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28  NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

NCAA had failed to establish that its rules collectively sus-
tain  consumer  demand,  the  court  did  find  that  “some”  of 
those  rules  “may”  have  procompetitive  effects  “to  the  ex-
tent”  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 sub-
stantially  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 suc-
ceeded—they  were  able  to  show  that  the  NCAA  could 
achieve the procompetitive benefits it had established with 
substantially  less  restrictive  restraints  on  education-re-
lated 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 student-
athletes could prove that “substantially less restrictive al-
ternative 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 evi-
dence 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 ob-
jective that is not promoted by the challenged restraint can
be  equally  served  by  simply  abandoning  the  restraint, 
which is surely a less restrictive alternative”).