Supreme Court Ruling Impacts College Athletics

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday, June 21 in Alston v. NCAA to uphold the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision that the NCAA’s restrictions on providing college athletes with non-cash compensation for academic-related purposes, such as computers and internships, were a violation of antitrust laws. The implications of this ruling have far-reaching implications for college athletics. The NCAA has already been under pressure from the public, state, and federal governments to accommodate student athletes’ rights to their own name, image and likeness (NIL), a process which has taken much longer than expected due to delayed decision-making on the part of the NCAA. The ruling has little immediate impact on the University of Arizona and other PAC-12 universities as the institution was already operating in accordance with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. However, the ruling deals a major blow to federal advocacy efforts currently underway to include antitrust protections in any NIL legislation being developed. The SCOTUS ruling also comes in the wake of the PAC-12 and 6 other Division 1 conferences putting forward an alternative proposal to the NCAA’s NIL proposal, which offers a workaround that would lessen the NCAA's exposure to lawsuits. A decision on the NCAA’s NIL rule is expected this week, before a number of varying state laws on NIL go into effect. Federal Relations is working in partnership with Athletics to support federal advocacy efforts that best serve the PAC-12 conference and our student athletes and protect the amateur model.