The NPR Politics Podcast - The Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects NCAA Limits On Athlete Compensation

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

The Supreme Court unanimously sided with college athletes in their challenge to NCAA compensation rules. The court's ruling was narrow, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed open to going further saying, "the NCAA's business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America." This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior political editor and correspondent Carrie Johnson.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Brian, on board the research vessel Falkor in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, a part of America so remote that the closest other people are on the International Space Station when it's overhead. This podcast was recorded at 2.06pm on June 21st, 2021. Some things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be exploring Earth's final frontiers. Enjoy the show. Wow, now there's a fun fact, huh? Yeah.

I guess they have enough internet out there to get the podcast. So that's cool. I'm glad we're keeping people company, even where there's no one else. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And the Supreme Court has issued a narrow but potentially transformative ruling this morning that could reshape college athletics. This is

a case that we talked about on the podcast a few months ago. Now there is a decision. It will allow for student athletes to receive education-related payments. It is a multi-billion dollar industry, college sports, and some more of that money will potentially go to the people playing those sports. So, Carrie, can you describe what the actual case was here? Sure. The lead plaintiffs were a former running back at the football program at West Virginia University and a former center from the University of California's basketball team. And this case basically pits the revered tradition of college sports against student-athletes' ability to get fair compensation for their performance.

You know, as you pointed out, college sports is a massive business, and the Supreme Court has been really wary of blurring the line between college sports and professional sports. But basically, the court said today the NCAA is not immune from antitrust lawsuits. Well, and I think arguably, Domenico, that line between professional sports and college sports has been blurring for years, decades. Well, yeah, I mean, this is a fight at least a quarter century where it's really gained some momentum and some steam where, you know, college athletes weren't even allowed to be paid even a modest amount of money. They weren't allowed to, for example, take money for flights home for bereavement. And, you know, these are a lot of kids who come from areas who they don't have a lot of money. You know, and this disproportionately affects black and brown kids across the country. And this has been a big, big part of this. I mean, big question for me,

though, is it sounds pretty narrow. I mean, we're talking about education related expenses. Like, what is that exactly? Yeah, Carrie, the court's decision was unanimous. As we've said a couple times, it was narrow. What does it actually mean? What did they decide? Yeah, the court found 9-0 that the NCAA seems to have violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. That law bars contracts or conspiracies that would restrain trade. And the context here is a very narrow slice of compensation to student-athletes. This involves educational-related payments to student-athletes, things like laptops or musical instruments or postgraduate internships or vocational school scholarships. But the importance moving forward is that it basically says the NCAA had sought immunity

from the normal operation of antitrust laws. And now the Supreme Court unanimously today said, nope, not going to fly. So I want to read a little bit from a concurring opinion that Justice Kavanaugh wrote up. He accuses the NCAA of price fixing. Here is some of what he said, quote, 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. These, of course, Domenico, are arguments that have been made about college athletes that, you know, fans really just love the amateur nature of it.

You know, like the love of the game. Yeah. You know, I mean, that has gone, you know, that's really sort of gone by the wayside a little bit. There were certainly people who made this quote-unquote purist argument a long time ago. But boy, that's really hard to make when you look at the multibillion-dollar contracts that TV networks are shelling out to the NCAA. The multimillion-dollar salaries that coaches and the out to the NCAA, the multi-million dollar salaries that coaches and the head of the NCAA are taking. This is particularly egregious in a sport like men's basketball, which, you know, makes up the vast majority of the money that the NCAA takes in. This has, you know, they haven't done themselves a lot of public relations favors. They've tried

over the years to make small tweaks. But, you know, I think as this populism in our politics continues to rage, it's certainly filtering into college sports. But wait, this opinion essentially says coaches can still get multimillion dollar contracts and players, now you can have a laptop? Is it really that? Yeah. And that's one reason why Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who's a huge sports fan, as we know, took the time to write a separate concurring opinion in which he laid out all the serious questions about whether these remaining rules the NCAA has for student athletes can pass legal must are under the antitrust laws. He says the bottom line is the NCAA is suppressing the pay of student-athletes

