pittdan77
Athletic Director
So it's on the NCAA to seek the anti-trust exemption or be thrown to the courts to have the lines drawn?
Yes and company towns would have let non-workers give them money to rent a house and buy their groceries without working for the company as well. But if you wanted to work for the company and receive compensation (play football and get a scholarship) then you had to spend your compensation at company owned facilities. Many companies didn't even give out the full pay in national currency, but instead supplied vouchers that could only be spent at company stores. Ninety percent of the compensation that you receive from the University can only be spent on goods and services provided by the University.
This is not as simple as only paying athletes! Uncle Sam wants a piece of this action!
Again, this isn't the same situation as a company town. Most people don't get scholarships to college. They have to take out student loans. Many have to attend a 2 year college and transfer.
This notion that ballplayers are somehow being put upon is asinine. They get a free education for playing ball, while the majority of Americans have to go into debt to attend college. They aren't being exploited.
If you want to say colleges shouldn't profit from athletics, I'm fine with that. Don't allow ESPN and all to televise games.
That's how it appears. There are many things that can be inferred from the decision. Also a lot of things that are explicitly stated, like the need for there to be legislation for those exemptions.
It's basically saying that it will not go favorably for the NCAA if another case reaches their court. It is also a sign to lower courts that they risk having their decisions overturned at the SC if they don't apply the guidelines established in this ruling on other matters concerning NCAA antitrust cases. I believe it explicitly states that is in the NCAA's best interest to reach a compromise with the players and universities on NIL and compensation. Congress just held hearings on college athletics and compensation(and didn't invite a single athlete) so expect the NCAA to start pushing even harder for this to be resolved there shortly.
The opinion draws a distinct line between the NCAA and the member schools/conferences in terms of compensation. It says that schools and conferences are free to impose any restriction they want because they are competing for players (employees), but the NCAA is not competitive (as admitted by the NCAA) and therefore cannot impose those restrictions. Now if the NCAA lifts all of those restrictions but then every school and every conference re-impose those restrictions the players could bring a collusion suit against all of the schools, but that is a hypothetical future.
a student athlete that brings money into the university is in no way on par with a typical student. alabam football players are getting 85k people to come out to the stadium and millions more watching on tv. the coaches and universities pocket almost all of that profit while the players, by comparison, get very little. they are performing a service for which they are not getting compensated on a fair basis, which is what the unanimous court just ruled.
These kids can literally go anywhere they want. They aren't stuck in a community, a city, or a state. Hell, they don't even have to go to college.
This comes back to my question. Who determines what fair is? Is the janitor at the college facility compensated fairly? The person picking the fruits and vegetables the athletes are eating? The cook or dishwasher? The ESPN camera man?
You don't have to stop at college athletics either.
Bingo.
Some say they are being "paid" in tuition, housing, food, and coaching but that is still far below their fair market value. And honestly, their "payment" in tuition for some of these kids is a joke. The value of 30 or 60 college credits to a future high-level pro football or basketball millionaire is very close to $0. While its nice to say they you are compensating them with an education, there is just no value to that partial education for a lot of these guys
The free market determines fair market value. If you are a five star can't miss QB and Alabama wants to pay you $1.5m and OSU wants to pay you $1.5m then your fair market value is $1.5m. This is a pretty simple concept for anyone that has taken econ101.
That's not what the court ruled. The ruling was in regard to the limits the NCAA could put on academic benefits, like providing laptops and things like that. This ruling had nothing to do with the players getting paid for playing.
Well, right now you can still go to either, or go to the CFL, or sit out and wait till you're eligible for the NFL.
Or, just get rid of college athletics.
But the NCAA illegally restricts the fair market by not letting college athletes go to the highest bidder. That is why Justice Kavanaugh states that he thinks there are significant anti-trust law issues with the NCAA model and anyone who doesn't have blinders on can see that.
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That's because the academic benefits issue was the only issue that the court was ruling on. If you read the actual opinion, and especially Kavanaugh's concurring opinion, it is clear that the court will not be ruling in the NCAA's favor if another case involving any of the other compensation restrictions makes it to the court. They made it clear that the NCAA needs to solve this through legislation or compromise if they don't want it torn down.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
There are a couple of reasons why the "free market" might not determine compensation. It could be set or capped by the conferences or you could end up with some kind of collective bargaining arrangement. Could also be legislated by Congress.
Could definitely be collectively bargained but I don't see how a conference cap is any less collusive (and illegal) than an NCAA cap.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
It's different because teams in a conference are competing against one another under a single banner so they are setting agreed upon boundaries for that competition. There aren't any universal restrictions so if a player wants to play in the SEC, they may have higher limits or no limit at all.
No one is giving recruits even "5 star"recruits anywhere near $1.5m, the players are only going to get just enough to be happy, think $50,000 for a 5 star then work your way down.
You are missing the primary point of this ruling in that it is not about WHAT compensation is allowed, but rather defines WHO is allowed to set the guidelines for compensation to players. The only reason that the WHAT is strictly defined in this ruling is because those were the only instances brought to the court at this time. It is pretty similar in outcome to the television ruling of the 1980s that ruled that the NCAA could not prohibit schools from seeking more televised games under the guise of keeping a competitive balance in exposure.
