U.S. Supreme Court Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206
U.S. 230 (1907) Georgia v. Tennessee Copper
Company No. 5, Original Argued February 25, 26,
1907 Decided May 13, 1907 206
U.S. 230 BILL IN EQUITY Syllabus When the states by their union made the forcible abatement of
outside nuisances impossible to each, they did not thereby agree to
submit to whatever might be done. They retained the right to make
reasonable demands on the grounds of their still remaining quasi -sovereign interests, and the alternative to force a
suit in this Court.

															This Court has jurisdiction to, and at the suit of a state will,
enjoin a corporation, citizen of another state, from discharging
over its territory noxious fumes from works in another state where
it appears that those fumes cause and threaten damage on a
considerable scale to the forests and vegetable life, if not to
health, within the plaintiff's state.

															A suit brought by a state to enjoin a corporation having its
work in another state from discharging noxious gases over its
territory is not the same as one between private parties, and
although the elements which would form the basis of relief between
private parties are wanting, the state can maintain the suit for
injury in a capacity as quasi -sovereign, in which capacity
it has an interest independent of and behind its citizens in all
the earth and air within its domain, and whether insisting upon
bringing such a suit results in more harm than good to its citizen,
many of whom may profit through the maintenance of the works
causing the nuisance, is for the state itself to determine.

															The facts are stated in the opinion. Page 206 U. S. 236 MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

															This is a bill in equity filed in this Court by the State of
Georgia, in pursuance of a resolution of the legislature and by
direction of the governor of the state, to enjoin the defendant
copper companies from discharging noxious gas from their works in
Tennessee over the plaintiff's territory. It alleges that, in
consequence of such discharge, a wholesale destruction of forests,
orchards, and crops is going on, and other injuries are done and
threatened in five counties of the state. It alleges also a vain
application to the State of Tennessee for relief. A preliminary
injunction was denied; but, as there was ground to fear that great
and irreparable damage might be done, an early day was fixed for
the final hearing, and the parties were given leave, if so minded,
to try the case on affidavits. This has been done without
objection, and, although the method would be unsatisfactory if our
decision turned on any nice question of fact, in the view that we
take we think it unlikely that either party has suffered harm. Page 206 U. S. 237 The case has been argued largely as if it were one between two
private parties; but it is not. The very elements that would be
relied upon in a suit between fellow-citizens as a ground for
equitable relief are wanting here. The state owns very little of
the territory alleged to be affected, and the damage to it capable
of estimate in money, possibly at least, is small. This is a suit
by a state for an injury to it in its capacity of quasi -sovereign. In that capacity, the state has an
interest independent of and behind the titles of its citizens, in
all the earth and air within its domain. It has the last word as to
whether its mountains shall be stripped of their forests and its
inhabitants shall breathe pure air. It might have to pay
individuals before it could utter that word, but with it remains
the final power. The alleged damage to the state as a private owner
is merely a makeweight, and we may lay on one side the dispute as
to whether the destruction of forests has led to the gullying of
its roads.

															The caution with which demands of this sort on the part of a
state for relief from injuries analogous to torts must be examined
is dwelt upon in Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U.
S. 496 , 200 U. S.
520 -521. But it is plain that some such demands must be
recognized, if the grounds alleged are proved. When the states by
their union made the forcible abatement of outside nuisances
impossible to each, they did not thereby agree to submit to
whatever might be done. They did not renounce the possibility of
making reasonable demands on the ground of their still remaining quasi -sovereign interests, and the alternative to force is
a suit in this Court. Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U.
S. 208 , 180 U. S.
241 .

															Some peculiarities necessarily mark a suit of this kind. If the
state has a case at all, it is somewhat more certainly entitled to
specific relief than a private party might be. It is not lightly to
be required to give up quasi -sovereign rights for pay;
and, apart from the difficulty of valuing such rights in money, if
that be its choice, it may insist that an infraction of them shall
be stopped. The states, by entering the Union, did not sink Page 206 U. S. 238 to the position of private owners, subject to one system of
private law. This Court has not quite the same freedom to balance
the harm that will be done by an injunction against that of which
the plaintiff complains, that it would have in deciding between two
subjects of a single political power. Without excluding the
considerations that equity always takes into account, we cannot
give the weight that was given them in argument to a comparison
between the damage threatened to the plaintiff and the calamity of
a possible stop to the defendants' business, the question of
health, the character of the forests as a first or second growth,
the commercial possibility or impossibility of reducing the fumes
to sulphuric acid, the special adaptation of the business to the
place.

															It is a fair and reasonable demand on the part of a sovereign
that the air over its territory should not be polluted on a great
scale by sulphurous acid gas, that the forests on its mountains, be
they better or worse, and whatever domestic destruction they have
suffered, should not be further destroyed or threatened by the act
of persons beyond its control, that the crops and orchards on its
hills should not be endangered from the same source. If any such
demand is to be enforced this must be notwithstanding the
hesitation that we might feel if the suit were between private
parties, and the doubt whether, for the injuries which they might
be suffering to their property, they should not be left to an
action at law.

															The proof requires but a few words. It is not denied that the
defendants generate in their works near the Georgia line large
quantities of sulphur dioxide which becomes sulphurous acid by its
mixture with the air. It hardly is denied, and cannot be denied
with success, that this gas often is carried by the wind great
distances and over great tracts of Georgia land. On the evidence,
the pollution of the air and the magnitude of that pollution are
not open to dispute. Without any attempt to go into details
immaterial to the suit, it is proper to add that we are satisfied,
by a preponderance of evidence, that the sulphurous fumes cause and
threaten damage on so considerable Page 206 U. S. 239 a scale to the forests and vegetable life, if not to health,
within the plaintiff state, as to make out a case within the
requirements of Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U.
S. 496 . Whether Georgia, by insisting upon this claim,
is doing more harm than good to her own citizens is for her to
determine. The possible disaster to those outside the state must be
accepted as a consequence of her standing upon her extreme
rights.

															It is argued that the state has been guilty of laches. We deem
it unnecessary to consider how far such a defense would be
available in a suit of this sort, since, in our opinion, due
diligence has been shown. The conditions have been different until
recent years. After the evil had grown greater in 1904, the state
brought a bill in this Court. The defendants, however, already were
abandoning the old method of roasting ore in open heaps and it was
hoped that the change would stop the trouble. They were ready to
agree not to return to that method, and, upon such an agreement's
being made, the bill was dismissed without prejudice. But the
plaintiff now finds, or thinks that it finds, that the tall
chimneys in present use cause the poisonous gases to be carried to
greater distances than ever before, and that the evil has not been
helped.

															If the State of Georgia adheres to its determination, there is
no alternative to issuing an injunction, after allowing a
reasonable time to the defendants to complete the structures that
they now are building, and the efforts that they are making to stop
the fumes. The plaintiff may submit a form of decree on the coming
in of this Court in October next. Injunction to issue. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring:

															The State of Georgia is, in my opinion, entitled to the general
relief sought by its bill, and therefore I concur in the result.
With some things, however, contained in the opinion, or to be
implied from its language, I do not concur. When the Constitution
gave this Court original jurisdiction in cases Page 206 U. S. 240 "in which a state shall be a party," it was not intended, I
think, to authorize the court to apply in its behalf any principle
or rule of equity that would not be applied, under the same facts,
in suits wholly between private parties. If this were a suit
between private parties, and if, under the evidence, a court of
equity would not give the plaintiff an injunction, then it ought
not to grant relief, under like circumstances, to the plaintiff,
because it happens to be a state, possessing some powers of
sovereignty. Georgia is entitled to the relief sought not because
it is a state, but because it is a party which has established its
right to such relief by proof. The opinion, if I do not mistake its
scope, proceeds largely upon the ground that this Court, sitting in
this case as a court of equity, owes some special duty to Georgia
as a state, although it is a party, while, under the same facts, it
would not owe any such duty to the plaintiff if an individual.

Summary:
In Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state has the right to file a lawsuit against a company from another state for causing a nuisance (in this case, noxious gas discharge) that damages the environment within its territory. The Court determined that Georgia could pursue legal action against the Tennessee Copper Company, as the fumes from their works were causing harm to Georgia's forests, orchards, and crops.

The Court emphasized that a state's interests are quasi-sovereign and independent of its citizens, giving it standing to sue for injuries to the earth and air within its domain. The potential harm to Georgia's citizens and the state's decision to prioritize its rights were also considered.

The Court also addressed the defense of laches (unreasonable delay), finding that Georgia had shown due diligence in addressing the issue, as the conditions causing the harm had changed over time.

The case established the principle that states have the right to protect their natural resources and can seek legal remedies against out-of-state entities causing environmental harm within their borders.


NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.

															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															Nos. 20–512 and 20–520

															_________________

															NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC
ASSOCIATION, PETITIONER

															20–512 v. SHAWNE ALSTON, et al.

															AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE,
et al., PETITIONERS

															20–520 v. SHAWNE ALSTON, et al.

															on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 21, 2021]

															Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															In the Sherman Act, Congress tasked courts with
enforcing a policy of competition on the belief that market forces
“yield the best allocation” of the Nation’s resources. National
Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of
Okla. , 468 U.S.
85 , 104, n. 27 (1984). The plaintiffs before us brought
this lawsuit alleging that the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) and certain of its member institutions violated
this policy by agreeing to restrict the compensation colleges and
universities may offer the student-athletes who play for their
teams. After amassing a vast record and conducting an exhaustive
trial, the district court issued a 50-page opinion that cut both
ways. The court refused to disturb the NCAA’s rules limiting
undergraduate athletic scholarships and other compensation related
to athletic performance. At the same time, the court struck down
NCAA rules limiting the education-related benefits schools may
offer student-athletes—such as rules that prohibit schools from
offering graduate or vocational school scholarships. Before us, the
student-athletes do not challenge the district court’s judgment.
But the NCAA does. In essence, it seeks immunity from the normal
operation of the antitrust laws and argues, in any event, that the
district court should have approved all of its existing restraints.
We took this case to consider those objections.

															I

															A

															From the start, American colleges and
universities have had a complicated relationship with sports and
money. In 1852, students from Harvard and Yale participated in what
many regard as the Nation’s first intercollegiate competition—a
boat race at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. But this was no
pickup match. A railroad executive sponsored the event to promote
train travel to the picturesque lake. T. Mendenhall, The
Harvard-Yale Boat Race 1852–1924, pp. 15–16 (1993). He offered the
competitors an all-expenses-paid vacation with lavish prizes—along
with unlimited alcohol. See A. Zimbalist, Unpaid Professionals 6–7
(1999) (Zimbalist); Rushin, Inside the Moat, Sports Illustrated,
Mar. 3, 1997. The event filled the resort with “life and
excitement,” N. Y. Herald, Aug. 10, 1852, p. 2, col. 2, and
one student-athlete described the “ ‘junket’ ” as an
experience “ ‘as unique and irreproducible as the Rhodian
colossus,’ ” Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale Boat Race, at 20.

															Life might be no “less than a boat race,”
Holmes, On Receiving the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Yale University
Commencement, June 30, 1886, in Speeches by Oliver Wendall Holmes,
p. 27 (1918), but it was football that really caused college
sports to take off. “By the late 1880s the traditional rivalry
between Princeton and Yale was attracting 40,000 spectators and
generating in excess of $25,000 . . . in gate revenues.”
Zimbalist 7. Schools regularly had “graduate students and paid
ringers” on their teams. Ibid. Colleges offered all manner of compensation to
talented athletes. Yale reportedly lured a tackle named James Hogan
with free meals and tuition, a trip to Cuba, the exclusive right to
sell scorecards from his games—and a job as a cigarette agent for
the American Tobacco Company. Ibid. ; see also Needham, The
College Athlete, McClure’s Magazine, June 1905, p. 124. The absence
of academic residency requirements gave rise to “ ‘tramp
athletes’ ” who “roamed the country making cameo athletic
appearances, moving on whenever and wherever the money was better.”
F. Dealy, Win at Any Cost 71 (1990). One famous example was a law
student at West Virginia University—Fielding H. Yost—“who, in 1896,
transferred to Lafayette as a freshman just in time to lead his new
teammates to victory against its arch-rival, Penn.” Ibid. The next week, he “was back at West Virginia’s law school.” Ibid. College sports became such a big business that Woodrow
Wilson, then President of Princeton University, quipped to alumni
in 1890 that “ ‘Princeton is noted in this wide world for
three things: football, baseball, and collegiate
instruction.’ ” Zimbalist 7.

															By 1905, though, a crisis emerged. While college
football was hugely popular, it was extremely violent. Plays like
the flying wedge and the players’ light protective gear led to 7
football fatalities in 1893, 12 deaths the next year, and 18 in
1905. Id. , at 8. President Theodore Roosevelt responded by
convening a meeting between Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to review
the rules of the game, a gathering that ultimately led to the
creation of what we now know as the NCAA. Ibid. Organized
primarily as a standard-setting body, the association also
expressed a view at its founding about compensating college
athletes—admonishing that “[n]o student shall represent a College
or University in any intercollegiate game or contest who is paid or
receives, directly or indirectly, any money, or financial
concession.” Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United
States Constitution By-Laws, Art. VII, §3 (1906); see also
Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Convention of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association, Dec. 28, 1916, p. 34.

															Reality did not always match aspiration. More
than two decades later, the Carnegie Foundation produced a report
on college athletics that found them still “sodden with the
commercial and the material and the vested interests that these
forces have created.” H. Savage, The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching, American College Athletics Bull. 23, p.
310 (1929). Schools across the country sought to leverage sports to
bring in revenue, attract attention, boost enrollment, and raise
money from alumni. The University of California’s athletic revenue
was over $480,000, while Harvard’s football revenue alone came in
at $429,000. Id. , at 87. College football was “not a
student’s game”; it was an “organized commercial enterprise”
featuring athletes with “years of training,” “professional
coaches,” and competitions that were “highly profitable.” Id. , at viii.

															The commercialism extended to the market for
student-athletes. Seeking the best players, many schools actively
participated in a system “under which boys are offered pecuniary
and other inducements to enter a particular college.” Id. ,
at xiv–xv. One coach estimated that a rival team “spent over
$200,000 a year on players.” Zimbalist 9. In 1939, freshmen at the
University of Pittsburgh went on strike because upperclassmen were
reportedly earning more money. Crabb, The Amateurism Myth: A Case
for a New Tradition, 28 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 181, 190 (2017).
In the 1940s, Hugh McElhenny, a halfback at the University of
Washington, “became known as the first college player ‘ever to take
a cut in salary to play pro football.’ ” Zimbalist 22–23. He
reportedly said: “ ‘[A] wealthy guy puts big bucks under my
pillow every time I score a touchdown. Hell, I can’t afford to
graduate.’ ” Id., at 211, n. 17. In 1946, a
commentator offered this view: “[W]hen it comes to chicanery,
double-dealing, and general undercover work behind the scenes,
big-time college football is in a class by itself.” Woodward, Is
College Football on the Level?, Sport, Nov. 1946, Vol. 1, No. 3,
p. 35.

															In 1948, the NCAA sought to do more than
admonish. It adopted the “Sanity Code.” Colleges Adopt the ‘Sanity
Code’ To Govern Sports, N. Y. Times, Jan. 11, 1948, p. 1,
col. 1. The code reiterated the NCAA’s opposition to “promised pay
in any form.” Hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce, 95th Congress, 2d Sess., pt. 2, p. 1094 (1978). But for
the first time the code also authorized colleges and universities
to pay athletes’ tuition. Ibid . And it created a new
enforcement mechanism—providing for the “suspension or expulsion”
of “proven offenders.” Colleges Adopt ‘Sanity Code,’ N. Y.
Times, p. 1, col. 1. To some, these changes sought to
substitute a consistent, above-board compensation system for the
varying under-the-table schemes that had long proliferated. To
others, the code marked “the beginning of the NCAA behaving as an
effective cartel,” by enabling its member schools to set and
enforce “rules that limit the price they have to pay for their
inputs (mainly the ‘student-athletes’).” Zimbalist 10.

															The rules regarding student-athlete compensation
have evolved ever since. In 1956, the NCAA expanded the scope of
allowable payments to include room, board, books, fees, and “cash
for incidental expenses such as laundry.” In re National
Collegiate Athletic Assn. Athletic Grant-in-Aid Cap Antitrust
Litig. , 375 F. Supp. 3d 1058, 1063 (ND Cal. 2019)
(hereinafter D. Ct. Op.). In 1974, the NCAA began permitting paid
professionals in one sport to compete on an amateur basis in
another. Brief for Historians as Amici Curiae 10. In 2014,
the NCAA “announced it would allow athletic conferences to
authorize their member schools to increase scholarships up to the
full cost of attendance.” O’Bannon v. National Collegiate
Athletic Assn. , 802 F.3d 1049, 1054–1055 (CA9 2015). The 80
member schools of the “Power Five” athletic conferences—the
conferences with the highest revenue in Division I—promptly voted
to raise their scholarship limits to an amount that is generally
several thousand dollars higher than previous limits. D. Ct. Op.,
at 1064.

															In recent years, changes have continued. The
NCAA has created the “Student Assistance Fund” and the “Academic
Enhancement Fund” to “assist student-athletes in meeting financial
needs,” “improve their welfare or academic support,” or “recognize
academic achievement.” Id. , at 1072. These funds have
supplied money to student-athletes for “postgraduate scholarships”
and “school supplies,” as well as “benefits that are not related to
education,” such as “loss-of-value insurance premiums,” “travel
expenses,” “clothing,” and “magazine subscriptions.” Id. , at
1072, n. 15. In 2018, the NCAA made more than $84 million
available through the Student Activities Fund and more than $48
million available through the Academic Enhancement Fund. Id. , at 1072. Assistance may be provided in cash or in kind,
and there is no limit to the amount any particular student-athlete
may receive. Id. , at 1073. Since 2015, disbursements to
individual students have sometimes been tens of thousands of
dollars above the full cost of attendance. Ibid. The NCAA has also allowed payments
“ ‘incidental to athletics participation,’ ” including
awards for “participation or achievement in athletics” (like
“qualifying for a bowl game”) and certain “payments from outside
entities” (such as for “performance in the Olympics”). Id., at 1064, 1071, 1074. The NCAA permits its member schools to award
up to (but no more than) two annual “Senior Scholar Awards” of
$10,000 for students to attend graduate school after their athletic
eligibility expires. Id. , at 1074. Finally, the NCAA allows
schools to fund travel for student-athletes’ family members to
attend “certain events.” Id. , at 1069.

