National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Alston ( 2021 )


Menu:
  • (Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2020                                       1
    Syllabus
    NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
    being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
    The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
    prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
    See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 
    200 U. S. 321
    , 337.
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
    Syllabus
    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION v.
    ALSTON ET AL.
    CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
    THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    No. 20–512.      Argued March 31, 2021—Decided June 21, 2021*
    Colleges and universities across the country have leveraged sports to
    bring in revenue, attract attention, boost enrollment, and raise money
    from alumni. That profitable enterprise relies on “amateur” student-
    athletes who compete under horizontal restraints that restrict how the
    schools may compensate them for their play. The National Collegiate
    Athletic Association (NCAA) issues and enforces these rules, which re-
    strict compensation for student-athletes in various ways. These rules
    depress compensation for at least some student-athletes below what a
    competitive market would yield.
    Against this backdrop, current and former student-athletes brought
    this antitrust lawsuit challenging the NCAA’s restrictions on compen-
    sation. Specifically, they alleged that the NCAA’s rules violate §1 of
    the Sherman Act, which prohibits “contract[s], combination[s], or con-
    spirac[ies] in restraint of trade or commerce.” 
    15 U. S. C. §1
    . Key facts
    were undisputed: The NCAA and its members have agreed to compen-
    sation limits for student-athletes; the NCAA enforces these limits on
    its member-schools; and these compensation limits affect interstate
    commerce. Following a bench trial, the district court issued a 50-page
    opinion that refused to disturb the NCAA’s rules limiting undergrad-
    uate athletic scholarships and other compensation related to athletic
    performance. At the same time, the court found unlawful and thus
    enjoined certain NCAA rules limiting the education-related benefits
    schools may make available to student-athletes. Both sides appealed.
    The Ninth Circuit affirmed in full, holding that the district court
    ——————
    * Together with No. 20–520, American Athletic Conference et al. v. Al-
    ston et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
    2       NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Syllabus
    “struck the right balance in crafting a remedy that both prevents anti-
    competitive harm to Student-Athletes while serving the procompeti-
    tive purpose of preserving the popularity of college sports.” 
    958 F. 3d 1239
    , 1263. Unsatisfied with that result, the NCAA asks the Court to
    find that all of its existing restraints on athlete compensation survive
    antitrust scrutiny. The student-athletes have not renewed their
    across-the-board challenge and the Court thus does not consider the
    rules that remain in place. The Court considers only the subset of
    NCAA rules restricting education-related benefits that the district
    court enjoined. The Court does so based on the uncontested premise
    that the NCAA enjoys monopsony control in the relevant market—
    such that it is capable of depressing wages below competitive levels for
    student-athletes and thereby restricting the quantity of student-ath-
    lete labor.
    Held: The district court’s injunction is consistent with established anti-
    trust principles. Pp. 15–36.
    (a) The courts below properly subjected the NCAA’s compensation
    restrictions to antitrust scrutiny under a “rule of reason” analysis. In
    the Sherman Act, Congress tasked courts with enforcing an antitrust
    policy of competition on the theory that market forces “yield the best
    allocation” of the Nation’s resources. National Collegiate Athletic
    Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., 
    468 U. S. 85
    , 104, n. 27.
    The Sherman Act’s prohibition on restraints of trade has long been un-
    derstood to prohibit only restraints that are “undue.” Ohio v. American
    Express Co., 585 U. S. ___, ___. Whether a particular restraint is un-
    due “presumptively” turns on an application of a “rule of reason anal-
    ysis.” Texaco, Inc. v. Dagher, 
    547 U. S. 1
    , 5. That manner of analysis
    generally requires a court to “conduct a fact-specific assessment of
    market power and market structure” to assess a challenged restraint’s
    “actual effect on competition.” American Express, 585 U. S., at ___.
    Pp. 15–24.
    (1) The NCAA maintains the courts below should have analyzed
    its compensation restrictions under an extremely deferential standard
    because it is a joint venture among members who must collaborate to
    offer consumers the unique product of intercollegiate athletic competi-
    tion. Even assuming the NCAA is a joint venture, though, it is a joint
    venture with monopoly power in the relevant market. Its restraints
    are appropriately subject to the ordinary rule of reason’s fact-specific
    assessment of their effect on competition. American Express, 585
    U. S., at ___. Circumstances sometimes allow a court to determine the
    anticompetitive effects of a challenged restraint (or lack thereof) under
    an abbreviated or “quick look.” See Dagher, 
    547 U. S., at 7, n. 3
    ; Board
    of Regents, 
    468 U. S., at 109, n. 39
    . But not here. Pp. 15–19.
    (2) The NCAA next contends that the Court’s decision in Board of
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)                     3
    Syllabus
    Regents expressly approved the NCAA’s limits on student-athlete com-
    pensation. That is incorrect. The Court in Board of Regents did not
    analyze the lawfulness of the NCAA’s restrictions on student-athlete
    compensation. Rather, that case involved an antitrust challenge to the
    NCAA’s restraints on televising games—an antitrust challenge the
    Court sustained. Along the way, the Court commented on the NCAA’s
    critical role in maintaining the revered tradition of amateurism in col-
    lege sports as one “entirely consistent with the goals of the Sherman
    Act.” 
    Id., at 120
    . But that sort of passing comment on an issue not
    presented is not binding, nor is it dispositive here. Pp. 19–21.
    (3) The NCAA also submits that a rule of reason analysis is inap-
    propriate because its member schools are not “commercial enterprises”
    but rather institutions that exist to further the societally important
    noncommercial objective of undergraduate education. This submission
    also fails. The Court has regularly refused these sorts of special dis-
    pensations from the Sherman Act. See FTC v. Superior Court Trial
    Lawyers Assn., 
    493 U. S. 411
    , 424. The Court has also previously sub-
    jected the NCAA to the Sherman Act, and any argument that “the spe-
    cial characteristics of [the NCAA’s] particular industry” should exempt
    it from the usual operation of the antitrust laws is “properly addressed
    to Congress.” National Soc. of Professional Engineers v. United States,
    
    435 U. S. 679
    , 689. Pp. 21–24.
    (b) The NCAA’s remaining attacks on the district court’s decision
    lack merit. Pp. 24–36.
    (1) The NCAA contends that the district court erroneously re-
    quired it to prove that its rules are the least restrictive means of
    achieving the procompetitive purpose of preserving consumer demand
    for college sports. True, a least restrictive means test would be erro-
    neous and overly intrusive. But the district court nowhere expressly
    or effectively required the NCAA to show that its rules met that stand-
    ard. Rather, only after finding the NCAA’s restraints “patently and
    inexplicably stricter than is necessary” did the district court find the
    restraints unlawful. Pp. 24–29.
    (2) The NCAA contends the district court should have deferred to
    its conception of amateurism instead of “impermissibly redefin[ing]”
    its “product.” But a party cannot declare a restraint “immune from §
    1 scrutiny” by relabeling it a product feature. American Needle, Inc. v.
    National Football League, 
    560 U. S. 183
    , 199, n. 7. Moreover, the dis-
    trict court found the NCAA had not even maintained a consistent def-
    inition of amateurism. Pp. 29–30.
    (3) The NCAA disagrees that it can achieve the same pro-compet-
    itive benefits using substantially less restrictive alternatives and
    claims the district court’s injunction will “micromanage” its business.
    Judges must indeed be sensitive to the possibility that the “continuing
    4       NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Syllabus
    supervision of a highly detailed decree” could wind up impairing rather
    than enhancing competition. Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Of-
    fices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 
    540 U. S. 398
    , 415. The district court’s
    injunction honored these principles, though. The court enjoined only
    certain restraints—and only after finding both that relaxing these re-
    strictions would not blur the distinction between college and profes-
    sional sports and thus impair demand, and further that this course
    represented a significantly (not marginally) less restrictive means of
    achieving the same procompetitive benefits as the NCAA’s current
    rules. Finally, the court’s injunction preserves considerable leeway for
    the NCAA, while individual conferences remain free to impose what-
    ever rules they choose. To the extent the NCAA believes meaningful
    ambiguity exists about the scope of its authority, it may seek clarifica-
    tion from the district court. Pp. 30–36.
    
    958 F. 3d 1239
    , affirmed.
    GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.            KA-
    VANAUGH, J., fileda concurring opinion.
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)                                 1
    Opinion of the Court
    NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
    preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
    notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
    ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
    corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
    _________________
    Nos. 20–512 and 20–520
    _________________
    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION,
    PETITIONER
    20–512               v.
    SHAWNE ALSTON, ET AL.
    AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE, ET AL.,
    PETITIONERS
    20–520              v.
    SHAWNE ALSTON, ET AL.
    ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
    APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    [June 21, 2021]
    JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
    In the Sherman Act, Congress tasked courts with enforc-
    ing a policy of competition on the belief that market forces
    “yield the best allocation” of the Nation’s resources. Na-
    tional Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ.
    of Okla., 
    468 U. S. 85
    , 104, n. 27 (1984). The plaintiffs be-
    fore us brought this lawsuit alleging that the National Col-
    legiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and certain of its mem-
    ber institutions violated this policy by agreeing to restrict
    the compensation colleges and universities may offer the
    student-athletes who play for their teams. After amassing
    a vast record and conducting an exhaustive trial, the dis-
    trict court issued a 50-page opinion that cut both ways. The
    2    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    court refused to disturb the NCAA’s rules limiting under-
    graduate athletic scholarships and other compensation re-
    lated to athletic performance. At the same time, the court
    struck down NCAA rules limiting the education-related
    benefits schools may offer student-athletes—such as rules
    that prohibit schools from offering graduate or vocational
    school scholarships. Before us, the student-athletes do not
    challenge the district court’s judgment. But the NCAA
    does. In essence, it seeks immunity from the normal oper-
    ation of the antitrust laws and argues, in any event, that
    the district court should have approved all of its existing
    restraints. We took this case to consider those objections.
