Antitrust Lawsuit Filed Against NCAA, Major Sports Conferences, in Player Pay Dispute

Current college football and basketball stars have filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and the five major college sports conferences, claiming the organizations work together in “what amounts to cartel agreements,” illegally capping payments to athletes at the cost of a school scholarship while earning billions from their talent. By colluding to prevent top-tier college athletes from marketing their talent, the NCAA and major conferences are at odds with “the most fundamental principles of antitrust law” and have created a system that amounts to “price-fixing,” according to the filing in the District Court for the District of New Jersey.

“The main objective is to strike down permanently the restrictions that prevent athletes in Division I basketball and the top tier of college football from being fairly compensated for the billions of dollars in revenues that they help generate,” high-profile sports labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who filed the suit on behalf of the athletes, told ESPN. “In no other business — and college sports is big business — would it ever be suggested that the people who are providing the essential services work for free. Only in big-time college sports is that line drawn.”

The filing posits that the NCAA and the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Twelve, the Big Ten, the Pac-12, and the Southeastern Conference have all “lost their way far down the road of commercialism, signing multi-billion dollar contracts wholly disconnected from the interests of ‘student athletes.’” Four players joining the suit include Rutgers senior basketball player J.J. Moore, and three football players: Clemson junior defensive back Martin Jenkins, Cal senior offensive lineman Bill Tyndall, and UTEP tight end Kevin Perry.

Under current NCAA rules, athletes may be given tuition, required institutional fees, room and board, and textbooks in exchange for playing for one of the five major conference sports teams.

A separate case, scheduled to go to trial in June, was filed by athletes seeking to overturn an NCAA rule barring college players from profiting from their names, images and likenesses.

The lawsuit comes just as the NCAA’s March Madness college basketball tournament, a major source of revenue for the organization and the major conferences, is set to kick off. In 2010, the NCAA inked a 14-year, $11 billion agreement with CBS and Turner Sports for the TV rights to a 68-team tournament, and estimates are that each team appearing in the tournament this year will bring in $1.5 million per game played for their conference.