Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 13

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  re-
straint is undue for purposes of the Sherman Act “presump-
tively” 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 omit-
ted).  Always,  “[t]he  goal  is  to  distinguish  between  re-
straints with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the
consumer and restraints stimulating competition that are
in the consumer’s best interest.”  Ibid. (brackets and inter-
nal 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 mar-
ket”—which it defined as the market for “athletic services 
in men’s and women’s Division I basketball and FBS foot-
ball, wherein each class member participates in his or her
sport-specific market.”  D. Ct. Op., at 1097.  The “most tal-
ented athletes are concentrated” in the “markets for Divi-
sion I basketball and FBS football.”  Id., at 1067.  There are 
no  “viable  substitutes,”  as  the  “NCAA’s  Division  I  essen-
tially  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, with-
out any meaningful risk of diminishing their market domi-
nance.”  Id., at 1070. 

The district court then proceeded to find that the NCAA’s
compensation  limits  “produce  significant  anticompetitive