    I
    A
    From the start, American colleges and universities have
    had a complicated relationship with sports and money. In
    1852, students from Harvard and Yale participated in what
    many regard as the Nation’s first intercollegiate competi-
    tion—a boat race at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.
    But this was no pickup match. A railroad executive spon-
    sored the event to promote train travel to the picturesque
    lake. T. Mendenhall, The Harvard-Yale Boat Race 1852–
    1924, pp. 15–16 (1993). He offered the competitors an all-
    expenses-paid vacation with lavish prizes—along with un-
    limited alcohol. See A. Zimbalist, Unpaid Professionals 6–
    7 (1999) (Zimbalist); Rushin, Inside the Moat, Sports Illus-
    trated, Mar. 3, 1997. The event filled the resort with “life
    and excitement,” N. Y. Herald, Aug. 10, 1852, p. 2, col. 2,
    and one student-athlete described the “ ‘junket’ ” as an ex-
    perience “ ‘as unique and irreproducible as the Rhodian co-
    lossus,’ ” Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale Boat Race, at 20.
    Life might be no “less than a boat race,” Holmes, On Re-
    ceiving the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Yale University Com-
    mencement, June 30, 1886, in Speeches by Oliver Wendall
    Holmes, p. 27 (1918), but it was football that really caused
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)              3
    Opinion of the Court
    college sports to take off. “By the late 1880s the traditional
    rivalry between Princeton and Yale was attracting 40,000
    spectators and generating in excess of $25,000 . . . in gate
    revenues.” Zimbalist 7. Schools regularly had “graduate
    students and paid ringers” on their teams. 
    Ibid.
    Colleges offered all manner of compensation to talented
    athletes. Yale reportedly lured a tackle named James Ho-
    gan with free meals and tuition, a trip to Cuba, the exclu-
    sive right to sell scorecards from his games—and a job as a
    cigarette agent for the American Tobacco Company. Ibid.;
    see also Needham, The College Athlete, McClure’s Maga-
    zine, June 1905, p. 124. The absence of academic residency
    requirements gave rise to “ ‘tramp athletes’ ” who “roamed
    the country making cameo athletic appearances, moving on
    whenever and wherever the money was better.” F. Dealy,
    Win at Any Cost 71 (1990). One famous example was a law
    student at West Virginia University—Fielding H. Yost—
    “who, in 1896, transferred to Lafayette as a freshman just
    in time to lead his new teammates to victory against its
    arch-rival, Penn.” 
    Ibid.
     The next week, he “was back at
    West Virginia’s law school.” 
    Ibid.
     College sports became
    such a big business that Woodrow Wilson, then President
    of Princeton University, quipped to alumni in 1890 that
    “ ‘Princeton is noted in this wide world for three things: foot-
    ball, baseball, and collegiate instruction.’ ” Zimbalist 7.
    By 1905, though, a crisis emerged. While college football
    was hugely popular, it was extremely violent. Plays like the
    flying wedge and the players’ light protective gear led to 7
    football fatalities in 1893, 12 deaths the next year, and 18
    in 1905. Id., at 8. President Theodore Roosevelt responded
    by convening a meeting between Harvard, Princeton, and
    Yale to review the rules of the game, a gathering that ulti-
    mately led to the creation of what we now know as the
    NCAA. Ibid. Organized primarily as a standard-setting
    body, the association also expressed a view at its founding
    about compensating college athletes—admonishing that
    4    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    “[n]o student shall represent a College or University in any
    intercollegiate game or contest who is paid or receives, di-
    rectly or indirectly, any money, or financial concession.” In-
    tercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States Con-
    stitution By-Laws, Art. VII, §3 (1906); see also Proceedings
    of the Eleventh Annual Convention of the National Colle-
    giate Athletic Association, Dec. 28, 1916, p. 34.
    Reality did not always match aspiration. More than two
    decades later, the Carnegie Foundation produced a report
    on college athletics that found them still “sodden with the
    commercial and the material and the vested interests that
    these forces have created.” H. Savage, The Carnegie Foun-
    dation for the Advancement of Teaching, American College
    Athletics Bull. 23, p. 310 (1929). Schools across the country
    sought to leverage sports to bring in revenue, attract atten-
    tion, boost enrollment, and raise money from alumni. The
    University of California’s athletic revenue was over
    $480,000, while Harvard’s football revenue alone came in
    at $429,000. Id., at 87. College football was “not a student’s
    game”; it was an “organized commercial enterprise” featur-
    ing athletes with “years of training,” “professional coaches,”
    and competitions that were “highly profitable.” Id., at viii.
    The commercialism extended to the market for student-
    athletes. Seeking the best players, many schools actively
    participated in a system “under which boys are offered pe-
    cuniary and other inducements to enter a particular col-
    lege.” Id., at xiv–xv. One coach estimated that a rival team
    “spent over $200,000 a year on players.” Zimbalist 9. In
    1939, freshmen at the University of Pittsburgh went on
    strike because upperclassmen were reportedly earning
    more money. Crabb, The Amateurism Myth: A Case for a
    New Tradition, 28 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 181, 190 (2017). In
    the 1940s, Hugh McElhenny, a halfback at the University
    of Washington, “became known as the first college player
    ‘ever to take a cut in salary to play pro football.’ ” Zimbalist
    22–23. He reportedly said: “ ‘[A] wealthy guy puts big
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)              5
    Opinion of the Court
    bucks under my pillow every time I score a touchdown.
    Hell, I can’t afford to graduate.’ ” Id., at 211, n. 17. In 1946,
    a commentator offered this view: “[W]hen it comes to chi-
    canery, double-dealing, and general undercover work be-
    hind the scenes, big-time college football is in a class by it-
    self.” Woodward, Is College Football on the Level?, Sport,
    Nov. 1946, Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 35.
    In 1948, the NCAA sought to do more than admonish. It
    adopted the “Sanity Code.” Colleges Adopt the ‘Sanity
    Code’ To Govern Sports, N. Y. Times, Jan. 11, 1948, p. 1,
    col. 1. The code reiterated the NCAA’s opposition to “prom-
    ised pay in any form.” Hearings before the Subcommittee
    on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on
    Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 95th Congress, 2d Sess.,
    pt. 2, p. 1094 (1978). But for the first time the code also
    authorized colleges and universities to pay athletes’ tuition.
    Ibid. And it created a new enforcement mechanism—
    providing for the “suspension or expulsion” of “proven of-
    fenders.” Colleges Adopt ‘Sanity Code,’ N. Y. Times, p. 1,
    col. 1. To some, these changes sought to substitute a con-
    sistent, above-board compensation system for the varying
    under-the-table schemes that had long proliferated. To oth-
    ers, the code marked “the beginning of the NCAA behaving
    as an effective cartel,” by enabling its member schools to set
    and enforce “rules that limit the price they have to pay for
    their inputs (mainly the ‘student-athletes’).” Zimbalist 10.
    The rules regarding student-athlete compensation have
    evolved ever since. In 1956, the NCAA expanded the scope
    of allowable payments to include room, board, books, fees,
    and “cash for incidental expenses such as laundry.” In re
    National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Athletic Grant-in-Aid
    Cap Antitrust Litig., 
    375 F. Supp. 3d 1058
    , 1063 (ND Cal.
    2019) (hereinafter D. Ct. Op.). In 1974, the NCAA began
    permitting paid professionals in one sport to compete on an
    amateur basis in another. Brief for Historians as Amici Cu-
    6    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    riae 10. In 2014, the NCAA “announced it would allow ath-
    letic conferences to authorize their member schools to in-
    crease scholarships up to the full cost of attendance.”
    O’Bannon v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 
    802 F. 3d 1049
    , 1054–1055 (CA9 2015). The 80 member schools of the
    “Power Five” athletic conferences—the conferences with
    the highest revenue in Division I—promptly voted to raise
    their scholarship limits to an amount that is generally sev-
    eral thousand dollars higher than previous limits. D. Ct.
    Op., at 1064.
    In recent years, changes have continued. The NCAA has
    created the “Student Assistance Fund” and the “Academic
    Enhancement Fund” to “assist student-athletes in meeting
    financial needs,” “improve their welfare or academic sup-
    port,” or “recognize academic achievement.” 
    Id., at 1072
    .
    These funds have supplied money to student-athletes for
    “postgraduate scholarships” and “school supplies,” as well
    as “benefits that are not related to education,” such as “loss-
    of-value insurance premiums,” “travel expenses,” “cloth-
    ing,” and “magazine subscriptions.” 
    Id., at 1072, n. 15
    . In
    2018, the NCAA made more than $84 million available
    through the Student Activities Fund and more than $48
    million available through the Academic Enhancement
    Fund. 
    Id., at 1072
    . Assistance may be provided in cash or
    in kind, and there is no limit to the amount any particular
    student-athlete may receive. 
    Id., at 1073
    . Since 2015, dis-
    bursements to individual students have sometimes been
    tens of thousands of dollars above the full cost of attend-
    ance. 
