WASHINGTON (AP) — In a ruling that could help push changes in college athletics, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that the NCAA can’t enforce certain rules limiting the education-related benefits — things like computers and graduate scholarships — that colleges offer athletes.
The case doesn’t decide whether students can be paid salaries. Instead, the ruling will help determine whether schools decide to offer athletes tens of thousands of dollars in those benefits for things including tutoring, study abroad and internships.
The high court agreed with a group of former college athletes that NCAA limits on the education-related benefits that colleges can offer athletes who play Division I basketball and football can’t be enforced.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court that the NCAA sought “immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws,” which the court declined to grant.
Under current NCAA rules, students cannot be paid, and the scholarship money colleges can offer is capped at the cost of attending the school. The NCAA had defended its rules as necessary to preserve the amateur nature of college sports.
But the former athletes who brought the case, including former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston, argued that the NCAA’s rules on education-related compensation were unfair and violate federal antitrust law designed to promote competition. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling barring the NCAA from enforcing those rules.
As a result of the ruling, the NCAA itself can’t bar schools from sweetening their offers to Division I basketball and football players with additional education-related benefits. But individual athletic conferences can still set limits if they choose. A lawyer for the former athletes had said before the ruling that he believed that if his clients won, “very many schools” would ultimately offer additional benefits.
The NCAA had argued that a ruling for the athletes could lead to a blurring of the line between college and professional sports, with colleges trying to lure talented athletes by offering over-the-top education benefits worth thousands of dollars. Even without the court’s ruling, however, changes seem on the way for how college athletes are compensated. The NCAA is trying to amend its rules to allow athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses. That would allow athletes to earn money for things like sponsorship deals, online endorsement and personal appearances. For some athletes, those amounts could dwarf any education-related benefits.
The players associations of the NFL, the NBA and the WNBA had all urged the justices to side with the ex-athletes, as did the Biden administration.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Paying athletes to attend college, when the non – athletes pay super high costs to go to college? What a joke. SCOTUS should have ruled against these athletes, half of whom cannot compete against non student athletes on an intellectual level.
colleges have been ‘paying’ athletes for decades – how does this change anything except for making it more open and transparent?
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although then concept of university was to enlighten, foster, educate, they are now nothing more then centers of indoctrination and enablement.
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what happens when the athlete who cannot compete intellectually gets injured and no longer is advantageous for the college??
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I have a great idea.. LET THE College athletes get paid.. BUT THEN THEY HAVE TO PAY THE SCHOOL FOR THEIR education, just like everyone else does!
The day of the $5,000 per hour football player doubling as a physics intern is maybe tomorrow.
Hey coach, buy me an instrument for band. Sure Jamal, what do you need? A 1936 Martin D, Fender Stratocaster 1954, and a 1965 Corvette stingray for the cases and transportation. Sure Jamal. By the way what band? You are a Kinesiology major and go to no classes. It don matta coach, I just need dem. OK. Maybe I should give you the money. Yeah coach It shouldn’t cost more than $250,000.
AND THEY PUT LORI LOUGHLIN IN JAIL?
Now, will she get her money back?
IT does make one wonder, WHY Loughlin, and others who “PAID the colleges to get their kids in”, are seen as crooks, but the COLLEGES BRIBING THE KIDS to go there, is seen as “normal practice”…
Sports is big business, even on the collegiate level. Players aside, the salaries drawn by top coaches at elite schools is phenomenal. The number one goal of any educational institution should be to provide a sound education. That may sound blatantly obvious, but when graduates are turned out who can’t read, write, spell, and do basic math, then things have gotten off track. Collegiate sports is being structured more and more like pro sports and it is a big revenue stream for the schools, but administrators need to strike a balance between pampering athletes and supporting the rest of the student body which is the vast majority. While providing an avenue for athletes to pursue their dream of becoming pro, the school should also be preparing them to excel in life. They can live the high life when they become pros.
College athletics has gone far beyond being an extension of education and school pride, it has become a tool of professional sports dictating policies which should be secondary to academics in higher education. However, since the institutions of higher learning have themselves opted into this questionable alliance and sports have become a business and revenue producing adjunct, teams no longer playing for the glory of the school but future draft choices, the court has it right. It is no longer an amateur sports endeavor.
Colleges hav been this way for decades though.. Remember the film blue chips, or necessary roughness!