															Over the decades, the NCAA has become a
sprawling enterprise. Its membership comprises about 1,100 colleges
and universities, organized into three divisions. Id. , at
1063. Division I teams are often the most popular and attract the
most money and the most talented athletes. Currently, Division I
includes roughly 350 schools divided across 32 conferences. See ibid. Within Division I, the most popular sports are
basketball and football. The NCAA divides Division I football into
the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and the Football Championship
Subdivision, with the FBS generally featuring the best teams. Ibid. The 32 conferences in Division I function similarly to
the NCAA itself, but on a smaller scale. They “can and do enact
their own rules.” Id., at 1090.

															At the center of this thicket of associations
and rules sits a massive business. The NCAA’s current broadcast
contract for the March Madness basketball tournament is worth $1.1
billion annually. See id., at 1077, n. 20. Its
television deal for the FBS conference’s College Football Playoff
is worth approximately $470 million per year. See id ., at
1063; Bachman, ESPN Strikes Deal for College Football Playoff, Wall
Street Journal, Nov. 21, 2012. Beyond these sums, the Division I
conferences earn substantial revenue from regular-season games. For
example, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) “made more than $409
million in revenues from television contracts alone in 2017, with
its total conference revenues exceeding $650 million that year.” D.
Ct. Op., at 1063. All these amounts have “increased consistently
over the years.” Ibid. Those who run this enterprise profit in a
different way than the student-athletes whose activities they
oversee. The president of the NCAA earns nearly $4 million per
year. Brief for Players Association of the National Football League
et al. as Amici Curiae 17. Commissioners of the top
conferences take home between $2 to $5 million. Ibid. College athletic directors average more than $1 million annually. Ibid. And annual salaries for top Division I college
football coaches approach $11 million, with some of their
assistants making more than $2.5 million. Id ., at 17–18.

															B

															The plaintiffs are current and former
student-athletes in men’s Division I FBS football and men’s and
women’s Division I basketball. They filed a class action against
the NCAA and 11 Division I conferences (for simplicity’s sake, we
refer to the defendants collectively as the NCAA). The
student-athletes challenged the “current, interconnected set of
NCAA rules that limit the compensation they may receive in exchange
for their athletic services.” D. Ct. Op., at 1062, 1065, n. 5.
Specifically, they alleged that the NCAA’s rules violate §1 of the
Sherman Act, which prohibits “contract[s], combination[s], or
conspirac[ies] in restraint of trade or commerce.” 15
U. S. C. §1.

															After pretrial proceedings stretching years, the
district court conducted a 10-day bench trial. It heard experts and
lay witnesses from both sides, and received volumes of evidence and
briefing, all before issuing an exhaustive decision. In the end,
the court found the evidence undisputed on certain points. The NCAA
did not “contest evidence showing” that it and its members have
agreed to compensation limits on student-athletes; the NCAA and its
conferences enforce these limits by punishing violations; and these
limits “affect interstate commerce.” D. Ct. Op., at 1066.

															Based on these premises, the district court
proceeded to assess the lawfulness of the NCAA’s challenged
restraints. This Court has “long recognized that in view of the
common law and the law in this country when the Sherman Act was
passed, the phrase ‘restraint of trade’ is best read to mean ‘undue
restraint.’ ” Ohio v. American Express Co. , 585
U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 8) (brackets and some
internal quotation marks omitted). Determining whether a restraint
is undue for purposes of the Sherman Act “presumptively” calls for
what we have described as a “rule of reason analysis.” Texaco
Inc. v. Dagher , 547 U.S.
1 , 5 (2006); Standard Oil Co. of N. J. v. United
States , 221 U.S.
1 , 60–62 (1911). That manner of analysis generally requires a
court to “conduct a fact-specific assessment of market power and
market structure” to assess a challenged restraint’s “actual effect
on competition.” American Express , 585 U. S., at
___–___ (slip op., at 8–9) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Always, “[t]he goal is to distinguish between restraints with
anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and
restraints stimulating competition that are in the consumer’s best
interest.” Ibid. (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted).

															In applying the rule of reason, the district
court began by observing that the NCAA enjoys “near complete
dominance of, and exercise[s] monopsony power in, the relevant
market”—which it defined as the market for “athletic services in
men’s and women’s Division I basketball and FBS football, wherein
each class member participates in his or her sport-specific
market.” D. Ct. Op., at 1097. The “most talented athletes are
concentrated” in the “markets for Division I basketball and FBS
football.” Id. , at 1067. There are no “viable substitutes,”
as the “NCAA’s Division I essentially is the relevant market
for elite college football and basketball.” Id. , at 1067,
1070. In short, the NCAA and its member schools have the “power to
restrain student-athlete compensation in any way and at any time
they wish, without any meaningful risk of diminishing their market
dominance.” Id. , at 1070.

															The district court then proceeded to find that
the NCAA’s compensation limits “produce significant anticompetitive
effects in the relevant market.” Id. , at 1067. Though member
schools compete fiercely in recruiting student-athletes, the NCAA
uses its monopsony power to “cap artificially the compensation
offered to recruits.” Id. , at 1097. In a market without the
challenged restraints, the district court found, “competition among
schools would increase in terms of the compensation they would
offer to recruits, and student- athlete compensation would be
higher as a result.” Id. , at 1068. “Student-athletes would
receive offers that would more closely match the value of their
athletic services.” Ibid. And notably, the court observed,
the NCAA “did not meaningfully dispute” any of this evidence. Id. , at 1067; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 31 (“[T]here’s no
dispute that the—the no-pay-for-play rule imposes a significant
restraint on a relevant antitrust market”).

															The district court next considered the NCAA’s
procompetitive justifications for its restraints. The NCAA
suggested that its restrictions help increase output in college
sports and maintain a competitive balance among teams. But the
district court rejected those justifications, D. Ct. Op., at 1070,
n. 12, and the NCAA does not pursue them here. The NCAA’s only
remaining defense was that its rules preserve amateurism, which in
turn widens consumer choice by providing a unique product—amateur
college sports as distinct from professional sports. Admittedly,
this asserted benefit accrues to consumers in the NCAA’s
seller-side consumer market rather than to student-athletes whose
compensation the NCAA fixes in its buyer-side labor market. But,
the NCAA argued, the district court needed to assess its restraints
in the labor market in light of their procompetitive benefits in
the consumer market—and the district court agreed to do so. Id. , at 1098.

															Turning to that task, the court observed that
the NCAA’s conception of amateurism has changed steadily over the
years. See id. , at 1063–1064, 1072–1073; see also supra, at 3–7. The court noted that the NCAA “nowhere
define[s] the nature of the amateurism they claim consumers insist
upon.” D. Ct. Op . , at 1070. And, given all this, the court
struggled to ascertain for itself “any coherent definition” of the
term, id. , at 1074, noting the testimony of a former SEC
commissioner that he’s “ ‘never been clear
on . . . what is really meant by amateurism.’ ” Id. , at 1070–1071.

															Nor did the district court find much evidence to
support the NCAA’s contention that its compensation restrictions
play a role in consumer demand. As the court put it, the evidence
failed “to establish that the challenged compensation rules, in and
of themselves, have any direct connection to consumer demand.” Id. , at 1070. The court observed, for example, that the
NCAA’s “only economics expert on the issue of consumer demand” did
not “study any standard measures of consumer demand” but instead
simply “interviewed people connected with the NCAA and its schools,
who were chosen for him by defense counsel.” Id. , at 1075.
Meanwhile, the student-athletes presented expert testimony and
other evidence showing that consumer demand has increased markedly
despite the new types of compensation the NCAA has allowed in
recent decades. Id. , at 1074, 1076. The plaintiffs presented
economic and other evidence suggesting as well that further
increases in student-athlete compensation would “not negatively
affect consumer demand.” Id. , at 1076. At the same time,
however, the district court did find that one particular aspect of
the NCAA’s compensation limits “may have some effect in preserving
consumer demand.” Id., at 1082. Specifically, the court
found that rules aimed at ensuring “student-athletes do not receive
unlimited payments unrelated to education” could play some role in
product differentiation with professional sports and thus help
sustain consumer demand for college athletics. Id. , at
1083.

															The court next required the student-athletes to
show that “substantially less restrictive alternative rules”
existed that “would achieve the same procompetitive effect as the
challenged set of rules.” Id. , at 1104. The district court
emphasized that the NCAA must have “ample latitude” to run its
enterprise and that courts “may not use antitrust laws to make
marginal adjustments to broadly reasonable market restraints.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). In light of these
standards, the court found the student-athletes had met their
burden in some respects but not others. The court rejected the
student-athletes’ challenge to NCAA rules that limit athletic
scholarships to the full cost of attendance and that restrict
compensation and benefits unrelated to education. These may be
price-fixing agreements, but the court found them to be reasonable
in light of the possibility that “professional-level cash payments
. . . could blur the distinction between college sports
and professional sports and thereby negatively affect consumer
demand.” Ibid .