    Ibid.
    The NCAA has also allowed payments “ ‘incidental to ath-
    letics participation,’ ” including awards for “participation or
    achievement in athletics” (like “qualifying for a bowl game”)
    and certain “payments from outside entities” (such as for
    “performance in the Olympics”). 
    Id., at 1064, 1071, 1074
    .
    The NCAA permits its member schools to award up to (but
    no more than) two annual “Senior Scholar Awards” of
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            7
    Opinion of the Court
    $10,000 for students to attend graduate school after their
    athletic eligibility expires. 
    Id., at 1074
    . Finally, the NCAA
    allows schools to fund travel for student-athletes’ family
    members to attend “certain events.” 
    Id., at 1069
    .
    Over the decades, the NCAA has become a sprawling en-
    terprise. Its membership comprises about 1,100 colleges
    and universities, organized into three divisions. 
    Id., at 1063
    . Division I teams are often the most popular and at-
    tract the most money and the most talented athletes. Cur-
    rently, Division I includes roughly 350 schools divided
    across 32 conferences. See 
    ibid.
     Within Division I, the most
    popular sports are basketball and football. The NCAA di-
    vides Division I football into the Football Bowl Subdivision
    (FBS) and the Football Championship Subdivision, with the
    FBS generally featuring the best teams. 
    Ibid.
     The 32 con-
    ferences in Division I function similarly to the NCAA itself,
    but on a smaller scale. They “can and do enact their own
    rules.” 
    Id., at 1090
    .
    At the center of this thicket of associations and rules sits
    a massive business. The NCAA’s current broadcast con-
    tract for the March Madness basketball tournament is
    worth $1.1 billion annually. See 
    id., at 1077, n. 20
    . Its tel-
    evision deal for the FBS conference’s College Football
    Playoff is worth approximately $470 million per year. See
    
    id., at 1063
    ; Bachman, ESPN Strikes Deal for College Foot-
    ball Playoff, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 21, 2012. Beyond
    these sums, the Division I conferences earn substantial rev-
    enue from regular-season games. For example, the South-
    eastern Conference (SEC) “made more than $409 million in
    revenues from television contracts alone in 2017, with its
    total conference revenues exceeding $650 million that
    year.” D. Ct. Op., at 1063. All these amounts have “in-
    creased consistently over the years.” 
    Ibid.
    Those who run this enterprise profit in a different way
    than the student-athletes whose activities they oversee.
    The president of the NCAA earns nearly $4 million per
    8    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    year. Brief for Players Association of the National Football
    League et al. as Amici Curiae 17. Commissioners of the top
    conferences take home between $2 to $5 million. 
    Ibid.
     Col-
    lege athletic directors average more than $1 million annu-
    ally. 
    Ibid.
     And annual salaries for top Division I college
    football coaches approach $11 million, with some of their
    assistants making more than $2.5 million. 
    Id.,
     at 17–18.
    B
    The plaintiffs are current and former student-athletes in
    men’s Division I FBS football and men’s and women’s Divi-
    sion I basketball. They filed a class action against the
    NCAA and 11 Division I conferences (for simplicity’s sake,
    we refer to the defendants collectively as the NCAA). The
    student-athletes challenged the “current, interconnected
    set of NCAA rules that limit the compensation they may
    receive in exchange for their athletic services.” D. Ct. Op.,
    at 1062, 1065, n. 5. Specifically, they alleged that the
    NCAA’s rules violate §1 of the Sherman Act, which prohib-
    its “contract[s], combination[s], or conspirac[ies] in re-
    straint of trade or commerce.” 
    15 U. S. C. §1
    .
    After pretrial proceedings stretching years, the district
    court conducted a 10-day bench trial. It heard experts and
    lay witnesses from both sides, and received volumes of evi-
    dence and briefing, all before issuing an exhaustive deci-
    sion. In the end, the court found the evidence undisputed
    on certain points. The NCAA did not “contest evidence
    showing” that it and its members have agreed to compen-
    sation limits on student-athletes; the NCAA and its confer-
    ences enforce these limits by punishing violations; and
    these limits “affect interstate commerce.” D. Ct. Op., at
    1066.
    Based on these premises, the district court proceeded to
    assess the lawfulness of the NCAA’s challenged restraints.
    This Court has “long recognized that in view of the common
    law and the law in this country when the Sherman Act was
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            9
    Opinion of the Court
    passed, the phrase ‘restraint of trade’ is best read to mean
    ‘undue restraint.’ ” Ohio v. American Express Co., 585 U. S.
    ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 8) (brackets and some internal
    quotation marks omitted). Determining whether a re-
    straint is undue for purposes of the Sherman Act “presump-
    tively” calls for what we have described as a “rule of reason
    analysis.” Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, 
    547 U. S. 1
    , 5 (2006);
    Standard Oil Co. of N. J. v. United States, 
    221 U. S. 1
    , 60–
    62 (1911). That manner of analysis generally requires a
    court to “conduct a fact-specific assessment of market power
    and market structure” to assess a challenged restraint’s
    “actual effect on competition.” American Express, 585 U. S.,
    at ___–___ (slip op., at 8–9) (internal quotation marks omit-
    ted). Always, “[t]he goal is to distinguish between re-
    straints with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the
    consumer and restraints stimulating competition that are
    in the consumer’s best interest.” 
    Ibid.
     (brackets and inter-
    nal quotation marks omitted).
    In applying the rule of reason, the district court began by
    observing that the NCAA enjoys “near complete dominance
    of, and exercise[s] monopsony power in, the relevant mar-
    ket”—which it defined as the market for “athletic services
    in men’s and women’s Division I basketball and FBS foot-
    ball, wherein each class member participates in his or her
    sport-specific market.” D. Ct. Op., at 1097. The “most tal-
    ented athletes are concentrated” in the “markets for Divi-
    sion I basketball and FBS football.” 
    Id., at 1067
    . There are
    no “viable substitutes,” as the “NCAA’s Division I essen-
    tially is the relevant market for elite college football and
    basketball.” 
    Id., at 1067, 1070
    . In short, the NCAA and its
    member schools have the “power to restrain student-athlete
    compensation in any way and at any time they wish, with-
    out any meaningful risk of diminishing their market domi-
    nance.” 
    Id., at 1070
    .
    The district court then proceeded to find that the NCAA’s
    compensation limits “produce significant anticompetitive
    10   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    effects in the relevant market.” 
    Id., at 1067
    . Though mem-
    ber schools compete fiercely in recruiting student-athletes,
    the NCAA uses its monopsony power to “cap artificially the
    compensation offered to recruits.” 
    Id., at 1097
    . In a market
    without the challenged restraints, the district court found,
    “competition among schools would increase in terms of the
    compensation they would offer to recruits, and student-
    athlete compensation would be higher as a result.” 
    Id., at 1068
    . “Student-athletes would receive offers that would
    more closely match the value of their athletic services.”
    
    Ibid.
     And notably, the court observed, the NCAA “did not
    meaningfully dispute” any of this evidence. 
    Id., at 1067
    ; see
    also Tr. of Oral Arg. 31 (“[T]here’s no dispute that the—the
    no-pay-for-play rule imposes a significant restraint on a rel-
    evant antitrust market”).
    The district court next considered the NCAA’s procompet-
    itive justifications for its restraints. The NCAA suggested
    that its restrictions help increase output in college sports
    and maintain a competitive balance among teams. But the
    district court rejected those justifications, D. Ct. Op., at
    1070, n. 12, and the NCAA does not pursue them here. The
    NCAA’s only remaining defense was that its rules preserve
    amateurism, which in turn widens consumer choice by
    providing a unique product—amateur college sports as dis-
    tinct from professional sports. Admittedly, this asserted
    benefit accrues to consumers in the NCAA’s seller-side con-
    sumer market rather than to student-athletes whose com-
    pensation the NCAA fixes in its buyer-side labor market.
    But, the NCAA argued, the district court needed to assess
    its restraints in the labor market in light of their procom-
    petitive benefits in the consumer market—and the district
    court agreed to do so. 
    Id., at 1098
    .
    Turning to that task, the court observed that the NCAA’s
    conception of amateurism has changed steadily over the
    years. See 
    id.,
     at 1063–1064, 1072–1073; see also supra, at
    3–7. The court noted that the NCAA “nowhere define[s] the
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            11
    Opinion of the Court
    nature of the amateurism they claim consumers insist
    upon.” D. Ct. Op., at 1070. And, given all this, the court
    struggled to ascertain for itself “any coherent definition” of
    the term, id., at 1074, noting the testimony of a former SEC
    commissioner that he’s “ ‘never been clear on . . . what is re-
    ally meant by amateurism.’ ” Id., at 1070–1071.
    Nor did the district court find much evidence to support
    the NCAA’s contention that its compensation restrictions
    play a role in consumer demand. As the court put it, the
    evidence failed “to establish that the challenged compensa-
    tion rules, in and of themselves, have any direct connection
    to consumer demand.” Id., at 1070. The court observed, for
    example, that the NCAA’s “only economics expert on the is-
    sue of consumer demand” did not “study any standard
    measures of consumer demand” but instead simply “inter-
    viewed people connected with the NCAA and its schools,
    who were chosen for him by defense counsel.” Id., at 1075.
