The Fix Ain’t In: Athletics and the University in the Post-Alston Era

Antitrust law, particularly the Supreme Court’s decisions in National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Board of Regents, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), and National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69 (2021), has fundamentally changed college sports. Intercollegiate athletics, at least at the major conference level and particularly (but not exclusively) with respect to football and men’s basketball, has become a multibillion-dollar business and completely shed any pretense of amateurism on the part of the players. This raises a serious question whether major-conference athletics of the kind the antitrust laws have engendered is consistent with the other, primary output of great research universities: their academic programs. I suggest there are significant tensions, ranging from revenue drains through distortion of admissions and educational programs to hidden and potentially exploitative cross-subsidies among students.