Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 28.0

24  NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

Act. 

The “orderly way” to temper that Act’s policy of competi-
tion 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  (news-
paper 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  re-
sources” in the Nation’s economy.  National Soc. of Profes-
sional 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 some-
times 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  con-
sumer’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