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2 

NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

court refused to disturb the NCAA’s rules limiting under-
graduate athletic scholarships and other compensation re-
lated to athletic performance.  At the same time, the court 
struck  down  NCAA  rules  limiting  the  education-related 
benefits schools may offer student-athletes—such as rules 
that  prohibit  schools  from  offering  graduate  or  vocational 
school scholarships.  Before us, the student-athletes do not 
challenge  the  district  court’s  judgment.    But  the  NCAA 
does.  In essence, it seeks immunity from the normal oper-
ation of the antitrust laws and argues, in any event, that 
the  district  court  should  have  approved  all  of  its  existing 
restraints.  We took this case to consider those objections. 

I 
A 

From the start, American colleges and universities have 
had a complicated relationship with sports and money.  In 
1852, students from Harvard and Yale participated in what 
many  regard  as  the  Nation’s  first  intercollegiate  competi-
tion—a boat race at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. 
But this was no pickup match.  A railroad executive spon-
sored the event to promote train travel to the picturesque 
lake.  T. Mendenhall, The Harvard-Yale Boat Race 1852– 
1924, pp. 15–16 (1993).  He offered the competitors an all-
expenses-paid vacation with lavish prizes—along with un-
limited alcohol.  See A. Zimbalist, Unpaid Professionals 6–
7 (1999) (Zimbalist); Rushin, Inside the Moat, Sports Illus-
trated, Mar. 3, 1997.  The event filled the resort with “life 
and  excitement,”  N. Y.  Herald,  Aug.  10,  1852,  p.  2,  col. 2,
and one student-athlete described the “ ‘junket’ ” as an ex-
perience “ ‘as unique and irreproducible as the Rhodian co-
lossus,’ ” Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale Boat Race, at 20. 

Life might be no “less than a boat race,” Holmes, On Re-
ceiving the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Yale University Com-
mencement, June 30, 1886, in Speeches by Oliver Wendall 
Holmes, p. 27 (1918), but it was football that really caused