And special kudos to Justice Kavanaugh, who wrote a hard-hitting concurring opinion saying that athletes should be paid, ending with "Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate. And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."
The NCAA has long operated without regard for the law or common sense. An example is the Ohio State case, in which the NCAA complained that athletes were getting discounts from a local car dealer. When asked about this, the dealer replied, "We give a discount to any customer who asks for it." Everyone who's ever bought a car knows this is the case, this is how car dealers traditionally operate." Everyone, that is, except the idiot NCAA investigators.
The suspension of Terrelle Pryor and four of his OSU teammates for five games for selling memorabilia is another example. Suspended for selling items they themselves owned! How absurd! When Johnny Manzeiel was confronted with this ridiculous NCAA rule, he responded that the NCAA makes money off me, which shouldn't I be able to. The NCAA denied this, but the next day an enterprising sportswriter went to the NCAA web site and noticed that they were indeed selling Johnny Manziel jerseys!
The NCAA arguments in this case were incredibly lame. This is illustrated by the fact that the District Court, Court of Appeals, and Supreme Court all went against it, with clear-headed analysis that is legally irrefutable. Colleges make millions, even billions, off of the backs of unpaid athletes. It's time to end this corrupt system.
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