In an "apparent victory for the college sports establishment as it fights efforts to expand athletes' rights," the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that the NCAA "may restrict colleges from compensating athletes beyond the cost of attendance," according to Tracy & Strauss of the N.Y. TIMES. The court said that "limiting compensation to the cost of attendance in exchange for use of the players’ names, images and likenesses was sufficient under antitrust law." Tulane law professor Gabe Feldman said of the ruling, "This is a huge victory for the NCAA. There was some question about the future of the amateurism model, and at least for now, a majority of this panel of the Ninth Circuit has reaffirmed the NCAA's amateurism model and their definition of amateurism. The NCAA is allowed to use amateurism as a justification in antitrust cases, and the NCAA is allowed to define amateurism as restricting any payments to the cost of attending." NCAA President Mark Emmert said, "I was particularly pleased that the court recognized the fundamental difference between providing support for student-athletes that’s education related and, to use their words, ‘cash sums’ that were untethered to educational expenses." Supporters of former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, the lead plaintiff in the suit, "saw several silver linings, most notably that it struck a blow to the NCAA long-held amateurism defense." Former footwear exec Sonny Vaccaro, a longtime critic of the NCAA, said of the ruling, "They specifically went in and said the NCAA violated antitrust law. That opens things up, and it’s tremendous." Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said of the ruling, "This provides some level of uncertainty, but also a welcome level of certainty. In the main, I believe this has affirmed the amateur status of collegiate athletes" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/1). Emmert: "The ruling does provide greater clarity on a number of fronts. ... The fundamental notion of pay for play, as it's often referred to, is at odds with the notion of amateurism and at odds with the fundamental underpinnings of collegiate athletics." NCAA Chief Legal Officer Donald Remy said that it is "too soon to determine if the NCAA will try to appeal portions" of the ruling (CBSSPORTS.com, 9/30).
TODAY'S LOSS, TOMORROW'S GAIN? In S.F., Bob Egelko writes the court "might have dealt the NCAA a more important setback by unanimously upholding" U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s finding that the organization, by "forbidding all compensation to athletes outside the value of their scholarships, had illegally restricted competition between schools for their services." Plaintiff's attorney Michael Hausfeld said, "What this court made clear is that the NCAA cannot exercise total economic dominion over these athletes" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 10/1). Hausfeld also said that the ruling "recognizes there is a group licensing market that players have a right to, and he sees an opening for going after a share of the billions of dollars that are paid to televise games." Hausfeld: "We're going to go after that. The athletes as a whole have a right to participate in the broadcast licensing market" (ESPN.com, 9/30).
CALL FOR CLARITY: Former Texas women's AD Donna Lopiano said that the "ambiguity of the ruling and the other challenges facing the NCAA underscore the need for a blue-ribbon committee to carve a new path forward for college sports." She said, "We need a Presidential Commission to figure all this out. Use the federal government to get all the experts together and make sure that student-athletes get treated the right way" (ESPN.com, 9/30).
ROOM TO BREATHE: ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel writes the ruling "provides breathing room to an industry bombarded by legal assaults." The ramifications of the NCAA being subject to antitrust laws "may be daunting, but the fear of totally reshaping college sports has receded" (ESPN.com, 10/1). ESPN.com's Lester Munson wrote the court's decision is a "rare bit of good news" for the NCAA, which has "been under perpetual attack in antitrust litigation during the past several years." What "appeared to be a slow, inevitable, litigation-powered march toward radical transformation of the NCAA and a pay-for-play system is no longer a certainty." But the ultimate decision in the O'Bannon case "could easily come from the Supreme Court." Judges "rarely describe their own decision as 'momentous' and 'far reaching,'" and the use of those descriptions in this decision is "a clear signal the three judges expect their decision in the case to find its way to a review in the Supreme Court" (ESPN.com, 9/30). YAHOO SPORTS' Jeff Eisenberg wrote limiting the amount college athletes can be paid to the "arbitrary figure of $5,000 was always a silly idea, but it's significant that the appeals court did not offer an alternative proposal for compensating athletes beyond their educational expenses." There is "still a chance the O'Bannon lawsuit could lead to further change if either side appeals this decision to the Supreme Court, but for now the NCAA should be pleased with this outcome." The appeals court's decision is a "setback for those pushing to blow up the current college sports model and a victory for the status quo" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 9/30).
NOT A DONE DEAL: VICE SPORTS' Kevin Trahan wrote the ruling is a "short-term win" for the NCAA. But the NCAA also faces the Jeffrey Kessler suit, which "seeks an open market with no scholarship cap, full stop." The precedent set in yesterday's decision "could loom large" in that case, as it "contains numerous lines striking down NCAA arguments against allowing players to be paid." The NCAA and its member schools for now "can breathe easy: they don't have to allow athletic departments to pay athletes puny amounts of trust fund money." But in the future, the association "may be forced to let athletes earn a whole lot more" (SPORTS.VICE.com, 9/30). SI.com's Michael McCann wrote, "Amateurism in college sports may be on life support, but it’s not dead yet" (SI.com, 9/30). In L.A., Scott Martelle wrote cost-of-attendance "seems a reasonable balance except for one thing -- top-tier college athletics isn’t an amateur pursuit." It is a "big business built on the performances of student athletes, and they deserve a bigger slice of that rather rich pie" (LATIMES.com, 9/30).
