Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

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Syllabus 

Regents expressly approved the NCAA’s limits on student-athlete com-
pensation.  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 col-
lege 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 inap-
propriate 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 dis-
pensations from the Sherman Act.  See FTC v. Superior Court Trial 
Lawyers Assn., 493 U. S. 411, 424.   The Court has also previously sub-
jected the NCAA to the Sherman Act, and any argument that “the spe-
cial 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  re-
quired  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 erro-
neous and overly intrusive.  But the district court nowhere expressly 
or effectively required the NCAA to show that its rules met that stand-
ard.  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 dis-
trict court found the NCAA had not even maintained a consistent def-
inition of amateurism.  Pp. 29–30.       

(3) The NCAA disagrees that it can achieve the same pro-compet-
itive  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