															The court reached a different conclusion for
caps on education-related benefits—such as rules that limit
scholarships for graduate or vocational school, payments for
academic tutoring, or paid posteligibility internships. Id. ,
at 1088. On no account, the court found, could such
education-related benefits be “confused with a professional
athlete’s salary.” Id. , at 1083. If anything, they
“emphasize that the recipients are students.” Ibid. Enjoining the NCAA’s restrictions on these forms of compensation
alone, the court concluded, would be substantially less restrictive
than the NCAA’s current rules and yet fully capable of preserving
consumer demand for college sports. Id. , at 1088.

															The court then entered an injunction reflecting
its findings and conclusions. Nothing in the order precluded the
NCAA from continuing to fix compensation and benefits unrelated to
education; limits on athletic scholarships, for example, remained
untouched. The court enjoined the NCAA only from limiting
education-related compensation or benefits that conferences and
schools may provide to student-athletes playing Division I football
and basketball. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, p. 167a, ¶1.
The court’s injunction further specified that the NCAA could
continue to limit cash awards for academic achievement—but only so
long as those limits are no lower than the cash awards allowed for
athletic achievement (currently $5,980 annually). Id., at
168a–169a, ¶5; Order Granting Motion for Clarification of
Injunction in No. 4:14–md–02541, ECF Doc. 1329, pp. 5–6 (ND Cal.,
Dec. 30, 2020). The court added that the NCAA and its members were
free to propose a definition of compensation or benefits
“ ‘related to education.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No.
20–512, at 168a, ¶4. And the court explained that the NCAA was free
to regulate how conferences and schools provide education-related
compensation and benefits. Ibid. The court further
emphasized that its injunction applied only to the NCAA and
multi-conference agreements—thus allowing individual conferences
(and the schools that constitute them) to impose tighter
restrictions if they wish. Id. , at 169a, ¶6. The district
court’s injunction issued in March 2019, and took effect in August
2020.

															Both sides appealed. The student-athletes said
the district court did not go far enough; it should have enjoined
all of the NCAA’s challenged compensation limits, including those
“untethered to education,” like its restrictions on the size of
athletic scholarships and cash awards. In re National
Collegiate Athletic Assn. Athletic Grant-in-Aid Cap Antitrust
Litig. , 958 F.3d 1239, 1263 (CA9 2020). The NCAA, meanwhile,
argued that the district court went too far by weakening its
restraints on education-related compensation and benefits. In the
end, the court of appeals affirmed in full, explaining its view
that “the district court struck the right balance in crafting a
remedy that both prevents anticompetitive harm to Student-Athletes
while serving the procompetitive purpose of preserving the
popularity of college sports.” Ibid. C

															Unsatisfied with this result, the NCAA asks us
to reverse to the extent the lower courts sided with the student-
athletes. For their part, the student-athletes do not renew their
across-the-board challenge to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions.
Accordingly, we do not pass on the rules that remain in place or
the district court’s judgment upholding them. Our review is
confined to those restrictions now enjoined.

															Before us, as through much of the litigation
below, some of the issues most frequently debated in antitrust
litigation are uncontested. The parties do not challenge the
district court’s definition of the relevant market. They do not
contest that the NCAA enjoys monopoly (or, as it’s called on the
buyer side, monopsony) control in that labor market—such that it is
capable of depressing wages below competitive levels and
restricting the quantity of student-athlete labor. Nor does the
NCAA dispute that its member schools compete fiercely for
student-athletes but remain subject to NCAA-issued-and-enforced
limits on what compensation they can offer. Put simply, this suit
involves admitted horizontal price fixing in a market where the
defendants exercise monopoly control.

															Other significant matters are taken as given
here too. No one disputes that the NCAA’s restrictions in
fact decrease the compensation that student-athletes receive
compared to what a competitive market would yield. No one questions
either that decreases in compensation also depress participation by
student-athletes in the relevant labor market—so that price and
quantity are both suppressed. See 12 P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp,
Antitrust Law ¶2011b, p. 134 (4th ed. 2019) (Areeda &
Hovenkamp). Nor does the NCAA suggest that, to prevail, the
plaintiff student-athletes must show that its restraints harm
competition in the seller-side (or consumer facing) market as well
as in its buyer-side (or labor) market. See, e.g., Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar
Co. , 334 U.S.
219 , 235 (1948); Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons
Hardwood Lumber Co. , 549 U.S.
312 , 321 (2007); 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶352c, pp. 288–289
(2014); 12 id ., ¶2011a, at 132–134.

															Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not question
that the NCAA may permissibly seek to justify its restraints in the
labor market by pointing to procompetitive effects they produce in
the consumer market. Some amici argue that “competition in
input markets is incommensurable with competition in output
markets,” and that a court should not “trade off ” sacrificing
a legally cognizable interest in competition in one market to
better promote competition in a different one; review should
instead be limited to the particular market in which antitrust
plaintiffs have asserted their injury. Brief for American Antitrust
Institute as Amicus Curiae 3, 11–12. But the parties before
us do not pursue this line.

															II

															A

															With all these matters taken as given, we
express no views on them. Instead, we focus only on the objections
the NCAA does raise. Principally, it suggests that the lower
courts erred by subjecting its compensation restrictions to a rule
of reason analysis. In the NCAA’s view, the courts should have
given its restrictions at most an “abbreviated deferential review,”
Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, p. 14, or a “ ‘quick
look,’ ” Brief for Petitioners in No. 20–520, p. 18,
before approving them.

															The NCAA offers a few reasons why. Perhaps
dominantly, it argues that it is a joint venture and that
collaboration among its members is necessary if they are to offer
consumers the benefit of intercollegiate athletic competition. We
doubt little of this. There’s no question, for example, that many
“joint ventures are calculated to enable firms to do something more
cheaply or better than they did it before.” 13 Areeda &
Hovenkamp ¶2100c, at 7. And the fact that joint ventures can have
such procompetitive benefits surely stands as a caution against
condemning their arrangements too reflexively. See Dagher ,
547 U. S., at 7; Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia
Broadcasting System, Inc. , 441 U.S.
1 , 22–23 (1979).

															But even assuming (without deciding) that the
NCAA is a joint venture, that does not guarantee the foreshortened
review it seeks. Most restraints challenged under the Sherman
Act—including most joint venture restrictions—are subject to the
rule of reason, which (again) we have described as “a fact-specific
assessment of market power and market structure” aimed at assessing
the challenged restraint’s “actual effect on
competition”—especially its capacity to reduce output and increase
price. American Express , 585 U. S., at ___–___ (slip
op., at 8–9) (internal quotation marks omitted).

															Admittedly, the amount of work needed to conduct
a fair assessment of these questions can vary. As the NCAA
observes, this Court has suggested that sometimes we can determine
the competitive effects of a challenged restraint in the
“ ‘twinkling of an eye.’ ” Board of Regents , 468
U. S., at 110, n. 39 (quoting P. Areeda, The “Rule of
Reason” in Antitrust Analysis: General Issues 37–38 (Federal
Judicial Center, June 1981)); American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League , 560 U.S.
183 , 203 (2010). That is true, though, only for restraints at
opposite ends of the competitive spectrum. For those sorts of
restraints—rather than restraints in the great in-between—a quick
look is sufficient for approval or condemnation.

															At one end of the spectrum, some restraints may
be so obviously incapable of harming competition that they require
little scrutiny. In Rothery Storage & Van Co. v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc. , 792 F.2d 210 (CADC 1986), for
example, Judge Bork explained that the analysis could begin and end
with the observation that the joint venture under review
“command[ed] between 5.1 and 6% of the relevant market.” Id. , at 217. Usually, joint ventures enjoying such small
market share are incapable of impairing competition. Should they
reduce their output, “there would be no effect upon market price
because firms making up the other 94% of the market would simply
take over the abandoned business.” Ibid. ; see also 7 Areeda
& Hovenkamp ¶1507a, p. 444 (2017) (If “the exercise of market
power is not plausible, the challenged practice is legal”); Polk
Bros . , Inc. v. Forest City Enterprises, Inc. , 776
F.2d 185, 191 (CA7 1985) (“Unless the firms have the power to raise
price by curtailing output, their agreement is unlikely to harm
consumers, and it makes sense to understand their cooperation as
benign or beneficial”).

															At the other end, some agreements among
competitors so obviously threaten to reduce output and raise prices
that they might be condemned as unlawful per se or
rejected after only a quick look. See Dagher , 547
U. S., at 7, n. 3; California Dental Assn. v. FTC , 526 U.S.
756 , 770 (1999). Recognizing the inherent limits on a court’s
ability to master an entire industry—and aware that there are often
hard-to-see efficiencies attendant to complex business
arrangements—we take special care not to deploy these condemnatory
tools until we have amassed “considerable experience with the type
of restraint at issue” and “can predict with confidence that it
would be invalidated in all or almost all instances.” Leegin
Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. , 551 U.S.
877 , 886–887 (2007); Easterbrook, On Identifying Exclusionary
Conduct, 61 Notre Dame L. Rev. 972, 975 (1986) (noting that it
can take “economists years, sometimes decades, to understand why
certain business practices work [and] determine whether they work
because of increased efficiency or exclusion”); see also infra , at 26–27 (further reasons for caution).