who generate billions of dollars for colleges and universities every year. And as Domenico said, many of those people are black and brown from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. He talks about, you know, tradition at college football powerhouses like Notre Dame and Alabama. But he says that a tradition is beautiful, but the NCAA cannot be above the law. And he basically seems to invite a lot more lawsuits that could make their way to the Supreme Court chipping away further at the NCAA's authority. All right, well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we will look at what comes next and how this might impact the future of college athletics. NPR's No Compromise podcast just won the Pulitzer Prize. We explore a breed of gun

rights activism that's online, organized, and unwilling to budge. I'm Chris Haxel. I'm Lisa Hagen. Check out No Compromise wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And Carrie and Domenico, I guess the big question now is what's next? What does this mean for college sports? Could there be more lawsuits that ultimately sort of reshape the

way college athletics work or are financed? Well, to hear the lawyer for these athletes in this case tell it, they're hoping that this victory means that there's going to be a lot more litigation that promotes additional compensation for athletes, that this is the beginning of something that involves more fair treatment for student athletes. And the NCAA says that the court opinion today gives it a little more authority to, you know, set the rules and talk about what are these educational benefits. But the NCAA seems to recognize the writing on the wall, too, and says that it wants to work with Congress and state legislatures on an issue that's even more important that Domenico has been following, this issue of when players and whether players can be compensated for promotional appearances and uses of their image and likeness. That's where the real money is these days.

But that money, importantly, doesn't usually come from the NCAA, right? I mean, this is money that, you know, it's sort of a nice public relations thing for Mark Emmert, the president of the NCAA, to say, sure, we're OK with Nike or Adidas paying a kid, you know, to appear or EA Sports to pay a college athlete to put their name and likeness on the cover of their video game. But that sort of misses the point of how the NCAA itself has profited off of these kids' names and likenesses. And I think that is going to be the big fighting ground over the next decade or two when it comes to college athletics. There are a lot of people behind this who are not going to let this subject go. You know,

it is interesting to me that when you look at Congress and him mentioning Congress, it's also convenient to say Congress because Congress can't get anything done as far as a national standard on this. Instead, where the fight is really happening is in the states where several states and state legislatures have passed rules that are, you know, more looking out for the financial rights of these athletes. I have many more questions to ask you guys, but this is not a sports podcast. This is a politics podcast. So let's move on to the politics and also the court. This was the second unanimous decision that we've talked about this Supreme Court term just in the last couple of weeks. Carrie, you follow the court a lot more closely than I do.

Is this normal? And are we expecting more of this? I mean, unanimous decisions kind of surprise me. I wouldn't hold my breath. You know, Chief Justice John Roberts has tried to keep the court out of a lot of political fights and try to keep unanimity by deciding cases as narrowly as possible. But Tam, on the most hot button and kind of thermonuclear cases that exist and that are coming down the pike next term, I think those desires are going to be really frustrated. Remember, the court already next term has agreed to hear a case on

abortion. It's agreed to hear a case on carrying guns outside the home. And it's considering whether to hear a case on affirmative action on college campuses. And all of these, those issues, I find it hard to imagine the court can really aspire to unanimity. You know, and I think something to watch too is, you know, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, he's now got, you know, a few more cases under his belt of how he's stepping out to show what kind of justice he's going to be. And, you know, it doesn't look like he's quite as in line with the arch conservatives on the court, at least in some cases. And I think that that's going to be an interesting storyline to watch. That's going to have major social impacts over the next several generations.

Yeah, I mean, it's probably way too soon to tell on any of the new justices, but there certainly is a history of justices surprising those who appoint them over time. So who knows? All right, we are going to leave it there for today. We will be back in your feeds tomorrow. I'm Tamara Keith, I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson, National Justice Correspondent.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.