(Still) Anticompetitive College Sports

Abstract

In May 2024, the college sports industry was reported to be on the precipice of entering a new era in which the industry's umbrella oversight association, the NCAA, would trade in its longstanding, anticompetitive practices for a new business model that would allow individual member colleges, subject to a salary cap, to compensate their athletes for providing labor services. The proposed, new business model had materialized, in large part, through negotiations between a team of lawyers who had represented three classes of college athletes and the lawyers who represent the NCAA member schools. 

Some commentators, eagerly amplifying talking points shared by class action attorneys who stand to handsomely profit, have described this proposed settlement as a monumental step to resolve the longstanding labor strife within college sports. However, this rosy portrayal of the proposed settlement ignores that, as proposed, the settlement would continue to allow NCAA member schools to deny college athletes access to free labor markets, as well as would continue to deny them any meaningful voice in determining the future governance of the college sports industry. The settlement also ignores important questions in terms of implementation, including the role of Title IX on proposed revenue allocation. This article explains why, even in the proposed new era of intercollegiate sports, there remain bona-fide anticompetitive concerns pertaining the NCAA's rules, as well as meaningful concerns pertaining to the future representation and voice of college athletes.

Keywords: College sports, antitrust, sports law, employment law, NCAA