    Meanwhile, the student-athletes presented expert testi-
    mony and other evidence showing that consumer demand
    has increased markedly despite the new types of compensa-
    tion the NCAA has allowed in recent decades. Id., at 1074,
    1076. The plaintiffs presented economic and other evidence
    suggesting as well that further increases in student-athlete
    compensation would “not negatively affect consumer de-
    mand.” Id., at 1076. At the same time, however, the district
    court did find that one particular aspect of the NCAA’s com-
    pensation limits “may have some effect in preserving con-
    sumer demand.” Id., at 1082. Specifically, the court found
    that rules aimed at ensuring “student-athletes do not re-
    ceive unlimited payments unrelated to education” could
    play some role in product differentiation with professional
    sports and thus help sustain consumer demand for college
    athletics. Id., at 1083.
    The court next required the student-athletes to show that
    “substantially less restrictive alternative rules” existed
    that “would achieve the same procompetitive effect as the
    12   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    challenged set of rules.” Id., at 1104. The district court
    emphasized that the NCAA must have “ample latitude” to
    run its enterprise and that courts “may not use antitrust
    laws to make marginal adjustments to broadly reasonable
    market restraints.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omit-
    ted). In light of these standards, the court found the
    student-athletes had met their burden in some respects but
    not others. The court rejected the student-athletes’ chal-
    lenge to NCAA rules that limit athletic scholarships to the
    full cost of attendance and that restrict compensation and
    benefits unrelated to education. These may be price-fixing
    agreements, but the court found them to be reasonable in
    light of the possibility that “professional-level cash pay-
    ments . . . could blur the distinction between college sports
    and professional sports and thereby negatively affect con-
    sumer demand.” Ibid.
    The court reached a different conclusion for caps on
    education-related benefits—such as rules that limit schol-
    arships for graduate or vocational school, payments for ac-
    ademic tutoring, or paid posteligibility internships. Id., at
    1088. On no account, the court found, could such education-
    related benefits be “confused with a professional athlete’s
    salary.” Id., at 1083. If anything, they “emphasize that the
    recipients are students.” Ibid. Enjoining the NCAA’s re-
    strictions on these forms of compensation alone, the court
    concluded, would be substantially less restrictive than the
    NCAA’s current rules and yet fully capable of preserving
    consumer demand for college sports. Id., at 1088.
    The court then entered an injunction reflecting its find-
    ings and conclusions. Nothing in the order precluded the
    NCAA from continuing to fix compensation and benefits un-
    related to education; limits on athletic scholarships, for ex-
    ample, remained untouched. The court enjoined the NCAA
    only from limiting education-related compensation or bene-
    fits that conferences and schools may provide to student-
    athletes playing Division I football and basketball. App. to
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            13
    Opinion of the Court
    Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, p. 167a, ¶1. The court’s injunc-
    tion further specified that the NCAA could continue to limit
    cash awards for academic achievement—but only so long as
    those limits are no lower than the cash awards allowed for
    athletic achievement (currently $5,980 annually). Id., at
    168a–169a, ¶5; Order Granting Motion for Clarification of
    Injunction in No. 4:14–md–02541, ECF Doc. 1329, pp. 5–6
    (ND Cal., Dec. 30, 2020). The court added that the NCAA
    and its members were free to propose a definition of com-
    pensation or benefits “ ‘related to education.’ ” App. to Pet.
    for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 168a, ¶4. And the court ex-
    plained that the NCAA was free to regulate how confer-
    ences and schools provide education-related compensation
    and benefits. Ibid. The court further emphasized that its
    injunction applied only to the NCAA and multi-conference
    agreements—thus allowing individual conferences (and the
    schools that constitute them) to impose tighter restrictions
    if they wish. Id., at 169a, ¶6. The district court’s injunction
    issued in March 2019, and took effect in August 2020.
    Both sides appealed. The student-athletes said the dis-
    trict court did not go far enough; it should have enjoined all
    of the NCAA’s challenged compensation limits, including
    those “untethered to education,” like its restrictions on the
    size of athletic scholarships and cash awards. In re Na-
    tional Collegiate Athletic Assn. Athletic Grant-in-Aid Cap
    Antitrust Litig., 
    958 F. 3d 1239
    , 1263 (CA9 2020). The
    NCAA, meanwhile, argued that the district court went too
    far by weakening its restraints on education-related com-
    pensation and benefits. In the end, the court of appeals af-
    firmed in full, explaining its view that “the district court
    struck the right balance in crafting a remedy that both pre-
    vents anticompetitive harm to Student-Athletes while serv-
    ing the procompetitive purpose of preserving the popularity
    of college sports.” 
    Ibid.
    14   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    C
    Unsatisfied with this result, the NCAA asks us to reverse
    to the extent the lower courts sided with the student-
    athletes. For their part, the student-athletes do not renew
    their across-the-board challenge to the NCAA’s compensa-
    tion restrictions. Accordingly, we do not pass on the rules
    that remain in place or the district court’s judgment uphold-
    ing them. Our review is confined to those restrictions now
    enjoined.
    Before us, as through much of the litigation below, some
    of the issues most frequently debated in antitrust litigation
    are uncontested. The parties do not challenge the district
    court’s definition of the relevant market. They do not con-
    test that the NCAA enjoys monopoly (or, as it’s called on the
    buyer side, monopsony) control in that labor market—such
    that it is capable of depressing wages below competitive lev-
    els and restricting the quantity of student-athlete labor.
    Nor does the NCAA dispute that its member schools com-
    pete fiercely for student-athletes but remain subject to
    NCAA-issued-and-enforced limits on what compensation
    they can offer. Put simply, this suit involves admitted hor-
    izontal price fixing in a market where the defendants exer-
    cise monopoly control.
    Other significant matters are taken as given here too. No
    one disputes that the NCAA’s restrictions in fact decrease
    the compensation that student-athletes receive compared
    to what a competitive market would yield. No one questions
    either that decreases in compensation also depress partici-
    pation by student-athletes in the relevant labor market—
    so that price and quantity are both suppressed. See 12 P.
    Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶2011b, p. 134
    (4th ed. 2019) (Areeda & Hovenkamp). Nor does the NCAA
    suggest that, to prevail, the plaintiff student-athletes must
    show that its restraints harm competition in the seller-side
    (or consumer facing) market as well as in its buyer-side (or
    labor) market. See, e.g., Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v.
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)              15
    Opinion of the Court
    American Crystal Sugar Co., 
    334 U. S. 219
    , 235 (1948);
    Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co.,
    
    549 U. S. 312
    , 321 (2007); 2A Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶352c,
    pp. 288–289 (2014); 12 
    id.,
     ¶2011a, at 132–134.
    Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not question that the
    NCAA may permissibly seek to justify its restraints in the
    labor market by pointing to procompetitive effects they pro-
    duce in the consumer market. Some amici argue that “com-
    petition in input markets is incommensurable with compe-
    tition in output markets,” and that a court should not “trade
    off ” sacrificing a legally cognizable interest in competition
    in one market to better promote competition in a different
    one; review should instead be limited to the particular mar-
    ket in which antitrust plaintiffs have asserted their injury.
    Brief for American Antitrust Institute as Amicus Curiae 3,
    11–12. But the parties before us do not pursue this line.
    II
    A
    With all these matters taken as given, we express no
    views on them. Instead, we focus only on the objections the
    NCAA does raise. Principally, it suggests that the lower
    courts erred by subjecting its compensation restrictions to
    a rule of reason analysis. In the NCAA’s view, the courts
    should have given its restrictions at most an “abbreviated
    deferential review,” Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512,
    p. 14, or a “ ‘quick look,’ ” Brief for Petitioners in No. 20–520,
    p. 18, before approving them.
    The NCAA offers a few reasons why. Perhaps domi-
    nantly, it argues that it is a joint venture and that collabo-
    ration among its members is necessary if they are to offer
    consumers the benefit of intercollegiate athletic competi-
    tion. We doubt little of this. There’s no question, for exam-
    ple, that many “joint ventures are calculated to enable firms
    to do something more cheaply or better than they did it be-
    fore.” 13 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶2100c, at 7. And the fact
    16   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    that joint ventures can have such procompetitive benefits
    surely stands as a caution against condemning their ar-
    rangements too reflexively. See Dagher, 
    547 U. S., at 7
    ;
    Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System,
    Inc., 
    441 U. S. 1
    , 22–23 (1979).
    But even assuming (without deciding) that the NCAA is
    a joint venture, that does not guarantee the foreshortened
    review it seeks. Most restraints challenged under the Sher-
    man Act—including most joint venture restrictions—are
    subject to the rule of reason, which (again) we have de-
    scribed as “a fact-specific assessment of market power and
    market structure” aimed at assessing the challenged re-
    straint’s “actual effect on competition”—especially its ca-
    pacity to reduce output and increase price. American Ex-
    press, 585 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 8–9) (internal
    quotation marks omitted).
    Admittedly, the amount of work needed to conduct a fair
    assessment of these questions can vary. As the NCAA ob-
    serves, this Court has suggested that sometimes we can de-
    termine the competitive effects of a challenged restraint in
    the “ ‘twinkling of an eye.’ ” Board of Regents, 
    468 U. S., at 110, n. 39
     (quoting P. Areeda, The “Rule of Reason” in An-
    titrust Analysis: General Issues 37–38 (Federal Judicial
    Center, June 1981)); American Needle, Inc. v. National
    Football League, 
    560 U. S. 183
    , 203 (2010). That is true,
    though, only for restraints at opposite ends of the competi-
    tive spectrum. For those sorts of restraints—rather than
    restraints in the great in-between—a quick look is suffi-
    cient for approval or condemnation.