															None of this helps the NCAA. The NCAA accepts that its members collectively enjoy monopsony power
in the market for student-athlete services, such that its
restraints can (and in fact do) harm competition. See D. Ct. Op.,
at 1067. Unlike customers who would look elsewhere when a small van
company raises its prices above market levels, the district court
found (and the NCAA does not here contest) that student-athletes
have nowhere else to sell their labor. Even if the NCAA is a joint
venture, then, it is hardly of the sort that would warrant
quick-look approval for all its myriad rules and restrictions.

															Nor does the NCAA’s status as a particular type
of venture categorically exempt its restraints from ordinary rule
of reason review. We do not doubt that some degree of coordination
between competitors within sports leagues can be procompetitive.
Without some agreement among rivals—on things like how many players
may be on the field or the time allotted for play—the very
competitions that consumers value would not be possible. See Board of Regents , 468 U. S., at 101 (quoting R. Bork,
The Antitrust Paradox 278 (1978)). Accordingly, even a sports
league with market power might see some agreements among its
members win antitrust approval in the “ ‘twinkling of an
eye.’ ” American Needle , 560 U. S., at 203.

															But this insight does not always apply. That some restraints are necessary to create or maintain a league
sport does not mean all “aspects of elaborate interleague
cooperation are.” Id. , at 199, n. 7. While a quick look
will often be enough to approve the restraints “necessary to
produce a game,” ibid. , a fuller review may be appropriate
for others. See, e.g., Chicago Professional Sports Ltd.
Partnership v. National Basketball Assn. , 95 F.3d 593 , 600 (CA7 1996) (“Just as the ability of McDonald’s
franchises to coordinate the release of a new hamburger does not
imply their ability to agree on wages for counter workers, so the
ability of sports teams to agree on a TV contract need not imply an
ability to set wages for players”).

															The NCAA’s rules fixing wages for
student-athletes fall on the far side of this line. Nobody
questions that Division I basketball and FBS football can proceed
(and have proceeded) without the education-related compensation
restrictions the district court enjoined; the games go on. Instead,
the parties dispute whether and to what extent those restrictions
in the NCAA’s labor market yield benefits in its consumer market
that can be attained using substantially less restrictive means.
That dispute presents complex questions requiring more than a blink
to answer.

															B

															Even if background antitrust principles
counsel in favor of the rule of reason, the NCAA replies that a
particular precedent ties our hands. The NCAA directs our attention
to Board of Regents , where this Court considered the
league’s rules restricting the ability of its member schools to
televise football games. 468 U. S., at 94. On the NCAA’s
reading, that decision expressly approved its limits on
student-athlete compensation—and this approval forecloses any
meaningful review of those limits today.

															We see things differently. Board of
Regents explained that the league’s television rules amounted
to “[h]orizontal price fixing and output limitation[s]” of the sort
that are “ordinarily condemned” as “ ‘illegal per se .’ ” Id ., at 100. The Court declined
to declare the NCAA’s restraints per se unlawful only
because they arose in “an industry” in which some “horizontal
restraints on competition are essential if the product is to be
available at all.” Id. , at 101–102. Our analysis today is
fully consistent with all of this. Indeed, if any daylight exists
it is only in the NCAA’s favor. While Board of Regents did
not condemn the NCAA’s broadcasting restraints as per se unlawful, it invoked abbreviated antitrust
review as a path to condemnation, not salvation. Id. , at
109, n. 39. If a quick look was thought sufficient before
rejecting the NCAA’s procompetitive rationales in that case, it is
hard to see how the NCAA might object to a court providing a more
cautious form of review before reaching a similar judgment
here.

															To be sure, the NCAA isn’t without a reply. It
notes that, in the course of reaching its judgment about television
marketing restrictions, the Board of Regents Court commented
on student-athlete compensation restrictions. Most particularly,
the NCAA highlights this passage:

															“The NCAA plays a critical role in the
maintenance of a revered tradition of amateurism in college sports.
There can be no question but that it needs ample latitude to play
that role, or that the preservation of the student-athlete in
higher education adds richness and diversity to intercollegiate
athletics and is entirely consistent with the goals of the Sherman
Act.” Id. , at 120.

															See also id. , at 101, 102 (the NCAA
“seeks to market a particular brand of football” in which “athletes
must not be paid, must be required to attend class, and the like”).
On the NCAA’s telling, these observations foreclose any rule of
reason review in this suit.

															Once more, we cannot agree. Board of
Regents may suggest that courts should take care when assessing
the NCAA’s restraints on student-athlete compensation, sensitive to
their procompetitive possibilities. But these remarks do not
suggest that courts must reflexively reject all challenges
to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions. Student-athlete
compensation rules were not even at issue in Board of
Regents . And the Court made clear it was only assuming the
reasonableness of the NCAA’s restrictions: “It is reasonable to assume that most of the regulatory controls of the NCAA are
justifiable means of fostering competition among amateur athletic
teams and are therefore procompetitive . . . .” Id. , at 117 (emphasis added). Accordingly, the Court simply
did not have occasion to declare—nor did it declare—the NCAA’s
compensation restrictions procompetitive both in 1984 and
forevermore.

															Our confidence on this score is fortified by
still another factor. Whether an antitrust violation exists
necessarily depends on a careful analysis of market realities. See, e.g., American Express Co. , 585 U. S., at
___–___ (slip op., at 10–12); 2B Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶500,
p. 107 (2014). If those market realities change, so may the
legal analysis.

															When it comes to college sports, there can be
little doubt that the market realities have changed significantly
since 1984. Since then, the NCAA has dramatically increased the
amounts and kinds of benefits schools may provide to
student-athletes. For example, it has allowed the conferences
flexibility to set new and higher limits on athletic scholarships.
D. Ct. Op., at 1064. It has increased the size of permissible
benefits “incidental to athletics participation.” Id ., at
1066. And it has developed the Student Assistance Fund and the
Academic Enhancement Fund, which in 2018 alone provided over $100
million to student-athletes. Id ., at 1072. Nor is that all
that has changed. In 1985, Division I football and basketball
raised approximately $922 million and $41 million respectively.
Brief for Former NCAA Executives as Amici Curiae 7. By 2016,
NCAA Division I schools raised more than $13.5 billion. Ibid. From 1982 to 1984, CBS paid $16 million per year to
televise the March Madness Division I men’s basketball tournament. Ibid. In 2016, those annual television rights brought in
closer to $1.1 billion. D. Ct. Op., at 1077, n. 20.

															Given the sensitivity of antitrust analysis to
market realities—and how much has changed in this market—we think
it would be particularly unwise to treat an aside in Board of
Regents as more than that. This Court may be “infallible only
because we are final,” Brown v. Allen , 344 U.S.
443 , 540 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result), but those
sorts of stray comments are neither.

															C

															The NCAA submits that a rule of reason
analysis is inappropriate for still another reason—because the NCAA
and its member schools are not “commercial enterprises” and instead
oversee intercollegiate athletics “as an integral part of the
undergraduate experience.” Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at
31. The NCAA represents that it seeks to “maintain amateurism in
college sports as part of serving [the] societally important
non-commercial objective” of “higher education.” Id. , at
3.

															Here again, however, there may be less of a
dispute than meets the eye. The NCAA does not contest that its
restraints affect interstate trade and commerce and are thus
subject to the Sherman Act. See D. Ct. Op., at 1066. The NCAA
acknowledges that this Court already analyzed (and struck down)
some of its restraints as anticompetitive in Board of
Regents . And it admits, as it must, that the Court did all this
only after observing that the Sherman Act had already been applied
to other nonprofit organizations—and that “the economic
significance of the NCAA’s nonprofit character is questionable at
best” given that “the NCAA and its member institutions are in fact
organized to maximize revenues.” 468 U. S., at 100–101,
n. 22. Nor, on the other side of the equation, does anyone
contest that the status of the NCAA’s members as schools and the
status of student-athletes as students may be relevant in assessing
consumer demand as part of a rule of reason review.

															With this much agreed it is unclear exactly what
the NCAA seeks. To the extent it means to propose a sort of
judicially ordained immunity from the terms of the Sherman Act for
its restraints of trade—that we should overlook its restrictions
because they happen to fall at the intersection of higher
education, sports, and money—we cannot agree. This Court has
regularly refused materially identical requests from litigants
seeking special dispensation from the Sherman Act on the ground
that their restraints of trade serve uniquely important social
objectives beyond enhancing competition.

															Take two examples. In National Soc. of
Professional Engineers v. United States , 435 U.S.
679 (1978), a trade association argued that price competition
between engineers competing for building projects had to be
restrained to ensure quality work and protect public safety. Id. , at 679–680. This Court rejected that appeal as “nothing
less than a frontal assault on the basic policy of the Sherman
Act.” Id. , at 695. The “statutory policy” of the Act is one
of competition and it “precludes inquiry into the question whether
competition is good or bad.” Ibid. In FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Assn. , 493
U.S. 411 (1990), criminal defense lawyers agreed among
themselves to refuse court appointments until the government
increased their compensation. Id., at 414. And once more the
Court refused to consider whether this restraint of trade served
some social good more important than competition: “The social
justifications proffered for respondents’ restraint of trade
. . . do not make it any less unlawful.” Id. , at
424.

