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(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2020 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is 

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. 

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been 

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION v. 

ALSTON ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

No. 20–512. Argued March 31, 2021—Decided June 21, 2021* 

Colleges and universities across the country have leveraged sports to 

bring in revenue, attract attention, boost enrollment, and raise money 

from alumni. That profitable enterprise relies on “amateur” studentathletes who compete under horizontal restraints that restrict how the

schools may compensate them for their play. The National Collegiate

Athletic Association (NCAA) issues and enforces these rules, which restrict compensation for student-athletes in various ways. These rules 

depress compensation for at least some student-athletes below what a 

competitive market would yield. 

Against this backdrop, current and former student-athletes brought

this antitrust lawsuit challenging the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation. 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. Key facts

were undisputed: The NCAA and its members have agreed to compensation limits for student-athletes; the NCAA enforces these limits on 

its member-schools; and these compensation limits affect interstate 

commerce. Following a bench trial, the district court issued a 50-page 

opinion that refused to disturb the NCAA’s rules limiting undergraduate athletic scholarships and other compensation related to athletic 

performance. At the same time, the court found unlawful and thus 

enjoined certain NCAA rules limiting the education-related benefits

schools may make available to student-athletes. Both sides appealed. 

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in full, holding that the district court 

—————— 

*Together with No. 20–520, American Athletic Conference et al. v. Alston et al., also on certiorari to the same court. 
 

 

 

 

 

2 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Syllabus 

“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.” 958 F. 3d 

1239, 1263. Unsatisfied with that result, the NCAA asks the Court to 

find that all of its existing restraints on athlete compensation survive

antitrust scrutiny. The student-athletes have not renewed their 

across-the-board challenge and the Court thus does not consider the 

rules that remain in place. The Court considers only the subset of 

NCAA rules restricting education-related benefits that the district 

court enjoined. The Court does so based on the uncontested premise 

that the NCAA enjoys monopsony control in the relevant market— 

such that it is capable of depressing wages below competitive levels for 

student-athletes and thereby restricting the quantity of student-athlete labor. 

Held: The district court’s injunction is consistent with established antitrust principles. Pp. 15–36.

(a) The courts below properly subjected the NCAA’s compensation

restrictions to antitrust scrutiny under a “rule of reason” analysis. In 

the Sherman Act, Congress tasked courts with enforcing an antitrust

policy of competition on the theory 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. 

The Sherman Act’s prohibition on restraints of trade has long been understood to prohibit only restraints that are “undue.” Ohio v. American 

Express Co., 585 U. S. ___, ___. Whether a particular restraint is undue “presumptively” turns on an application of a “rule of reason analysis.” Texaco, Inc. v. Dagher, 547 U. S. 1, 5. 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 ___. 

Pp. 15–24. 

(1) The NCAA maintains the courts below should have analyzed

its compensation restrictions under an extremely deferential standard

because it is a joint venture among members who must collaborate to

offer consumers the unique product of intercollegiate athletic competition. Even assuming the NCAA is a joint venture, though, it is a joint 

venture with monopoly power in the relevant market. Its restraints 

are appropriately subject to the ordinary rule of reason’s fact-specific

assessment of their effect on competition. American Express, 585 

U. S., at ___. Circumstances sometimes allow a court to determine the 

anticompetitive effects of a challenged restraint (or lack thereof) under

an abbreviated or “quick look.” See Dagher, 547 U. S., at 7, n. 3; Board 

of Regents, 468 U. S., at 109, n. 39. But not here. Pp. 15–19.

(2) The NCAA next contends that the Court’s decision in Board of 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 3 

Syllabus 

Regents expressly approved the NCAA’s limits on student-athlete compensation. That is incorrect. The Court in Board of Regents did not 

analyze the lawfulness of the NCAA’s restrictions on student-athlete 

compensation. Rather, that case involved an antitrust challenge to the 

NCAA’s restraints on televising games—an antitrust challenge the 

Court sustained. Along the way, the Court commented on the NCAA’s

critical role in maintaining the revered tradition of amateurism in college sports as one “entirely consistent with the goals of the Sherman 

Act.” Id., at 120. But that sort of passing comment on an issue not 

presented is not binding, nor is it dispositive here. Pp. 19–21.