    At one end of the spectrum, some restraints may be so
    obviously incapable of harming competition that they re-
    quire little scrutiny. In Rothery Storage & Van Co. v. Atlas
    Van Lines, Inc., 
    792 F. 2d 210
     (CADC 1986), for example,
    Judge Bork explained that the analysis could begin and end
    with the observation that the joint venture under review
    “command[ed] between 5.1 and 6% of the relevant market.”
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           17
    Opinion of the Court
    
    Id., at 217
    . Usually, joint ventures enjoying such small
    market share are incapable of impairing competition.
    Should they reduce their output, “there would be no effect
    upon market price because firms making up the other 94%
    of the market would simply take over the abandoned busi-
    ness.” Ibid.; see also 7 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1507a,
    p. 444 (2017) (If “the exercise of market power is not plau-
    sible, the challenged practice is legal”); Polk Bros., Inc. v.
    Forest City Enterprises, Inc., 
    776 F. 2d 185
    , 191 (CA7 1985)
    (“Unless the firms have the power to raise price by curtail-
    ing output, their agreement is unlikely to harm consumers,
    and it makes sense to understand their cooperation as be-
    nign or beneficial”).
    At the other end, some agreements among competitors so
    obviously threaten to reduce output and raise prices that
    they might be condemned as unlawful per se or rejected af-
    ter only a quick look. See Dagher, 
    547 U. S., at 7, n. 3
    ; Cal-
    ifornia Dental Assn. v. FTC, 
    526 U. S. 756
    , 770 (1999). Rec-
    ognizing the inherent limits on a court’s ability to master
    an entire industry—and aware that there are often hard-to-
    see efficiencies attendant to complex business arrange-
    ments—we take special care not to deploy these condemna-
    tory tools until we have amassed “considerable experience
    with the type of restraint at issue” and “can predict with
    confidence that it would be invalidated in all or almost all
    instances.” Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS,
    Inc., 
    551 U. S. 877
    , 886–887 (2007); Easterbrook, On Iden-
    tifying Exclusionary Conduct, 
    61 Notre Dame L. Rev. 972
    ,
    975 (1986) (noting that it can take “economists years, some-
    times decades, to understand why certain business prac-
    tices work [and] determine whether they work because of
    increased efficiency or exclusion”); see also infra, at 26–27
    (further reasons for caution).
    None of this helps the NCAA. The NCAA accepts that its
    members collectively enjoy monopsony power in the market
    for student-athlete services, such that its restraints can
    18   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    (and in fact do) harm competition. See D. Ct. Op., at 1067.
    Unlike customers who would look elsewhere when a small
    van company raises its prices above market levels, the dis-
    trict court found (and the NCAA does not here contest) that
    student-athletes have nowhere else to sell their labor. Even
    if the NCAA is a joint venture, then, it is hardly of the sort
    that would warrant quick-look approval for all its myriad
    rules and restrictions.
    Nor does the NCAA’s status as a particular type of ven-
    ture categorically exempt its restraints from ordinary rule
    of reason review. We do not doubt that some degree of co-
    ordination between competitors within sports leagues can
    be procompetitive. Without some agreement among ri-
    vals—on things like how many players may be on the field
    or the time allotted for play—the very competitions that
    consumers value would not be possible. See Board of Re-
    gents, 
    468 U. S., at 101
     (quoting R. Bork, The Antitrust Par-
    adox 278 (1978)). Accordingly, even a sports league with
    market power might see some agreements among its mem-
    bers win antitrust approval in the “ ‘twinkling of an eye.’ ”
    American Needle, 
    560 U. S., at 203
    .
    But this insight does not always apply. That some re-
    straints are necessary to create or maintain a league sport
    does not mean all “aspects of elaborate interleague cooper-
    ation are.” 
    Id., at 199, n. 7
    . While a quick look will often
    be enough to approve the restraints “necessary to produce
    a game,” ibid., a fuller review may be appropriate for oth-
    ers. See, e.g., Chicago Professional Sports Ltd. Partnership
    v. National Basketball Assn., 
    95 F. 3d 593
    , 600 (CA7 1996)
    (“Just as the ability of McDonald’s franchises to coordinate
    the release of a new hamburger does not imply their ability
    to agree on wages for counter workers, so the ability of
    sports teams to agree on a TV contract need not imply an
    ability to set wages for players”).
    The NCAA’s rules fixing wages for student-athletes fall
    on the far side of this line. Nobody questions that Division
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)             19
    Opinion of the Court
    I basketball and FBS football can proceed (and have pro-
    ceeded) without the education-related compensation re-
    strictions the district court enjoined; the games go on. In-
    stead, the parties dispute whether and to what extent those
    restrictions in the NCAA’s labor market yield benefits in its
    consumer market that can be attained using substantially
    less restrictive means. That dispute presents complex
    questions requiring more than a blink to answer.
    B
    Even if background antitrust principles counsel in favor
    of the rule of reason, the NCAA replies that a particular
    precedent ties our hands. The NCAA directs our attention
    to Board of Regents, where this Court considered the
    league’s rules restricting the ability of its member schools
    to televise football games. 
    468 U. S., at 94
    . On the NCAA’s
    reading, that decision expressly approved its limits on stu-
    dent-athlete compensation—and this approval forecloses
    any meaningful review of those limits today.
    We see things differently. Board of Regents explained
    that the league’s television rules amounted to “[h]orizontal
    price fixing and output limitation[s]” of the sort that are
    “ordinarily condemned” as “ ‘illegal per se.’ ” 
    Id., at 100
    . The
    Court declined to declare the NCAA’s restraints per se un-
    lawful only because they arose in “an industry” in which
    some “horizontal restraints on competition are essential if
    the product is to be available at all.” 
    Id.,
     at 101–102. Our
    analysis today is fully consistent with all of this. Indeed, if
    any daylight exists it is only in the NCAA’s favor. While
    Board of Regents did not condemn the NCAA’s broadcasting
    restraints as per se unlawful, it invoked abbreviated anti-
    trust review as a path to condemnation, not salvation. 
    Id., at 109, n. 39
    . If a quick look was thought sufficient before
    rejecting the NCAA’s procompetitive rationales in that
    case, it is hard to see how the NCAA might object to a court
    providing a more cautious form of review before reaching a
    20   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    similar judgment here.
    To be sure, the NCAA isn’t without a reply. It notes that,
    in the course of reaching its judgment about television mar-
    keting restrictions, the Board of Regents Court commented
    on student-athlete compensation restrictions. Most partic-
    ularly, the NCAA highlights this passage:
    “The NCAA plays a critical role in the maintenance of
    a revered tradition of amateurism in college sports.
    There can be no question but that it needs ample lati-
    tude to play that role, or that the preservation of the
    student-athlete in higher education adds richness and
    diversity to intercollegiate athletics and is entirely con-
    sistent with the goals of the Sherman Act.” 
    Id., at 120
    .
    See also 
    id., at 101, 102
     (the NCAA “seeks to market a par-
    ticular brand of football” in which “athletes must not be
    paid, must be required to attend class, and the like”). On
    the NCAA’s telling, these observations foreclose any rule of
    reason review in this suit.
    Once more, we cannot agree. Board of Regents may sug-
    gest that courts should take care when assessing the
    NCAA’s restraints on student-athlete compensation, sensi-
    tive to their procompetitive possibilities. But these re-
    marks do not suggest that courts must reflexively reject all
    challenges to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions. Stu-
    dent-athlete compensation rules were not even at issue in
    Board of Regents. And the Court made clear it was only
    assuming the reasonableness of the NCAA’s restrictions:
    “It is reasonable to assume that most of the regulatory con-
    trols of the NCAA are justifiable means of fostering compe-
    tition among amateur athletic teams and are therefore
    procompetitive . . . .” 
    Id., at 117
     (emphasis added). Accord-
    ingly, the Court simply did not have occasion to declare—
    nor did it declare—the NCAA’s compensation restrictions
    procompetitive both in 1984 and forevermore.
    Our confidence on this score is fortified by still another
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)             21
    Opinion of the Court
    factor. Whether an antitrust violation exists necessarily
    depends on a careful analysis of market realities. See, e.g.,
    American Express Co., 585 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 10–
    12); 2B Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶500, p. 107 (2014). If those
    market realities change, so may the legal analysis.
    When it comes to college sports, there can be little doubt
    that the market realities have changed significantly since
    1984. Since then, the NCAA has dramatically increased the
    amounts and kinds of benefits schools may provide to stu-
    dent-athletes. For example, it has allowed the conferences
    flexibility to set new and higher limits on athletic scholar-
    ships. D. Ct. Op., at 1064. It has increased the size of per-
    missible benefits “incidental to athletics participation.” Id.,
    at 1066. And it has developed the Student Assistance Fund
    and the Academic Enhancement Fund, which in 2018 alone
    provided over $100 million to student-athletes. Id., at 1072.
    Nor is that all that has changed. In 1985, Division I football
    and basketball raised approximately $922 million and $41
    million respectively. Brief for Former NCAA Executives as
    Amici Curiae 7. By 2016, NCAA Division I schools raised
    more than $13.5 billion. Ibid. From 1982 to 1984, CBS paid
    $16 million per year to televise the March Madness Division
    I men’s basketball tournament. Ibid. In 2016, those annual
    television rights brought in closer to $1.1 billion. D. Ct. Op.,
    at 1077, n. 20.
