It was the 1984 lawsuit that opened the door for subsequent antitrust challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court that determined the NCAA had acted as a "classic cartel" when it crafted a broadcast rights deal that forced television networks to pay a premium. The contract also limited the number of television appearances by popular teams.
The NCAA had defended the plan -- which redistributed television revenue to all members -- as necessary to protect live attendance. But two big universities that wanted a bigger slice of the financial pie successfully sued the NCAA on antitrust grounds.
After the Supreme Court ruling, television rights fees fell by 50% as newly powerful athletic conferences negotiated their own broadcast agreements. "We knew that the marketplace would change dramatically if the courts allowed us to negotiate directly with the individual schools and conferences," said Neal Pilson, who was with CBS Sports in the early 1980s.
Though few could have predicted the dramatic growth in demand for college sports and the resulting rush of television revenue, former college and professional football player Byron "Whizzer" White, one of two Supreme Court justices who sided with the NCAA, saw danger signs.
In a minority opinion, White described the television deal as necessary if the NCAA were to keep big schools from "taking advantage of their success by expanding their programs, improving the quality of the product they offer, and increasing their sports revenues." Absent tough NCAA regulations, White wrote, "no single institution could confidently enforce its own standards [of amateurism] since it could not trust its competitors to do the same."
Fortunately for the NCAA, the 1984 Supreme Court opinion also confirmed that many of the rules that the NCAA was using to protect amateur athletics passed legal muster. And, in subsequent antitrust cases that directly involved student-athletes, judges have tended to side with the NCAA; one even referred to the "paternalistic" nature of the NCAA's duties.
NCAA General Counsel Elsa Kircher Cole says she is confident the two latest antitrust suits will fail because federal judges are hesitant to substitute their judgment for the collective wisdom of NCAA member institutions. Others, including Lazaroff, aren't so sure: "I don't see this as a slam-dunk either way."
Should the grant-in-aid rules be found in violation of antitrust law, some observers suspect that public pressure would force Washington, D.C., to move to protect the status quo. Brad Humphries, an economist at the University of Illinois, says that irate fans would lobby legislators to "step in and do for collegiate sports what it did for baseball" by granting the NCAA an antitrust exemption.
Roberts agrees that irate fans would rebel: "The political power that college sports exercises is unbelievable. Football is a religion in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Alabama. And basketball is a religion in North Carolina and Kentucky."
