The amount of money that courses through collegiate athletics is staggering—billion-dollar TV contracts, coaches’ salaries, luxurious locker and weight rooms, chartered air travel, apparel and ticket sales, and more. The primary drivers of this revenue—the athletes themselves—are prohibited from sharing in the money; they are also barred from earning outside income on their own that might be attributable in some attenuated way to their status as athletes. The governing body for college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), has been unwilling to address the iniquities of this model, and pressure has steadily built over the years for change.

One manifestation of that pressure was a civil antitrust lawsuit in California. A group of student-athletes alleged that the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation violated the Sherman Act. The district court agreed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. While the case was appealed, several state legislatures (including California’s) enacted legislation requiring the NCAA-member schools in their states to allow athletes to receive certain categories of compensation. The pressure continued to build, and the NCAA continued to resist the pressure. While the NCAA successfully convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, this decision will not block the wave of state legislation that will necessarily require a modification of NCAA rules … or break apart the NCAA altogether. In other words, the model is changing, with or without the NCAA’s consent.

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