Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 19

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

American  Crystal  Sugar  Co.,  334  U. S.  219,  235  (1948); 
Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., 
549 U. S. 312, 321 (2007); 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶352c,
pp. 288–289 (2014); 12 id., ¶2011a, at 132–134.

Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not question that the
NCAA may permissibly seek to justify its restraints in the 
labor market by pointing to procompetitive effects they pro-
duce in the consumer market.  Some amici argue that “com-
petition in input markets is incommensurable with compe-
tition in output markets,” and that a court should not “trade
off ” sacrificing a legally cognizable interest in competition
in one market to better promote competition in a different 
one; review should instead be limited to the particular mar-
ket in which antitrust plaintiffs have asserted their injury.
Brief for American Antitrust Institute as Amicus Curiae 3, 
11–12.  But the parties before us do not pursue this line. 

II 
A 
With  all  these  matters  taken  as  given,  we  express  no 
views on them.  Instead, we focus only on the objections the 
NCAA  does  raise.  Principally,  it  suggests  that  the  lower 
courts erred by subjecting its compensation restrictions to
a rule of reason analysis.  In the NCAA’s view, the courts 
should have given its restrictions at most an “abbreviated 
deferential  review,”  Brief  for  Petitioner  in  No.  20–512, 
p. 14, or a “ ‘quick look,’ ” Brief for Petitioners in No. 20–520,
p. 18, before approving them.

The  NCAA  offers  a  few  reasons  why.  Perhaps  domi-
nantly, it argues that it is a joint venture and that collabo-
ration among its members is necessary if they are to offer 
consumers  the  benefit  of  intercollegiate  athletic  competi-
tion.  We doubt little of this.  There’s no question, for exam-
ple, that many “joint ventures are calculated to enable firms 
to do something more cheaply or better than they did it be-
fore.”  13 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶2100c, at 7.  And the fact