Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

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 ob-
served, the district court also allowed the NCAA to propose 
(and enforce) rules defining what benefits do and do not re-
late 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 in-
ternships  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 profes-
sional  salary.”    Brief  for  Petitioner  in  No.  20–512,  at  48. 
The NCAA also represents that “[m]ost” of its currently per-
missible 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 achieve-
ments 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 tan-
tamount 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