Supreme Court rules against NCAA in athlete-compensation case

Slippery slope. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

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That was a scathing opinion. I think we’ll see a big lobbying push for a legislative exemption to antitrust laws for college sports (similar to the ones pro sports enjoy), but good luck getting that passed in today’s legislative…uh…climate.

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Slippery slope to what tho ? To justice and equity or to the detriment of the kids ?

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Slippery slope as in since $$ is involved that the doors will swing side open. Maybe as far as kids going from HS, frosh, soph to the NFL draft. Maybe even like the NBA, not drafted high enough, nah I’ll just go back to college.

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Like almost every other profession in the world.

If a guy is good enough , why does he hsve to go to college ? If a guy isn’t interested in being a student , why is college ( and primarily only some of them ) the only avenue to the league ?
If an athlete opted to train on his own for theee years after highschool with pro trainers and showed out at combine , the NFL would look at him as a red flag because he didn’t prove himself in college.

As soon as colleges started making their head coaches the highest paid state employees … making millions off it …
It seemed the writing was on the wall
The plsyers bring in a lot more than they cost
( not at every school but the schools with pseudo nfl minor league system )

Then add how much the players have at stake before turning pro but even before their second contract since the first one is already cost controlled below market value that’s eight to ten years of ball ( injury risk ) on careers that on average are 3 years …?

They might be able to solve for this if nfl invests in its own minor or development league.

It’s problematic but I believe self inflicted by ncaa and nfl who set up the system

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Exhibit A:

Eric Jerrod Swann (born August 16, 1970) is a former professional American football player who was selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the 1st round (6th overall) of the 1991 NFL Draft. A 6’5", 317 lbs. defensive tackle, Swann never attended college and was drafted from a semi-professional football team called the Bay State Titans located in Lynn, Massachusetts. He played in ten NFL seasons from 1991–2000 for the Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers.

Since I’m not sure

Does
Exhibit A make my point ?

It shows guys don’t need college to play in NFL / though neither did Jimmy Graham or the San Diego tight end former hooper.

But exhibit A is from the 90s and is an extreme outlier when there’s been thousands of players since and not many make it without college.

And some colleges might not even really be doing great at preparing the players for the skills they’ll need in the nfl -

To allowing highest bidders for athletes in all sports to enable college athletic “super powers”. Yes, I realize that is already somewhat the case, but I see it as leveraging ALL hope the “little guy” schools have at even those cherished one-year wonder Cinderella seasons. It would widen the competition gap, and basically create monopolies amongst a handful of colleges. I didn’t say I am for or against it; I simply said it would be interesting. I will say I have no problem with sponsorship from corporations for college athletes, as is now legal in CA, but this is the potential to lead to incremental lawsuits where the monopoly scenario I detailed becomes reality.

I’m not against the ruling. How the NCAA addresses it will be the debate. I’m sure the SEC isn’t trying to game an advantage as we speak.

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So do what pro teams do and implement revenue sharing.

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I am 100% ok with that, but we all know there are going to be universities relentlessly fighting against that. Again, I simply said it would be interesting to see how this plays out. I am not predicting what I mentioned would be the end result at all, as there are endless outcomes possible. Many of these outcomes are extremely intriguing, such as the revenue share you mentioned. There are so many ways this can go, which is what makes it such a fun topic to analyze and discuss, in my opinion.

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Pretty hard to argue with Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion:

"The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America. All of the restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’ wages on the theory that “customers prefer” to eat food from low-paid cooks. Law firms cannot conspire to cabin lawyers’ salaries in the name of providing legal services out of a “love of the law.” Hospitals cannot agree to cap nurses’ income in order to create a “purer” form of helping the sick…

Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor. And price-fixing labor is ordinarily a textbook antitrust problem because it extinguishes the free market in which individuals can otherwise obtain fair compensation for their work…

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…

To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges maintain important traditions that have become part of the fabric of America… But those traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated. Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."

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Just read through that in it’s entirety. I don’t read a ton of Supreme Court opinions, but damn… it seemed like the NCAA got properly called out, to say the least. I am assuming that the 9-0 unanimous ruling doesn’t require a dissenting opinion to be prepared? I’d love to read how a Justice on the other end of the argument would defend it.

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Agree. Hard to say where it goes.

Some schools might opt out of this race - others so leveraged in it , they csnt.

Some schools to scale back to not try and compete with the big boys and try abd return their campus to athletics That sre part of student enrichment and growth vs turning the student athletes into the business.

I’d most like to see NFL add or back a real developmental league

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I can’t help but feel like nfl is implicated in ruling due to the scratch my back nature of ncaa and nfl relationship including the league having a rookie cap.

How much money has Trevor Lawrence already made for others to suggest his salary should be capped as a rookie ?
If he meets half of expectations he’s underpaid during his first contract , extremely underpaid if he meets first pick expectations.

He’s already selling jerseys and suites plus might’ve been instrumental in why Utban decided Jaguars

3-4 years at Clemson
4-5 years at Jax

Could all be years he’s really earned big money for others

They only write a dissenting opinion if they disagree with the majority.

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Yeppppp. Put simply, none of the anti trust laws have an NCAA exception (like MLB does).

Without that, colleges can’t have a cabal of management saying “we’ll all agree not to pay labor”.

If congress wants to create an exception to allow for that, they can. They haven’t. That’s why this was a 9-0 slam dunk.

If i’m a blue chip women’s basketball player, I can’t say “I don’t want to take UCONN’s offer of no pay, so I’ll take my skills to Tennesee” because UCONN and Tennesee have agreed that they won’t pay players. that is a capital C classic antitrust violation (unless there’s an exception, which there isn’t)

Or, to defuse the “free tuition arguments”, the aforementioned basketball player can’t say “I want tuition AND $100k a year, or I’ll take my skills to Tennesee” because UCONN and Tennessee have agreed that the $100k is off the table.

Woud you like it if companies joined forces to say “yeah, we all agree not to pay employees more than $50k a year no matter what.”. No, no you wouldn’t.

All the peons to amateurism and the good of the sport don’t add up to jack.

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To fairness among college athletes. The men’s college football stars are going to get paid, the 3rd string OG and every female athlete won’t get squat. Yes men’s football pays the bills, but good luck explaining that to everyone else who are poor student athletes. They’ll all be doing Megan Napahoe math I guarantee you.

Maybe saban will discover he’s more fit to be a pro coach getting paid millions

Rather than an educator getting paid like a teacher.

The arguments on how much football funds isn’t true for every school nor even great for schools that go get beat up by Alabama for a check.

If it is amateur , why all the big money in college athletics ? And why is nfl only major pro sports league without its own development league ?

Think of the lower division football … Zach zenner … student athlete …

The colleges aren’t even doing a great job of educating the players on practical things they’ll need …

I agree it’s a slope I’m just not convinced it’ll slope to anything that’s really much worse.

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