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1 1 (June 21, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govedtn0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *Research Service National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston and the Debate over Student Athlete Compensation June 21, 2021 Against the backdrop of the national debate on student athlete compensation, the Supreme Court issued its decision in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston on June 21, 2021. In Alston, the Court was asked to determine whether the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA's) rules capping compensation for student athletes violate Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) affirmed a lower court decision that held that the NCAA's current rules read together were more restrictive than necessary under antitrust law. As a result, the Ninth Circuit held that the NCAA could no longer limit education-related compensation or benefits for student athletes playing Division I football and basketball. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's decision. This Legal Sidebar discusses the background leading up to the Court's decision, the Court's reasoning, and the implications the decision may have on the overall debate surrounding student athlete compensation. Legal Background: Antitrust Law While Alston has provided a platform for arguments about student athlete compensation and the importance of amateurism in intercollegiate athletics, the legal issues behind the case primarily involve antitrust law. Contemporary antitrust law is focused on preventing anticompetitive conduct and mergers that enable firms to exercise market power. The theory behind antitrust law, generally, is that the existence of significant market power harms both consumers and society as a whole. Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits the formation of a contract, combination . .. , or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce. The Supreme Court has held that the Sherman Act prohibits only unreasonable restraints of trade. According to the Court, some agreements and practices, such as price fixing, are so unreasonable that they are considered invalid per se, and an extensive analysis into the practices' anticompetitive nature is not required. Other restraints on trade, however, may be illegal only as applied to particular situations. Courts generally apply a rule of reason analysis to determine whether a challenged restraint of trade, while not per se illegal, is unreasonably anticompetitive. Rule of reason analyses are designed to Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10613 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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