    Given the sensitivity of antitrust analysis to market re-
    alities—and how much has changed in this market—we
    think it would be particularly unwise to treat an aside in
    Board of Regents as more than that. This Court may be
    “infallible only because we are final,” Brown v. Allen, 
    344 U. S. 443
    , 540 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result), but
    those sorts of stray comments are neither.
    C
    The NCAA submits that a rule of reason analysis is inap-
    propriate for still another reason—because the NCAA and
    22   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    its member schools are not “commercial enterprises” and
    instead oversee intercollegiate athletics “as an integral part
    of the undergraduate experience.” Brief for Petitioner in
    No. 20–512, at 31. The NCAA represents that it seeks to
    “maintain amateurism in college sports as part of serving
    [the] societally important non-commercial objective” of
    “higher education.” Id., at 3.
    Here again, however, there may be less of a dispute than
    meets the eye. The NCAA does not contest that its re-
    straints affect interstate trade and commerce and are thus
    subject to the Sherman Act. See D. Ct. Op., at 1066. The
    NCAA acknowledges that this Court already analyzed (and
    struck down) some of its restraints as anticompetitive in
    Board of Regents. And it admits, as it must, that the Court
    did all this only after observing that the Sherman Act had
    already been applied to other nonprofit organizations—and
    that “the economic significance of the NCAA’s nonprofit
    character is questionable at best” given that “the NCAA and
    its member institutions are in fact organized to maximize
    revenues.” 
    468 U. S., at
    100–101, n. 22. Nor, on the other
    side of the equation, does anyone contest that the status of
    the NCAA’s members as schools and the status of student-
    athletes as students may be relevant in assessing consumer
    demand as part of a rule of reason review.
    With this much agreed it is unclear exactly what the
    NCAA seeks. To the extent it means to propose a sort of
    judicially ordained immunity from the terms of the Sher-
    man Act for its restraints of trade—that we should overlook
    its restrictions because they happen to fall at the intersec-
    tion of higher education, sports, and money—we cannot
    agree. This Court has regularly refused materially identi-
    cal requests from litigants seeking special dispensation
    from the Sherman Act on the ground that their restraints
    of trade serve uniquely important social objectives beyond
    enhancing competition.
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            23
    Opinion of the Court
    Take two examples. In National Soc. of Professional En-
    gineers v. United States, 
    435 U. S. 679
     (1978), a trade asso-
    ciation argued that price competition between engineers
    competing for building projects had to be restrained to en-
    sure quality work and protect public safety. 
    Id.,
     at 679–
    680. This Court rejected that appeal as “nothing less than
    a frontal assault on the basic policy of the Sherman Act.”
    
    Id., at 695
    . The “statutory policy” of the Act is one of com-
    petition and it “precludes inquiry into the question whether
    competition is good or bad.” 
    Ibid.
     In FTC v. Superior Court
    Trial Lawyers Assn., 
    493 U. S. 411
     (1990), criminal defense
    lawyers agreed among themselves to refuse court appoint-
    ments until the government increased their compensation.
    
    Id., at 414
    . And once more the Court refused to consider
    whether this restraint of trade served some social good
    more important than competition: “The social justifications
    proffered for respondents’ restraint of trade . . . do not make
    it any less unlawful.” 
    Id., at 424
    .
    To be sure, this Court once dallied with something that
    looks a bit like an antitrust exemption for professional base-
    ball. In Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National
    League of Professional Baseball Clubs, 
    259 U. S. 200
     (1922),
    the Court reasoned that “exhibitions” of “base ball” did not
    implicate the Sherman Act because they did not involve in-
    terstate trade or commerce—even though teams regularly
    crossed state lines (as they do today) to make money and
    enhance their commercial success. 
    Id.,
     at 208–209. But
    this Court has refused to extend Federal Baseball’s reason-
    ing to other sports leagues—and has even acknowledged
    criticisms of the decision as “ ‘unrealistic’ ” and “ ‘incon-
    sistent’ ” and “aberration[al].” Flood v. Kuhn, 
    407 U. S. 258
    ,
    282 (1972) (quoting Radovich v. National Football League,
    
    352 U. S. 445
    , 452 (1957)); see also Brief for Advocates for
    Minor Leaguers as Amicus Curiae 5, n. 3 (gathering criti-
    cisms). Indeed, as we have seen, this Court has already
    recognized that the NCAA itself is subject to the Sherman
    24   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    Act.
    The “orderly way” to temper that Act’s policy of competi-
    tion is “by legislation and not by court decision.” Flood, 
    407 U. S., at 279
    . The NCAA is free to argue that, “because of
    the special characteristics of [its] particular industry,” it
    should be exempt from the usual operation of the antitrust
    laws—but that appeal is “properly addressed to Congress.”
    National Soc. of Professional Engineers, 
    435 U. S., at 689
    .
    Nor has Congress been insensitive to such requests. It has
    modified the antitrust laws for certain industries in the
    past, and it may do so again in the future. See, e.g., 
    7 U. S. C. §§291
    –292 (agricultural cooperatives); 
    15 U. S. C. §§1011
    –1013 (insurance); 
    15 U. S. C. §§1801
    –1804 (news-
    paper joint operating agreements). But until Congress says
    otherwise, the only law it has asked us to enforce is the
    Sherman Act, and that law is predicated on one assumption
    alone—“competition is the best method of allocating re-
    sources” in the Nation’s economy. National Soc. of Profes-
    sional Engineers, 
    435 U. S., at 695
    .
    III
    A
    While the NCAA devotes most of its energy to resisting
    the rule of reason in its usual form, the league lodges some
    objections to the district court’s application of it as well.
    When describing the rule of reason, this Court has some-
    times spoken of “a three-step, burden-shifting framework”
    as a means for “ ‘distinguish[ing] between restraints with
    anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and
    restraints stimulating competition that are in the con-
    sumer’s best interest.’ ” American Express Co., 585 U. S., at
    ___ (slip op., at 9). As we have described it, “the plaintiff
    has the initial burden to prove that the challenged restraint
    has a substantial anticompetitive effect.” 
    Ibid.
     Should the
    plaintiff carry that burden, the burden then “shifts to the
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           25
    Opinion of the Court
    defendant to show a procompetitive rationale for the re-
    straint.” 
    Ibid.
     If the defendant can make that showing,
    “the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to demonstrate that
    the procompetitive efficiencies could be reasonably
    achieved through less anticompetitive means.” 
    Id.,
     at ___–
    ___ (slip op., at 9–10).
    These three steps do not represent a rote checklist, nor
    may they be employed as an inflexible substitute for careful
    analysis. As we have seen, what is required to assess
    whether a challenged restraint harms competition can vary
    depending on the circumstances. See supra, at 15–19. The
    whole point of the rule of reason is to furnish “an enquiry
    meet for the case, looking to the circumstances, details, and
    logic of a restraint” to ensure that it unduly harms compe-
    tition before a court declares it unlawful. California Dental,
    
    526 U. S., at 781
    ; see also, e.g., Leegin Creative, 
    551 U. S., at 885
     (“ ‘[T]he factfinder weighs all of the circumstances of
    a case in deciding whether a restrictive practice should be
    prohibited as imposing an unreasonable restraint on com-
    petition’ ”); Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp.,
    
    467 U. S. 752
    , 768 (1984); 7 Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1507a,
    at 442–444 (slightly different “decisional model” using se-
    quential questions).
    In the proceedings below, the district court followed cir-
    cuit precedent to apply a multistep framework closely akin
    to American Express’s. As its first step, the district court
    required the student-athletes to show that “the challenged
    restraints produce significant anticompetitive effects in the
    relevant market.” D. Ct. Op., at 1067. This was no slight
    burden. According to one amicus, courts have disposed of
    nearly all rule of reason cases in the last 45 years on the
    ground that the plaintiff failed to show a substantial anti-
    competitive effect. Brief for 65 Professors of Law, Business,
    Economics, and Sports Management as Amici Curiae 21,
    n. 9 (“Since 1977, courts decided 90% (809 of 897) on this
    ground”). This suit proved different. As we have seen,
    26   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    based on a voluminous record, the district court held that
    the student-athletes had shown the NCAA enjoys the power
    to set wages in the market for student-athletes’ labor—and
    that the NCAA has exercised that power in ways that have
    produced significant anticompetitive effects. See D. Ct. Op.,
    at 1067. Perhaps even more notably, the NCAA “did not
    meaningfully dispute” this conclusion. 
    Ibid.
    Unlike so many cases, then, the district court proceeded
    to the second step, asking whether the NCAA could muster
    a procompetitive rationale for its restraints. Id., at 1070.
    This is where the NCAA claims error first crept in. On its
    account, the district court examined the challenged rules at
    different levels of generality. At the first step of its inquiry,
    the court asked whether the NCAA’s entire package of com-
    pensation restrictions has substantial anticompetitive ef-
    fects collectively. Yet, at the second step, the NCAA says
    the district court required it to show that each of its distinct
    rules limiting student-athlete compensation has procom-
    petitive benefits individually. The NCAA says this mis-
    match had the result of effectively—and erroneously—re-
    quiring it to prove that each rule is the least restrictive
    means of achieving the procompetitive purpose of differen-
    tiating college sports and preserving demand for them.
    We agree with the NCAA’s premise that antitrust law
    does not require businesses to use anything like the least
    restrictive means of achieving legitimate business pur-
    poses. To the contrary, courts should not second-guess “de-
    grees of reasonable necessity” so that “the lawfulness of con-
    duct turn[s] upon judgments of degrees of efficiency.”
