Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf
Page Number: 23

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

I  basketball  and  FBS  football  can  proceed  (and  have  pro-
ceeded)  without  the  education-related  compensation  re-
strictions the district court enjoined; the games go on.  In-
stead, the parties dispute whether and to what extent those
restrictions in the NCAA’s labor market yield benefits in its 
consumer market that can be attained using substantially 
less  restrictive  means.  That  dispute  presents  complex
questions requiring more than a blink to answer. 

B 

Even if background antitrust principles counsel in favor 
of  the  rule  of  reason,  the  NCAA  replies  that  a  particular 
precedent ties our hands.  The NCAA directs our attention 
to  Board  of  Regents,  where  this  Court  considered  the 
league’s rules restricting the ability of its member schools
to televise football games.  468 U. S., at 94.  On the NCAA’s 
reading, that decision expressly approved its limits on stu-
dent-athlete  compensation—and  this  approval  forecloses
any meaningful review of those limits today.

We  see  things  differently.  Board  of  Regents  explained
that the league’s television rules amounted to “[h]orizontal
price  fixing  and  output  limitation[s]”  of  the  sort  that  are
“ordinarily condemned” as “ ‘illegal per se.’ ”  Id., at 100.  The 
Court declined to declare the NCAA’s restraints per se un-
lawful  only  because  they  arose  in  “an  industry”  in  which
some “horizontal restraints on competition are essential if 
the product is to be available at all.”  Id., at 101–102.  Our 
analysis today is fully consistent with all of this.  Indeed, if 
any daylight exists it is only in the NCAA’s favor.  While 
Board of Regents did not condemn the NCAA’s broadcasting 
restraints as per se unlawful, it invoked abbreviated anti-
trust review as a path to condemnation, not salvation.  Id., 
at 109, n. 39.  If a quick look was thought sufficient before
rejecting  the  NCAA’s  procompetitive  rationales  in  that
case, it is hard to see how the NCAA might object to a court 
providing a more cautious form of review before reaching a