(3) The NCAA also submits that a rule of reason analysis is inappropriate because its member schools are not “commercial enterprises”

but rather institutions that exist to further the societally important

noncommercial objective of undergraduate education. This submission 

also fails. The Court has regularly refused these sorts of special dispensations from the Sherman Act. See FTC v. Superior Court Trial 

Lawyers Assn., 493 U. S. 411, 424. The Court has also previously subjected the NCAA to the Sherman Act, and any argument that “the special characteristics of [the NCAA’s] particular industry” should exempt

it from the usual operation of the antitrust laws is “properly addressed

to Congress.” National Soc. of Professional Engineers v. United States, 

435 U. S. 679, 689. Pp. 21–24. 

(b) The NCAA’s remaining attacks on the district court’s decision 

lack merit. Pp. 24–36. 

(1) The NCAA contends that the district court erroneously required it to prove that its rules are the least restrictive means of 

achieving the procompetitive purpose of preserving consumer demand

for college sports. True, a least restrictive means test would be erroneous and overly intrusive. But the district court nowhere expressly 

or effectively required the NCAA to show that its rules met that standard. Rather, only after finding the NCAA’s restraints “patently and 

inexplicably stricter than is necessary” did the district court find the 

restraints unlawful. Pp. 24–29.

(2) The NCAA contends the district court should have deferred to 

its conception of amateurism instead of “impermissibly redefin[ing]” 

its “product.” But a party cannot declare a restraint “immune from § 

1 scrutiny” by relabeling it a product feature. American Needle, Inc. v. 

National Football League, 560 U. S. 183, 199, n. 7. Moreover, the district court found the NCAA had not even maintained a consistent definition of amateurism. Pp. 29–30. 

(3) The NCAA disagrees that it can achieve the same pro-competitive benefits using substantially less restrictive alternatives and 

claims the district court’s injunction will “micromanage” its business.

Judges must indeed be sensitive to the possibility that the “continuing 
 

 

4 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Syllabus 

supervision of a highly detailed decree” could wind up impairing rather 

than enhancing competition. Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 540 U. S. 398, 415. The district court’s 

injunction honored these principles, though. The court enjoined only 

certain restraints—and only after finding both that relaxing these restrictions would not blur the distinction between college and professional sports and thus impair demand, and further that this course 

represented a significantly (not marginally) less restrictive means of 

achieving the same procompetitive benefits as the NCAA’s current 

rules. Finally, the court’s injunction preserves considerable leeway for 

the NCAA, while individual conferences remain free to impose whatever rules they choose. To the extent the NCAA believes meaningful 

ambiguity exists about the scope of its authority, it may seek clarification from the district court. Pp. 30–36. 

958 F. 3d 1239, affirmed. 

GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. 
 

 

 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

2 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 allexpenses-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 Wendell 

Holmes, p. 27 (1918), but it was football that really caused 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

4 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

“[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 studentathletes. 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 
Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

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 Cu-
 

 

 

6 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

riae 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 “lossof-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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

$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 
 

8 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

10 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 studentathlete 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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

 

12 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 educationrelated 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 studentathletes playing Division I football and basketball. App. to 
Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

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. 
 

 

14 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

C 

Unsatisfied with this result, the NCAA asks us to reverse 

to the extent the lower courts sided with the studentathletes. 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. 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

16 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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.” 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

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-tosee 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 
 

18 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

(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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

 

20 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

22 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 studentathletes 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. 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 23 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

24 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 25 

Opinion of the Court 

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, 
 

26 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 27 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

28 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 studentathletes 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”). 
Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 29 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

30 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 reali-
 

 

 

 

 

 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 31 

Opinion of the Court 

ties, 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 
 

 

 

32 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 33 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

34 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 35 

Opinion of the Court 

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. 
 

36 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

The judgment is 

Affirmed. 
 

_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 1 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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 re-
 

2 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

strict 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 
 

 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 3 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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., 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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 
 

Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021) 5 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

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.