    Rothery Storage, 
    792 F. 2d, at 227
    ; Continental T. V., Inc. v.
    GTE Sylvania Inc., 
    433 U. S. 36
    , 58, n. 29 (1977). That
    would be a recipe for disaster, for a “skilled lawyer” will
    “have little difficulty imagining possible less restrictive al-
    ternatives to most joint arrangements.” 11 Areeda &
    Hovenkamp ¶1913b, p. 398 (2018). And judicial acceptance
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            27
    Opinion of the Court
    of such imaginings would risk interfering “with the legiti-
    mate objectives at issue” without “adding that much to com-
    petition.” 7 
    id.,
     ¶1505b, at 435–436.
    Even worse, “[r]ules that seek to embody every economic
    complexity and qualification may well, through the vagar-
    ies of administration, prove counter-productive, undercut-
    ting the very economic ends they seek to serve.” Barry
    Wright Corp. v. ITT Grinnell Corp., 
    724 F. 2d 227
    , 234 (CA1
    1983) (BREYER, J.). After all, even “[u]nder the best of cir-
    cumstances,” applying the antitrust laws “ ‘can be diffi-
    cult’ ”—and mistaken condemnations of legitimate business
    arrangements “ ‘are especially costly, because they chill the
    very’ ” procompetitive conduct “ ‘the antitrust laws are de-
    signed to protect.’ ” Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law
    Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP, 
    540 U. S. 398
    , 414 (2004).
    Indeed, static judicial decrees in ever-evolving markets may
    themselves facilitate collusion or frustrate entry and com-
    petition. 
    Ibid.
     To know that the Sherman Act prohibits
    only unreasonable restraints of trade is thus to know that
    attempts to “ ‘[m]ete[r]’ small deviations is not an appropri-
    ate antitrust function.” Hovenkamp, Antitrust Balancing,
    12 N. Y. U. J. L. & Bus. 369, 377 (2016).
    While we agree with the NCAA’s legal premise, we can-
    not say the same for its factual one. Yes, at the first step of
    its inquiry, the district court held that the student-athletes
    had met their burden of showing the NCAA’s restraints col-
    lectively bear an anticompetitive effect. And, given that,
    yes, at step two the NCAA had to show only that those same
    rules collectively yield a procompetitive benefit. The trou-
    ble for the NCAA, though, is not the level of generality. It
    is the fact that the district court found unpersuasive much
    of its proffered evidence. See D. Ct. Op., at 1070–1076,
    1080–1083. Recall that the court found the NCAA failed “to
    establish that the challenged compensation rules . . . have
    any direct connection to consumer demand.” Id., at 1070.
    To be sure, there is a wrinkle here. While finding the
    28   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    NCAA had failed to establish that its rules collectively sus-
    tain consumer demand, the court did find that “some” of
    those rules “may” have procompetitive effects “to the ex-
    tent” they prohibit compensation “unrelated to education,
    akin to salaries seen in professional sports leagues.” Id., at
    1082–1083. The court then proceeded to what corresponds
    to the third step of the American Express framework, where
    it required the student-athletes “to show that there are sub-
    stantially less restrictive alternative rules that would
    achieve the same procompetitive effect as the challenged
    set of rules.” D. Ct. Op., at 1104. And there, of course, the
    district court held that the student-athletes partially suc-
    ceeded—they were able to show that the NCAA could
    achieve the procompetitive benefits it had established with
    substantially less restrictive restraints on education-re-
    lated benefits.
    Even acknowledging this wrinkle, we see nothing about
    the district court’s analysis that offends the legal principles
    the NCAA invokes. The court’s judgment ultimately turned
    on the key question at the third step: whether the student-
    athletes could prove that “substantially less restrictive al-
    ternative rules” existed to achieve the same procompetitive
    benefits the NCAA had proven at the second step. Ibid. Of
    course, deficiencies in the NCAA’s proof of procompetitive
    benefits at the second step influenced the analysis at the
    third. But that is only because, however framed and at
    whichever step, anticompetitive restraints of trade may
    wind up flunking the rule of reason to the extent the evi-
    dence shows that substantially less restrictive means exist
    to achieve any proven procompetitive benefits. See, e.g., 7
    Areeda & Hovenkamp ¶1505, p. 428 (“To be sure, these two
    questions can be collapsed into one,” since a “legitimate ob-
    jective that is not promoted by the challenged restraint can
    be equally served by simply abandoning the restraint,
    which is surely a less restrictive alternative”).
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           29
    Opinion of the Court
    Simply put, the district court nowhere—expressly or ef-
    fectively—required the NCAA to show that its rules consti-
    tuted the least restrictive means of preserving consumer de-
    mand. Rather, it was only after finding the NCAA’s
    restraints “ ‘patently and inexplicably stricter than is nec-
    essary’ ” to achieve the procompetitive benefits the league
    had demonstrated that the district court proceeded to de-
    clare a violation of the Sherman Act. D. Ct. Op., at 1104.
    That demanding standard hardly presages a future filled
    with judicial micromanagement of legitimate business de-
    cisions.
    B
    In a related critique, the NCAA contends the district
    court “impermissibly redefined” its “product” by rejecting
    its views about what amateurism requires and replacing
    them with its preferred conception. Brief for Petitioner in
    No. 20–512, at 35–36.
    This argument, however, misapprehends the way a de-
    fendant’s procompetitive business justification relates to
    the antitrust laws. Firms deserve substantial latitude to
    fashion agreements that serve legitimate business inter-
    ests—agreements that may include efforts aimed at intro-
    ducing a new product into the marketplace. Supra, at 15–
    19. But none of that means a party can relabel a restraint
    as a product feature and declare it “immune from §1 scru-
    tiny.” American Needle, 
    560 U. S., at 199, n. 7
    . In this suit,
    as in any, the district court had to determine whether the
    defendants’ agreements harmed competition and whether
    any procompetitive benefits associated with their restraints
    could be achieved by “substantially less restrictive alterna-
    tive” means. D. Ct. Op., at 1104.
    The NCAA’s argument not only misapprehends the in-
    quiry, it would require us to overturn the district court’s
    factual findings. While the NCAA asks us to defer to its
    conception of amateurism, the district court found that the
    30   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    NCAA had not adopted any consistent definition. Id., at
    1070. Instead, the court found, the NCAA’s rules and re-
    strictions on compensation have shifted markedly over
    time. Id., at 1071–1074. The court found, too, that the
    NCAA adopted these restrictions without any reference to
    “considerations of consumer demand,” id., at 1100, and that
    some were “not necessary to preserve consumer demand,”
    id., at 1075, 1080, 1104. None of this is product redesign; it
    is a straightforward application of the rule of reason.
    C
    Finally, the NCAA attacks as “indefensible” the lower
    courts’ holding that substantially less restrictive alterna-
    tives exist capable of delivering the same procompetitive
    benefits as its current rules. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–
    512, at 46. The NCAA claims, too, that the district court’s
    injunction threatens to “micromanage” its business. Id., at
    50.
    Once more, we broadly agree with the legal principles the
    NCAA invokes. As we have discussed, antitrust courts
    must give wide berth to business judgments before finding
    liability. See supra, at 15–19. Similar considerations apply
    when it comes to the remedy. Judges must be sensitive to
    the possibility that the “continuing supervision of a highly
    detailed decree” could wind up impairing rather than en-
    hancing competition. Trinko, 
    540 U. S., at 415
    . Costs asso-
    ciated with ensuring compliance with judicial decrees may
    exceed efficiencies gained; the decrees themselves may un-
    intentionally suppress procompetitive innovation and even
    facilitate collusion. See supra, at 26–27. Judges must be
    wary, too, of the temptation to specify “the proper price,
    quantity, and other terms of dealing”—cognizant that they
    are neither economic nor industry experts. Trinko, 
    540 U. S., at 408
    . Judges must be open to reconsideration and
    modification of decrees in light of changing market reali-
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           31
    Opinion of the Court
    ties, for “what we see may vary over time.” California Den-
    tal, 
    526 U. S., at 781
    . And throughout courts must have a
    healthy respect for the practical limits of judicial admin-
    istration: “An antitrust court is unlikely to be an effective
    day-to-day enforcer” of a detailed decree, able to keep pace
    with changing market dynamics alongside a busy docket.
    Trinko, 
    540 U. S., at 415
    . Nor should any court “ ‘impose a
    duty . . . that it cannot explain or adequately and reasona-
    bly supervise.’ ” 
    Ibid.
     In short, judges make for poor “cen-
    tral planners” and should never aspire to the role. 
    Id., at 408
    .
    Once again, though, we think the district court honored
    these principles. The court enjoined only restraints on ed-
    ucation-related benefits—such as those limiting scholar-
    ships for graduate school, payments for tutoring, and the
    like. The court did so, moreover, only after finding that re-
    laxing these restrictions would not blur the distinction be-
    tween college and professional sports and thus impair de-
    mand—and only after finding that this course represented
    a significantly (not marginally) less restrictive means of
    achieving the same procompetitive benefits as the NCAA’s
    current rules. D. Ct. Op., at 1104–1105.
    Even with respect to education-related benefits, the dis-
    trict court extended the NCAA considerable leeway. As we
    have seen, the court provided that the NCAA could develop
    its own definition of benefits that relate to education and
    seek modification of the court’s injunction to reflect that
    definition. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 168a, ¶4.
