U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, who is overseeing a nationwide class action regarding NCAA-imposed caps to student-athletes’ scholarships, has ruled in favor of the class of student-athletes granting their motion for summary judgment and finding the NCAA’s actions to be “anticompetitive, causing student-athletes to be compensated less than they would be without the challenged rules,” according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.
Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, said the ruling was “critical” to his clients’ ongoing challenge.
“A key part of Judge Wilken’s order is that the court recognizes that our alternative of individual conferences being allowed to decide what is in the best interest of the student-athletes is a viable option, and we will be allowed to show that to be the case at trial,” said Berman, who is joined in the defense of the plaintiffs by Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn, and Bruce Simon of Pearson, Simon & Warshaw, LLP.
“It was clear at the hearing back in January that Judge Wilken’s sympathies were with the student-athletes,” Jeff Birren, adjunct professor of law at Southwestern University School of Law and former general counsel of the Oakland Raiders, told Sports Litigation Alert. “To some great extent, however, her hands are tied by the Ninth Circuit opinion in O’Bannon et al v. NCAA et al. Any attempts to provide greater benefits for college athletes will be closely examined for conformity with that decision.”
In the instant case, the plaintiffs are proposing “a less-restrictive alternative of allowing the Division I conferences, rather than the NCAA, to set the rules regulating education and athletic participation expenses that the member institutions may provide.”
The judge’s order states: “Plaintiffs argue that this alternative would be substantially less restrictive because it would allow conferences to compete to implement rules that attract student-athletes while still maintaining the popularity of college sports and balancing the integration of academics and athletics.”
Judge Wilken wrote that “to support their argument that such autonomy is viable as a less restrictive alternative to NCAA regulations, the plaintiffs have identified new NCAA Bylaws, adopted on August 7, 2014 (after the O’Bannon trial), that grant the Power Five Conferences autonomy to adopt or amend rules on a variety of topics.”
Berman took the court’s ruling as siding with his position that the NCAA bylaw “constituted an anticompetitive agreement with tangible effects and restrain athletes and limit athletes’ compensation.”
The NCAA had a less draconian interpretation.
“The court’s decision recognized, as other courts have for decades, that principles of amateurism and student-athlete well-being are critical to college sports,” the NCAA said in a statement. “We look forward to proving at trial that the rules are essential to providing educational opportunities to nearly half a million student-athletes.”
In summary, the plaintiffs allege that the NCAA and its most powerful conference members the Pac-12, Big Ten, Big-12, SEC and ACC systematically colluded to disrupt the free market and robbed NCAA Division I players of the full economic benefits of their labor. The lawsuit argues that in a just scenario, free of the NCAA’s antitrust collusion, schools would gladly compete for the attendance of talented student-athletes by at least providing the full cost of attendance through Grants in Aid (GIAs).
The ruling can be viewed at https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/ncaa_scholarships/docketno.804-orderrecrossmotionsforsummaryjudgment.pdf