															To be sure, this Court once dallied with
something that looks a bit like an antitrust exemption for
professional baseball. In Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore,
Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs , 259 U.S.
200 (1922), the Court reasoned that “exhibitions” of “base
ball” did not implicate the Sherman Act because they did not
involve interstate trade or commerce—even though teams regularly
crossed state lines (as they do today) to make money and enhance
their commercial success. Id ., at 208–209. But this Court
has refused to extend Federal Baseball ’s reasoning to other
sports leagues—and has even acknowledged criticisms of the decision
as “ ‘unrealistic’ ” and “ ‘inconsistent’ ” and
“aberration[al].” Flood v. Kuhn , 407 U.S.
258 , 282 (1972) (quoting Radovich v. National
Football League , 352 U.S.
445 , 452 (1957)); see also Brief for Advocates for Minor
Leaguers as Amicus Curiae 5, n. 3 (gathering
criticisms). Indeed, as we have seen, this Court has already
recognized that the NCAA itself is subject to the Sherman
Act.

															The “orderly way” to temper that Act’s policy of
competition is “by legislation and not by court decision.” Flood , 407 U. S., at 279. The NCAA is free to argue
that, “because of the special characteristics of [its] particular
industry,” it should be exempt from the usual operation of the
antitrust laws—but that appeal is “properly addressed to Congress.” National Soc. of Professional Engineers , 435 U. S., at
689. Nor has Congress been insensitive to such requests. It has
modified the antitrust laws for certain industries in the past, and
it may do so again in the future. See, e.g. , 7
U. S. C. §§291–292 (agricultural cooperatives); 15
U. S. C. §§1011–1013 (insurance); 15 U. S. C.
§§1801–1804 (newspaper joint operating agreements). But until
Congress says otherwise, the only law it has asked us to enforce is
the Sherman Act, and that law is predicated on one assumption
alone—“competition is the best method of allocating resources” in
the Nation’s economy. National Soc. of Professional
Engineers , 435 U. S., at 695.

															III

															A

															While the NCAA devotes most of its energy to
resisting the rule of reason in its usual form, the league lodges
some objections to the district court’s application of it as
well.

															When describing the rule of reason, this Court
has sometimes spoken of “a three-step, burden-shifting framework”
as a means for “ ‘distinguish[ing] between restraints with
anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and
restraints stimulating competition that are in the consumer’s best
interest.’ ” American Express Co. , 585 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 9). As we have described it, “the plaintiff has
the initial burden to prove that the challenged restraint has a
substantial anticompetitive effect.” Ibid. Should the
plaintiff carry that burden, the burden then “shifts to the
defendant to show a procompetitive rationale for the restraint.” Ibid. If the defendant can make that showing, “the burden
shifts back to the plaintiff to demonstrate that the procompetitive
efficiencies could be reasonably achieved through less
anticompetitive means.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at
9–10).

															These three steps do not represent a rote
checklist, nor may they be employed as an inflexible substitute for
careful analysis. As we have seen, what is required to assess
whether a challenged restraint harms competition can vary depending
on the circumstances. See supra , at 15–19. The whole point
of the rule of reason is to furnish “an enquiry meet for the case,
looking to the circumstances, details, and logic of a restraint” to
ensure that it unduly harms competition before a court declares it
unlawful. California Dental , 526 U. S., at 781; see
also, e.g., Leegin Creative , 551 U. S., at 885
(“ ‘[T]he factfinder weighs all of the circumstances of a case
in deciding whether a restrictive practice should be prohibited as
imposing an unreasonable restraint on competition’ ”); Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp. , 467 U.S.
752 , 768 (1984); 7 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1507a, at 442–444
(slightly different “decisional model” using sequential
questions).

															In the proceedings below, the district court
followed circuit precedent to apply a multistep framework closely
akin to American Express ’s. As its first step, the district
court required the student-athletes to show that “the challenged
restraints produce significant anticompetitive effects in the
relevant market.” D. Ct. Op., at 1067. This was no slight burden.
According to one amicus , courts have disposed of nearly all
rule of reason cases in the last 45 years on the ground that the
plaintiff failed to show a substantial anticompetitive effect.
Brief for 65 Professors of Law, Business, Economics, and Sports
Management as Amici Curiae 21, n. 9 (“Since 1977,
courts decided 90% (809 of 897) on this ground”). This suit proved
different. As we have seen, based on a voluminous record, the
district court held that the student-athletes had shown the NCAA
enjoys the power to set wages in the market for student-athletes’
labor—and that the NCAA has exercised that power in ways that have
produced significant anticompetitive effects. See D. Ct. Op., at
1067. Perhaps even more notably, the NCAA “did not meaningfully
dispute” this conclusion. Ibid. Unlike so many cases, then, the district court
proceeded to the second step, asking whether the NCAA could muster
a procompetitive rationale for its restraints. Id. , at 1070.
This is where the NCAA claims error first crept in. On its account,
the district court examined the challenged rules at different
levels of generality. At the first step of its inquiry, the court
asked whether the NCAA’s entire package of compensation
restrictions has substantial anticompetitive effects collectively . Yet, at the second step, the NCAA says the
district court required it to show that each of its distinct rules
limiting student-athlete compensation has procompetitive benefits individually . The NCAA says this mismatch had the result of
effectively—and erroneously—requiring it to prove that each rule is
the least restrictive means of achieving the procompetitive purpose
of differentiating college sports and preserving demand for
them.

															We agree with the NCAA’s premise that antitrust
law does not require businesses to use anything like the least
restrictive means of achieving legitimate business purposes. To the
contrary, courts should not second-guess “degrees of reasonable
necessity” so that “the lawfulness of conduct turn[s] upon
judgments of degrees of efficiency.” Rothery Storage , 792
F. 2d, at 227; Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE
Sylvania Inc. , 433 U.S.
36 , 58, n. 29 (1977). That would be a recipe for disaster,
for a “skilled lawyer” will “have little difficulty imagining
possible less restrictive alternatives to most joint arrangements.”
11 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1913b, p. 398 (2018). And judicial
acceptance of such imaginings would risk interfering “with the
legitimate objectives at issue” without “adding that much to
competition.” 7 id ., ¶1505b, at 435–436.

															Even worse, “[r]ules that seek to embody every
economic complexity and qualification may well, through the
vagaries of administration, prove counter-productive, undercutting
the very economic ends they seek to serve.” Barry Wright
Corp. v. ITT Grinnell Corp. , 724 F.2d 227, 234 (CA1
1983) (Breyer, J.). After all, even “[u]nder the best of
circumstances,” applying the antitrust laws “ ‘can be
difficult’ ”—and mistaken condemnations of legitimate business
arrangements “ ‘are especially costly, because they chill the
very’ ” procompetitive conduct “ ‘the antitrust laws are
designed to protect.’ ” Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP , 540 U.S. 398, 414
(2004). Indeed, static judicial decrees in ever-evolving markets
may themselves facilitate collusion or frustrate entry and
competition. Ibid. To know that the Sherman Act prohibits
only unreasonable restraints of trade is thus to know that
attempts to “ ‘[m]ete[r]’ small deviations is not an
appropriate antitrust function.” Hovenkamp, Antitrust Balancing, 12
N. Y. U. J. L. & Bus. 369, 377 (2016).

															While we agree with the NCAA’s legal premise, we
cannot say the same for its factual one. Yes, at the first step of
its inquiry, the district court held that the student-athletes had
met their burden of showing the NCAA’s restraints collectively bear
an anticompetitive effect. And, given that, yes, at step two the
NCAA had to show only that those same rules collectively yield a
procompetitive benefit. The trouble for the NCAA, though, is not
the level of generality. It is the fact that the district court
found unpersuasive much of its proffered evidence. See D. Ct. Op.,
at 1070–1076, 1080–1083. Recall that the court found the NCAA
failed “to establish that the challenged compensation
rules . . . have any direct connection to consumer
demand.” Id., at 1070.

															To be sure, there is a wrinkle here. While
finding the NCAA had failed to establish that its rules
collectively sustain consumer demand, the court did find that
“some” of those rules “may” have procompetitive effects “to the
extent” they prohibit compensation “unrelated to education, akin to
salaries seen in professional sports leagues.” Id., at
1082–1083. The court then proceeded to what corresponds to the
third step of the American Express framework, where it
required the student-athletes “to show that there are substantially
less restrictive alternative rules that would achieve the same
procompetitive effect as the challenged set of rules.” D. Ct.
Op . , at 1104. And there, of course, the district court held
that the student-athletes partially succeeded—they were able to
show that the NCAA could achieve the procompetitive benefits it had
established with substantially less restrictive restraints on
education-related benefits.

