High court agrees to hear athlete compensation case

WASHINGTON — For the first time in more than three decades, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the NCAA and what it means to be a college athlete.

The high court on Wednesday agreed to review a court decision in an antitrust lawsuit the NCAA has said blurred “the line between student-athletes and professionals“by removing caps on compensation that major college football and basketball players can receive.

The case will be argued in 2021 with a decision expected before the end of June. The last time the Supreme Court heard an NCAA case was 1984. NCAA vs. the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma changed the way college football could be broadcast on television, setting the stage of billion-dollar media rights contracts and conference realignment.

“That was a shape-shifting decision that in many ways fundamentally changed economics of college football and college football television,” said Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane. “And ever since that 1984 decision, courts have been relying on that language to try to interpret antitrust law applies to all NCAA restrictions, including player compensation.”

The high court’s decision to hear the so-called Alston case comes after a threejudge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May. The panel upheld a lower court ruling barring the NCAA from capping education-related compensation and benefits for student-athletes in Division I football and basketball programs. Division I conferences can still independently set their own rules.

The case was brought by former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston and others. The narrow ruling in the case, which required any compensation to athletes to be tethered to education, left both sides claiming victory at the time.

And now both sides are celebrating the decision by the Supreme Court to hear the case.