March Madness is being played out on the basketball courts while the U.S. Supreme Court considers arguments in an NCAA case that could forever change collegiate sports.
The court began hearing arguments on March 31 in the case of Alston vs. National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The case was brought by a group of former Division I men’s and women’s college athletes who argue that the NCAA’s limits on education-related compensation violate federal antitrust law, CBS News reported.
The court will decide whether or not there should be a cap on educational benefits athletes are allowed to receive, such as computers, science equipment, and musical instruments.
Justices heard more than 90 minutes of oral arguments. Justice Clarence Thomas, who rarely speaks in oral arguments, said, “It strikes me as odd that the coaches’ salaries have ballooned and they’re in the amateur ranks as are the players.”
Currently, college athletes are not permitted to receive financial compensation. Many of them are on scholarship and don’t come from wealthy households. Those same rules, however, do not apply to students on music or art scholarships, who are allowed to accept outside payment for their work.
Meanwhile, the NCAA and its coaches are raking in big bucks. The NCAA makes about $1.1 billion in revenue annually, a majority of it from TV rights.
“I feel like a university or NCAA or conference can make so much money off one name. And the guy who’s like, putting all the work and to get to that point gets nothing out of it,” Michigan University forward Isaiah Livers told ESPN.
Twitter weighed in.
Sandeep Vaheesan, the legal director at the Open Markets Institute and former regulations counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tweeted, “In oral argument in NCAA v. Alston, Clarence Thomas just asked the NCAA’s lawyer (Clinton era solicitor general Seth Waxman) why the ‘amateurism” principle (benign name for collusive wage suppression) applies to players, but not to coaches. A very good question.'”
Law professor Michael McCann, director of sports and entertainment law at University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, tweeted, “Two of the most conservative justices–Justice Thomas and Justice Alito–seem fairly hostile to NCAA amateurism. Not a good sign for the NCAA.”
Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor questioned the NCAA’s arguments. Breyer asked what exactly the NCAA was complaining about and Sotomayor sounded perplexed as to why the NCAA’s rules weren’t a clear-cut antitrust violation, Slate reported.
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