#1. The schools are competing against each other for players, but the NCAA is setting the guidelines for the competition for those players. The NCAA is a separate organization and not a part of all of the schools. Therefore the NCAA applying rules that drastically limits the competition between the schools without legal exemption is against antitrust law.
#2. The individual schools, and possibly individual conferences, are free to set their own restrictions on the money they give to players.
#3. Without the NCAA setting up restrictions, players will go to where they are offered the greatest compensation or opportunity.
#4. This is basically what is currently happening, except that compensation is indoor putting ranges, assistant coaches for every position, and elaborate facilities rather than money in their pocket, rent for their parents, or a trust for their future.
And I'll come back to my original point, that college athletics are what they are because of colleges. The highest bidder scenario won't last, because college athletics won't survive it. Like I said in my first post in this thread, it's a slippery slope that won't end well for anyone.
Yeah my $1.5m was just an example I don't think anyone knows what a five star would be paid in the free market since it has never existed. Ten years ago the coaching salaries of today would have been unfathomable.
That's a fair explanation. Number 2 will ultimately create a similar legal challenge at some point I assume.
The Tax Man is going to come all calling. Will these athletes-students be paying taxes in other states that they play as well as their home state?
It has to be educational expenses that are on par with regular students as well if I'm understanding this correctly. So if the average student has a paid internship of 30k, and the football player with the same opportunity is offered 100k, there will be issues. From my understanding this is just roving caps etc for student athletes set by the ncaa that doesn't cover regular students.
Then again maybe I'm wrong.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
The early days of college sports saw players signed to schools for a few days just to compete in upcoming competitions. In the 1920's Pitt players went on strike because they felt upperclassmen were getting paid too much compared to what they were getting paid by the University.
I understand what Kavanaugh wrote. The problem is, the NCAA is not restricting the free market. Playing college ball isn't a job.
Like to responded above, I understand what Kavanaugh wrote. Again, playing college ball isn't a job. It's an extracurricular activity. If you say schools shouldn't profit from it, I'm fine with that.
The thing is, it is a minor league and not a big deal to most sports fans in Pittsburgh. Or New York. Or Boston. Or Philly. Or Baltimore, etc.....
College football has been about the rural red areas for the most part, it is their pro teams. Look at the center part of this state vs the two major metro areas. So....the opportunity to be a big deal, I mean Kenny Pickett and Jordan Addison is not going to command as much attention as a Sidney Crosby or Ben or Cutch or whoever is on the pro teams. That's a disadvantage we will face that will be exacerbated by all of this.
I mean that depends on if all of the schools or conferences suddenly start offering the same compensation as each other, then there will be collusion challenges.
But it will not get to that point, no one wants to see college sports disappear. Congress will step in and resolve this, for better or worse. We may see a player's union of sorts and some type of collective bargaining. There are a lot of things that can happen between now and unregulated free market.
I think Kavanaugh also spoke to the circular nature of the argument that college athletes aren't employees. Basically they aren't employees because they don't get paid and they don't get paid because they aren't employees.
Here was an excerpt of his opinion
The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seemingly everyone except the student athletes. College presidents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commissioners, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing," he wrote.
In conclusion, Kavanaugh noted the longstanding traditions in the NCAA could not disqualify the organization from any potential antitrust issues
I've read this opinion from Kavanaugh. I simply don't agree that the NCAA's argument is circular. College ballplayers aren't doing a job. The logic in the argument falls apart when you apply it to volleyball players, softball players, etc. They don't get paid either. Are they doing a job? You can't make an argument of anti-trust violations there. Their sports don't generate revenue. There simply is no market for those sports, and therefore no fair market value.
That begs the question, how do you legally treat a volleyball player, who plays a sport for the school, differently from a football player, who plays a sport for the school?
Even if you try to answer that, how do you deal with the Title lX issue? How would you legally justify paying male players, but not female players?
If you answer is that this only applies to Name/Image/Likeness, that's not what has been discussed here. What has been stated here is schools themselves would pay players.
I think you get around Title IX by not paying the athletes but allowing athletes to make their money through endorsements. An upstate SC car dealer isn't paying $100k for a girls volleyball player to do a commercial but would gladly pay Trevor Lawrence $100K or Travis Ettiene $50k or some starting offensive lineman $10k.
But again, that is not what has been discussed here. What has stated here by various posters is that the schools will pay the players.
Theoretically, schools like Alabama that want to pay the players directly could eliminate all non revenue mens sports and pay all scholarship athletes $50k and the girls that play the sports that are mandated due to Title IX hit the jackpot and also get paid despite bringing in nothing. On top of that, Mac Jones can get $50k from a Tuscaloosa Real Estate developer for a 3 week internship.
No, they couldn't theoretically do that. Title lX works both ways. Your scholarships have to reflect the ratio of your general student body. If you cut out all the men's sports except football, you don't have enough men's participants to match your student body ratio.