															Even acknowledging this wrinkle, we see nothing
about the district court’s analysis that offends the legal
principles the NCAA invokes. The court’s judgment ultimately turned
on the key question at the third step: whether the student-athletes
could prove that “substantially less restrictive alternative rules”
existed to achieve the same procompetitive benefits the NCAA had
proven at the second step. Ibid. Of course, deficiencies in
the NCAA’s proof of procompetitive benefits at the second step
influenced the analysis at the third. But that is only because,
however framed and at whichever step, anticompetitive restraints of
trade may wind up flunking the rule of reason to the extent the
evidence shows that substantially less restrictive means exist to
achieve any proven procompetitive benefits. See, e.g., 7
Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1505, p. 428 (“To be sure, these two
questions can be collapsed into one,” since a “legitimate objective
that is not promoted by the challenged restraint can be equally
served by simply abandoning the restraint, which is surely a less
restrictive alternative”).

															Simply put, the district court nowhere—expressly
or effectively—required the NCAA to show that its rules constituted
the least restrictive means of preserving consumer demand.
Rather, it was only after finding the NCAA’s restraints
“ ‘patently and inexplicably stricter than is
necessary’ ” to achieve the procompetitive benefits the league
had demonstrated that the district court proceeded to declare a
violation of the Sherman Act. D. Ct. Op., at 1104. That demanding
standard hardly presages a future filled with judicial
micromanagement of legitimate business decisions.

															B

															In a related critique, the NCAA contends the
district court “impermissibly redefined” its “product” by rejecting
its views about what amateurism requires and replacing them with
its preferred conception. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at
35–36.

															This argument, however, misapprehends the way a
defendant’s procompetitive business justification relates to the
antitrust laws. Firms deserve substantial latitude to fashion
agreements that serve legitimate business interests—agreements that
may include efforts aimed at introducing a new product into the
marketplace. Supra , at 15–19. But none of that means a party
can relabel a restraint as a product feature and declare it “immune
from §1 scrutiny.” American Needle , 560 U. S., at 199,
n. 7. In this suit, as in any, the district court had to
determine whether the defendants’ agreements harmed competition and
whether any procompetitive benefits associated with their
restraints could be achieved by “substantially less restrictive
alternative” means. D. Ct. Op., at 1104.

															The NCAA’s argument not only misapprehends the
inquiry, it would require us to overturn the district court’s
factual findings. While the NCAA asks us to defer to its conception
of amateurism, the district court found that the NCAA had not
adopted any consistent definition. Id., at 1070. Instead,
the court found, the NCAA’s rules and restrictions on compensation
have shifted markedly over time. Id., at 1071–1074. The
court found, too, that the NCAA adopted these restrictions without
any reference to “considerations of consumer demand,” id. ,
at 1100, and that some were “not necessary to preserve consumer
demand,” id. , at 1075, 1080, 1104. None of this is product
redesign; it is a straightforward application of the rule of
reason.

															C

															Finally, the NCAA attacks as “indefensible”
the lower courts’ holding that substantially less restrictive
alternatives exist capable of delivering the same procompetitive
benefits as its current rules. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512,
at 46. The NCAA claims, too, that the district court’s injunction
threatens to “micromanage” its business. Id. , at 50.

															Once more, we broadly agree with the legal
principles the NCAA invokes. As we have discussed, antitrust courts
must give wide berth to business judgments before finding
liability. See supra , at 15–19. Similar considerations apply
when it comes to the remedy. Judges must be sensitive to the
possibility that the “continuing supervision of a highly detailed
decree” could wind up impairing rather than enhancing competition. Trinko , 540 U. S., at 415. Costs associated with
ensuring compliance with judicial decrees may exceed efficiencies
gained; the decrees themselves may unintentionally suppress
procompetitive innovation and even facilitate collusion. See supra , at 26–27. Judges must be wary, too, of the temptation
to specify “the proper price, quantity, and other terms of
dealing”—cognizant that they are neither economic nor industry
experts. Trinko , 540 U. S., at 408. Judges must be open
to reconsideration and modification of decrees in light of changing
market realities, for “what we see may vary over time.” California Dental , 526 U. S., at 781. And throughout
courts must have a healthy respect for the practical limits of
judicial administration: “An antitrust court is unlikely to be an
effective day-to-day enforcer” of a detailed decree, able to keep
pace with changing market dynamics alongside a busy docket. Trinko , 540 U. S., at 415. Nor should any court
“ ‘impose a duty . . . that it cannot explain or
adequately and reasonably supervise.’ ” Ibid. In short,
judges make for poor “central planners” and should never aspire to
the role. Id. , at 408.

															Once again, though, we think the district court
honored these principles. The court enjoined only restraints on
education-related benefits—such as those limiting scholarships for
graduate school, payments for tutoring, and the like. The court did
so, moreover, only after finding that relaxing these restrictions
would not blur the distinction between college and professional
sports and thus impair demand—and only after finding that this
course represented a significantly (not marginally) less
restrictive means of achieving the same procompetitive benefits as
the NCAA’s current rules. D. Ct. Op., at 1104–1105.

															Even with respect to education-related benefits,
the district court extended the NCAA considerable leeway. As we
have seen, the court provided that the NCAA could develop its own
definition of benefits that relate to education and seek
modification of the court’s injunction to reflect that definition.
App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 168a, ¶4. The court
explained that the NCAA and its members could agree on rules
regulating how conferences and schools go about providing these
education-related benefits. Ibid. The court said that the
NCAA and its members could continue fixing education-related cash
awards, too—so long as those “limits are never lower than the
limit” on awards for athletic performance. D. Ct. Op., at 1104;
App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 168a–169a, ¶5. And the
court emphasized that its injunction applies only to the NCAA and
multiconference agreements; individual conferences remain free to
reimpose every single enjoined restraint tomorrow—or more
restrictive ones still. Id., at 169a–170a, ¶¶6–7.

															In the end, it turns out that the NCAA’s
complaints really boil down to three principal objections.

															First, the NCAA worries about the district
court’s inclusion of paid posteligibility internships among the
education-related benefits it approved. The NCAA fears that schools
will use internships as a way of circumventing limits on payments
that student-athletes may receive for athletic performance. The
NCAA even imagines that boosters might promise posteligibility
internships “at a sneaker company or auto dealership” with
extravagant salaries as a “thinly disguised vehicle” for paying
professional-level salaries. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at
37–38.

															This argument rests on an overly broad reading
of the injunction. The district court enjoined only restrictions on
education-related compensation or benefits “that may be made
available from conferences or schools .” App. to Pet. for
Cert. in No. 20–512, at 167a, ¶1 (emphasis added). Accordingly, as
the student-athletes concede, the injunction “does not stop the
NCAA from continuing to prohibit compensation from” sneaker
companies, auto dealerships, boosters, “or anyone else.” Brief for
Respondents 47–48; see also Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 33. The NCAA itself seems to understand this much.
Following the district court’s injunction, the organization adopted
new regulations specifying that only “a conference or institution”
may fund post-eligibility internships. See Decl. of M. Boyer in No.
4:14–md–02541, ECF Doc. 1302–2, p. 6 (ND Cal., Sept. 22, 2020)
(NCAA Bylaw 16.3.4(d)).

															Even when it comes to internships offered by
conferences and schools, the district court left the NCAA
considerable flexibility. The court refused to enjoin NCAA rules
prohibiting its members from providing compensation or benefits
unrelated to legitimate educational activities—thus leaving the
league room to police phony internships. As we’ve observed, the
district court also allowed the NCAA to propose (and enforce) rules
defining what benefits do and do not relate to education. App. to
Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 168a, ¶4. Accordingly, the NCAA
may seek whatever limits on paid internships it thinks appropriate.
And, again, the court stressed that individual conferences may
restrict internships however they wish. Id., at 169a, ¶6.
All these features underscore the modesty of the current
decree.

															Second, the NCAA attacks the district court’s
ruling that it may fix the aggregate limit on awards schools may
give for “academic or graduation” achievement no lower than its
aggregate limit on parallel athletic awards (currently $5,980 per
year). Id., at 168a–169a, ¶5; D. Ct. Op., at 1104. This, the
NCAA asserts, “is the very definition of a professional salary.”
Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at 48. The NCAA also represents
that “[m]ost” of its currently permissible athletic awards are “for
genuine individual or team achievement ” and that “[m]ost
. . . are received by only a few student-athletes each
year.” Ibid. Meanwhile, the NCAA says, the district court’s
decree would allow a school to pay players thousands of dollars
each year for minimal achievements like maintaining a passing GPA. Ibid. The basis for this critique is unclear. The NCAA
does not believe that the athletic awards it presently allows are
tantamount to a professional salary. And this portion of the
injunction sprang directly from the district court’s finding that
the cap on athletic participation awards “is an amount that has
been shown not to decrease consumer demand.” D. Ct. Op., at 1088.
Indeed, there was no evidence before the district court suggesting
that corresponding academic awards would impair consumer interest
in any way. Again, too, the district court’s injunction affords the
NCAA leeway. It leaves the NCAA free to reduce its athletic awards.
And it does not ordain what criteria schools must use for their
academic and graduation awards. So, once more, if the NCAA believes
certain criteria are needed to ensure that academic awards are
legitimately related to education, it is presently free to propose
such rules—and individual conferences may adopt even stricter
ones.

															Third, the NCAA contends that allowing schools
to provide in-kind educational benefits will pose a problem. This
relief focuses on allowing schools to offer scholarships for
“graduate degrees” or “vocational school” and to pay for things
like “computers” and “tutoring.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No.
20–512, at 167a–168a, ¶2. But the NCAA fears schools might exploit
this authority to give student-athletes “ ‘luxury cars’ ”
“to get to class” and “other unnecessary or inordinately valuable
items” only “nominally” related to education. Brief for Petitioner
in No. 20–512, at 48–49.

