Opinion ID: 4535062
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Alston Litigation

Text: In March 2014, while the NCAA was litigating O’Bannon I, FBS football and D1 men’s and women’s basketball players filed several antitrust actions against the NCAA and eleven D1 conferences that were transferred to and, with one exception, consolidated before the same district court presiding over O’Bannon I. Rather than confining their challenge to rules prohibiting NIL compensation, StudentAthletes sought to dismantle the NCAA’s entire compensation framework. 7 I dissented from this vacatur, mostly on the basis of the standard of review, because I concluded that the record supported the entirety of the judgment. Id. at 1080. Though agreeing that “court[s] should not eliminate the distinction between professional and college sports,” I also disagreed that the vacated remedy would have done so. Id. at 1082 n.4. As a practical matter, the remedy that survived appeal required nothing of the NCAA, which had already adopted a more generous adjustment to the grant-in-aid limit by permitting schools to offer any D1 recruit an athletic scholarship up to the COA, irrespective of whether his or her NIL was or could be used or licensed. 18 IN RE NCAA ATHLETIC GRANT-IN-AID CAP ANTITRUST LITIG. In December 2015, the district court certified three injunctive relief classes comprised of (i) FBS football players, (ii) D1 men’s basketball players, and (iii) D1 women’s basketball players. Each subclass consists of student-athletes who have received or will receive a full grant-in-aid during the pendency of this litigation. Nearly a year after our decision in O’Bannon II, the NCAA sought judgment on the pleadings, invoking res judicata. It argued that O’Bannon II “requires nothing more of the NCAA than that it permit its member schools to provide student-athletes with their full education-related [COA].” Because the NCAA had already amended its rules to satisfy that requirement, it reasoned that any post- O’Bannon antitrust challenges to its compensation rules must fail. The district court denied the motion. It explained that Student-Athletes, unlike the O’Bannon plaintiffs, had challenged, among other things, limits on non-cash, education-related benefits. It acknowledged the possibility that O’Bannon forecloses a type of relief—lifting restrictions on cash payments untethered to educational expenses—but declined to read it more broadly than that. Cross-motions for summary judgment followed. The district court again rejected the NCAA’s preclusion arguments. As to the merits, it adopted, at the parties’ request, the market definition from O’Bannon I: the market for a college education or, alternatively, student-athletes’ labor. It then granted Student-Athletes summary judgment at the Rule of Reason’s first step, as the NCAA did not meaningfully dispute that the challenged rules have anticompetitive effects in the relevant markets. At the Rule of Reason’s second step, it determined that the NCAA had raised triable issues as to whether its rules have the IN RE NCAA ATHLETIC GRANT-IN-AID CAP ANTITRUST LITIG. 19 procompetitive effect(s) of maintaining the popularity of its elite college basketball and football products or integrating student-athletes into the wider campus community. Last, the district court found that Student-Athletes had proffered sufficient evidence to support their two proposed LRAs: (i) allowing individual conferences, but not the NCAA, to regulate student-athlete compensation; or (ii) enjoining NCAA rules that restrict both non-cash education-related benefits and benefits that are incidental to athletic participation.