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14  NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

C 
Unsatisfied with this result, the NCAA asks us to reverse 
to  the  extent  the  lower  courts  sided  with  the  student-
athletes.  For their part, the student-athletes do not renew 
their across-the-board challenge to the NCAA’s compensa-
tion restrictions.  Accordingly, we do not pass on the rules
that remain in place or the district court’s judgment uphold-
ing them.  Our review is confined to those restrictions now 
enjoined.

Before us, as through much of the litigation below, some 
of the issues most frequently debated in antitrust litigation 
are uncontested.  The parties do not challenge the district 
court’s definition of the relevant market.  They do not con-
test that the NCAA enjoys monopoly (or, as it’s called on the
buyer side, monopsony) control in that labor market—such 
that it is capable of depressing wages below competitive lev-
els  and  restricting  the  quantity  of  student-athlete  labor.
Nor does the NCAA dispute that its member schools com-
pete  fiercely  for  student-athletes  but  remain  subject  to 
NCAA-issued-and-enforced  limits  on  what  compensation
they can offer.  Put simply, this suit involves admitted hor-
izontal price fixing in a market where the defendants exer-
cise monopoly control.

Other significant matters are taken as given here too.  No 
one disputes that the NCAA’s restrictions in fact decrease 
the  compensation  that  student-athletes  receive  compared 
to what a competitive market would yield.  No one questions
either that decreases in compensation also depress partici-
pation by student-athletes in the relevant labor market—
so that price and quantity are both suppressed.  See 12 P. 
Areeda  &  H.  Hovenkamp,  Antitrust  Law  ¶2011b,  p.  134 
(4th ed. 2019) (Areeda & Hovenkamp).  Nor does the NCAA 
suggest that, to prevail, the plaintiff student-athletes must
show that its restraints harm competition in the seller-side 
(or consumer facing) market as well as in its buyer-side (or 
labor) market.  See, e.g., Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v.