															Again, however, this over-reads the injunction
in ways we have seen and need not belabor. Under the current
decree, the NCAA is free to forbid in-kind benefits unrelated to a
student’s actual education; nothing stops it from enforcing a “no
Lamborghini” rule. And, again, the district court invited the NCAA
to specify and later enforce rules delineating which benefits it
considers legitimately related to education. To the extent the NCAA
believes meaningful ambiguity really exists about the scope of its
authority—regarding internships, academic awards, in-kind benefits,
or anything else—it has been free to seek clarification from the
district court since the court issued its injunction three years
ago. The NCAA remains free to do so today. To date, the NCAA has
sought clarification only once—about the precise amount at which it
can cap academic awards—and the question was quickly resolved.
Before conjuring hypothetical concerns in this Court, we believe it
best for the NCAA to present any practically important question it
has in district court first.

															When it comes to fashioning an antitrust remedy,
we acknowledge that caution is key. Judges must resist the
temptation to require that enterprises employ the least restrictive
means of achieving their legitimate business objectives. Judges
must be mindful, too, of their limitations—as generalists, as
lawyers, and as outsiders trying to understand intricate business
relationships. Judges must remain aware that markets are often more
effective than the heavy hand of judicial power when it comes to
enhancing consumer welfare. And judges must be open to clarifying
and reconsidering their decrees in light of changing market
realities. Courts reviewing complex business arrangements should,
in other words, be wary about invitations to “set sail on a sea of
doubt.” United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel
Co. , 85 F. 271, 284 (CA6 1898) (Taft, J.). But we do not
believe the district court fell prey to that temptation. Its
judgment does not float on a sea of doubt but stands on firm
ground—an exhaustive factual record, a thoughtful legal analysis
consistent with established antitrust principles, and a healthy
dose of judicial humility.

															*

															Some will think the district court did not go
far enough. By permitting colleges and universities to offer
enhanced education-related benefits, its decision may encourage
scholastic achievement and allow student-athletes a measure of
compensation more consistent with the value they bring to their
schools. Still, some will see this as a poor substitute for fuller
relief. At the same time, others will think the district court went
too far by undervaluing the social benefits associated with amateur
athletics. For our part, though, we can only agree with the Ninth
Circuit: “ ‘The national debate about amateurism in college
sports is important. But our task as appellate judges is not to
resolve it. Nor could we. Our task is simply to review the district
court judgment through the appropriate lens of antitrust
law.’ ” 958 F. 3d, at 1265. That review persuades us the
district court acted within the law’s bounds.

															The judgment is

															Affirmed. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															Nos. 20–512 and 20–520

															_________________

															NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC
ASSOCIATION, PETITIONER

															20–512 v. SHAWNE ALSTON, et al.

															AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE,
et al., PETITIONERS

															20–520 v. SHAWNE ALSTON, et al.

															on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 21, 2021]

															Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.

															The NCAA has long restricted the compensation
and benefits that student athletes may receive. And with surprising
success, the NCAA has long shielded its compensation rules from
ordinary antitrust scrutiny. Today, however, the Court holds that
the NCAA has violated the antitrust laws. The Court’s decision
marks an important and overdue course correction, and I join the
Court’s excellent opinion in full.

															But this case involves only a narrow subset of
the NCAA’s compensation rules—namely, the rules restricting the education-related benefits that student athletes may
receive, such as post-eligibility scholarships at graduate or
vocational schools. The rest of the NCAA’s compensation rules are
not at issue here and therefore remain on the books. Those
remaining compensation rules generally restrict student athletes
from receiving compensation or benefits from their colleges for
playing sports. And those rules have also historically restricted
student athletes from receiving money from endorsement deals and
the like.

															I add this concurring opinion to underscore that
the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules also raise serious
questions under the antitrust laws. Three points warrant
emphasis. First , the Court does not address the
legality of the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules. As the Court
says, “the student-athletes do not renew their across-the-board
challenge to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions. Accordingly, we
do not pass on the rules that remain in place or the district
court’s judgment upholding them. Our review is confined to those
restrictions now enjoined.” Ante, at 14. Second , although the Court does not weigh
in on the ultimate legality of the NCAA’s remaining compensation
rules, the Court’s decision establishes how any such rules should
be analyzed going forward. After today’s decision, the NCAA’s
remaining compensation rules should receive ordinary “rule of
reason” scrutiny under the antitrust laws. The Court makes clear
that the decades-old “stray comments” about college sports and
amateurism made in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla. , 468 U.S.
85 (1984), were dicta and have no bearing on whether the NCAA’s
current compensation rules are lawful. Ante, at 21. And the
Court stresses that the NCAA is not otherwise entitled to an
exemption from the antitrust laws. Ante, at 23–24; see also Radovich v. National Football League , 352 U.S.
445 , 449–452 (1957). As a result, absent legislation or a
negotiated agreement between the NCAA and the student athletes, the
NCAA’s remaining compensation rules should be subject to ordinary
rule of reason scrutiny. See ante, at 18–19. Third , there are serious questions
whether the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules can pass muster
under ordinary rule of reason scrutiny. Under the rule of reason,
the NCAA must supply a legally valid procompetitive justification
for its remaining compensation rules. As I see it, however, the
NCAA may lack such a justification.

															The NCAA acknowledges that it controls the
market for college athletes. The NCAA concedes that its
compensation rules set the price of student athlete labor at a
below-market rate. And the NCAA recognizes that student athletes
currently have no meaningful ability to negotiate with the NCAA
over the compensation rules.

															The NCAA nonetheless asserts that its
compensation rules are procompetitive because those rules help
define the product of college sports. Specifically, the NCAA says
that colleges may decline to pay student athletes because the
defining feature of college sports, according to the NCAA, is that
the student athletes are not paid.

															In my view, that argument is circular and
unpersuasive. 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. News organizations cannot join forces to curtail pay to
reporters to preserve a “tradition” of public-minded journalism.
Movie studios cannot collude to slash benefits to camera crews to
kindle a “spirit of amateurism” in Hollywood.

															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. See, e.g. , Texaco Inc. v. Dagher , 547 U.S.
1 , 5 (2006). Businesses like the NCAA cannot avoid the
consequences of price-fixing labor by incorporating price-fixed
labor into the definition of the product. Or to put it in more
doctrinal terms, a monopsony cannot launder its price-fixing of
labor by calling it product definition.

															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. See Brief for African
American Antitrust Lawyers as Amici Curiae 13–17.

															Everyone agrees that the NCAA can require
student athletes to be enrolled students in good standing. But the
NCAA’s business model of using unpaid student athletes to generate
billions of dollars in revenue for the colleges raises serious
questions under the antitrust laws. In particular, it is highly
questionable whether the NCAA and its member colleges can justify
not paying student athletes a fair share of the revenues on the
circular theory that the defining characteristic of college sports
is that the colleges do not pay student athletes. And if that
asserted justification is unavailing, it is not clear how the NCAA
can legally defend its remaining compensation rules.

															If it turns out that some or all of the NCAA’s
remaining compensation rules violate the antitrust laws, some
difficult policy and practical questions would undoubtedly ensue.
Among them: How would paying greater compensation to student
athletes affect non-revenue-raising sports? Could student athletes
in some sports but not others receive compensation? How would any
compensation regime comply with Title IX? If paying student
athletes requires something like a salary cap in some sports in
order to preserve competitive balance, how would that cap be
administered? And given that there are now about 180,000 Division I
student athletes, what is a financially sustainable way of fairly
compensating some or all of those student athletes?

															Of course, those difficult questions could be
resolved in ways other than litigation. Legislation would be one
option. Or colleges and student athletes could potentially engage
in collective bargaining (or seek some other negotiated agreement)
to provide student athletes a fairer share of the revenues that
they generate for their colleges, akin to how professional football
and basketball players have negotiated for a share of league
revenues. Cf. Brown v. Pro Football, Inc. , 518 U.S.
231 , 235–237 (1996); Wood v. National Basketball
Assn. , 809 F.2d 954, 958–963 (CA2 1987) (R. Winter, J.).
Regardless of how those issues ultimately would be resolved,
however, the NCAA’s current compensation regime raises serious
questions under the antitrust laws.

															To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges
maintain important traditions that have become part of the fabric
of America—game days in Tuscaloosa and South Bend; the packed gyms
in Storrs and Durham; the women’s and men’s lacrosse championships
on Memorial Day weekend; track and field meets in Eugene; the
spring softball and baseball World Series in Oklahoma City and
Omaha; the list goes on. 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.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA, stating that its current compensation rules for student-athletes raise serious questions under antitrust laws. The Court suggested that the NCAA's justification for not paying student-athletes a fair share of revenues is questionable and that its remaining compensation rules may also violate antitrust laws. The Court highlighted the complex relationship between American colleges, sports, and money, emphasizing that the NCAA has built a lucrative enterprise on unpaid student-athletes. The Court suggested potential alternatives such as legislation or collective bargaining to resolve the issue of fair compensation for student-athletes.