    The court explained that the NCAA and its members could
    agree on rules regulating how conferences and schools go
    about providing these education-related benefits. 
    Ibid.
     The
    court said that the NCAA and its members could continue
    fixing education-related cash awards, too—so long as those
    “limits are never lower than the limit” on awards for ath-
    letic performance. D. Ct. Op., at 1104; App. to Pet. for Cert.
    in No. 20–512, at 168a–169a, ¶5. And the court emphasized
    32   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    that its injunction applies only to the NCAA and multicon-
    ference agreements; individual conferences remain free to
    reimpose every single enjoined restraint tomorrow—or
    more restrictive ones still. 
    Id.,
     at 169a–170a, ¶¶6–7.
    In the end, it turns out that the NCAA’s complaints really
    boil down to three principal objections.
    First, the NCAA worries about the district court’s inclu-
    sion of paid posteligibility internships among the educa-
    tion-related benefits it approved. The NCAA fears that
    schools will use internships as a way of circumventing lim-
    its on payments that student-athletes may receive for ath-
    letic performance. The NCAA even imagines that boosters
    might promise posteligibility internships “at a sneaker
    company or auto dealership” with extravagant salaries as a
    “thinly disguised vehicle” for paying professional-level sal-
    aries. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at 37–38.
    This argument rests on an overly broad reading of the in-
    junction. The district court enjoined only restrictions on
    education-related compensation or benefits “that may be
    made available from conferences or schools.” App. to Pet.
    for Cert. in No. 20–512, at 167a, ¶1 (emphasis added). Ac-
    cordingly, as the student-athletes concede, the injunction
    “does not stop the NCAA from continuing to prohibit com-
    pensation from” sneaker companies, auto dealerships,
    boosters, “or anyone else.” Brief for Respondents 47–48; see
    also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 33. The
    NCAA itself seems to understand this much. Following the
    district court’s injunction, the organization adopted new
    regulations specifying that only “a conference or institu-
    tion” may fund post-eligibility internships. See Decl. of M.
    Boyer in No. 4:14–md–02541, ECF Doc. 1302–2, p. 6 (ND
    Cal., Sept. 22, 2020) (NCAA Bylaw 16.3.4(d)).
    Even when it comes to internships offered by conferences
    and schools, the district court left the NCAA considerable
    flexibility. The court refused to enjoin NCAA rules prohib-
    iting its members from providing compensation or benefits
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           33
    Opinion of the Court
    unrelated to legitimate educational activities—thus leaving
    the league room to police phony internships. As we’ve ob-
    served, the district court also allowed the NCAA to propose
    (and enforce) rules defining what benefits do and do not re-
    late to education. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 20–512, at
    168a, ¶4. Accordingly, the NCAA may seek whatever limits
    on paid internships it thinks appropriate. And, again, the
    court stressed that individual conferences may restrict in-
    ternships however they wish. 
    Id.,
     at 169a, ¶6. All these
    features underscore the modesty of the current decree.
    Second, the NCAA attacks the district court’s ruling that
    it may fix the aggregate limit on awards schools may give
    for “academic or graduation” achievement no lower than its
    aggregate limit on parallel athletic awards (currently
    $5,980 per year). 
    Id.,
     at 168a–169a, ¶5; D. Ct. Op., at 1104.
    This, the NCAA asserts, “is the very definition of a profes-
    sional salary.” Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at 48.
    The NCAA also represents that “[m]ost” of its currently per-
    missible athletic awards are “for genuine individual or team
    achievement” and that “[m]ost . . . are received by only a few
    student-athletes each year.” 
    Ibid.
     Meanwhile, the NCAA
    says, the district court’s decree would allow a school to pay
    players thousands of dollars each year for minimal achieve-
    ments like maintaining a passing GPA. 
    Ibid.
    The basis for this critique is unclear. The NCAA does not
    believe that the athletic awards it presently allows are tan-
    tamount to a professional salary. And this portion of the
    injunction sprang directly from the district court’s finding
    that the cap on athletic participation awards “is an amount
    that has been shown not to decrease consumer demand.” D.
    Ct. Op., at 1088. Indeed, there was no evidence before the
    district court suggesting that corresponding academic
    awards would impair consumer interest in any way. Again,
    too, the district court’s injunction affords the NCAA leeway.
    It leaves the NCAA free to reduce its athletic awards. And
    it does not ordain what criteria schools must use for their
    34   NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    academic and graduation awards. So, once more, if the
    NCAA believes certain criteria are needed to ensure that
    academic awards are legitimately related to education, it is
    presently free to propose such rules—and individual confer-
    ences may adopt even stricter ones.
    Third, the NCAA contends that allowing schools to pro-
    vide in-kind educational benefits will pose a problem. This
    relief focuses on allowing schools to offer scholarships for
    “graduate degrees” or “vocational school” and to pay for
    things like “computers” and “tutoring.” App. to Pet. for
    Cert. in No. 20–512, at 167a–168a, ¶2. But the NCAA fears
    schools might exploit this authority to give student-athletes
    “ ‘luxury cars’ ” “to get to class” and “other unnecessary or
    inordinately valuable items” only “nominally” related to ed-
    ucation. Brief for Petitioner in No. 20–512, at 48–49.
    Again, however, this over-reads the injunction in ways we
    have seen and need not belabor. Under the current decree,
    the NCAA is free to forbid in-kind benefits unrelated to a
    student’s actual education; nothing stops it from enforcing
    a “no Lamborghini” rule. And, again, the district court in-
    vited the NCAA to specify and later enforce rules delineat-
    ing which benefits it considers legitimately related to edu-
    cation. To the extent the NCAA believes meaningful
    ambiguity really exists about the scope of its authority—
    regarding internships, academic awards, in-kind benefits,
    or anything else—it has been free to seek clarification from
    the district court since the court issued its injunction three
    years ago. The NCAA remains free to do so today. To date,
    the NCAA has sought clarification only once—about the
    precise amount at which it can cap academic awards—and
    the question was quickly resolved. Before conjuring hypo-
    thetical concerns in this Court, we believe it best for the
    NCAA to present any practically important question it has
    in district court first.
    When it comes to fashioning an antitrust remedy, we
    acknowledge that caution is key. Judges must resist the
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)           35
    Opinion of the Court
    temptation to require that enterprises employ the least re-
    strictive means of achieving their legitimate business objec-
    tives. Judges must be mindful, too, of their limitations—as
    generalists, as lawyers, and as outsiders trying to under-
    stand intricate business relationships. Judges must re-
    main aware that markets are often more effective than the
    heavy hand of judicial power when it comes to enhancing
    consumer welfare. And judges must be open to clarifying
    and reconsidering their decrees in light of changing market
    realities. Courts reviewing complex business arrange-
    ments should, in other words, be wary about invitations to
    “set sail on a sea of doubt.” United States v. Addyston Pipe
    & Steel Co., 
    85 F. 271
    , 284 (CA6 1898) (Taft, J.). But we do
    not believe the district court fell prey to that temptation.
    Its judgment does not float on a sea of doubt but stands on
    firm ground—an exhaustive factual record, a thoughtful le-
    gal analysis consistent with established antitrust princi-
    ples, and a healthy dose of judicial humility.
    *
    Some will think the district court did not go far enough.
    By permitting colleges and universities to offer enhanced
    education-related benefits, its decision may encourage
    scholastic achievement and allow student-athletes a meas-
    ure of compensation more consistent with the value they
    bring to their schools. Still, some will see this as a poor
    substitute for fuller relief. At the same time, others will
    think the district court went too far by undervaluing the
    social benefits associated with amateur athletics. For our
    part, though, we can only agree with the Ninth Circuit:
    “ ‘The national debate about amateurism in college sports is
    important. But our task as appellate judges is not to resolve
    it. Nor could we. Our task is simply to review the district
    court judgment through the appropriate lens of antitrust
    law.’ ” 958 F. 3d, at 1265. That review persuades us the
    district court acted within the law’s bounds.
    36     NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    Opinion of the Court
    The judgment is
    Affirmed.
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            1
    KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
    _________________
    Nos. 20–512 and 20–520
    _________________
    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION,
    PETITIONER
    20–512               v.
    SHAWNE ALSTON, ET AL.
    AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE, ET AL.,
    PETITIONERS
    20–520              v.
    SHAWNE ALSTON, ET AL.
    ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
    APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    [June 21, 2021]
    JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
    The NCAA has long restricted the compensation and ben-
    efits that student athletes may receive. And with surpris-
    ing success, the NCAA has long shielded its compensation
    rules from ordinary antitrust scrutiny. Today, however, the
    Court holds that the NCAA has violated the antitrust laws.
    The Court’s decision marks an important and overdue
    course correction, and I join the Court’s excellent opinion in
    full.
    But this case involves only a narrow subset of the NCAA’s
    compensation rules—namely, the rules restricting the
    education-related benefits that student athletes may re-
    ceive, such as post-eligibility scholarships at graduate or
    vocational schools. The rest of the NCAA’s compensation
    rules are not at issue here and therefore remain on the
    books. Those remaining compensation rules generally re-
    2    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
    strict student athletes from receiving compensation or ben-
    efits from their colleges for playing sports. And those rules
    have also historically restricted student athletes from re-
    ceiving money from endorsement deals and the like.
    I add this concurring opinion to underscore that the
    NCAA’s remaining compensation rules also raise serious
    questions under the antitrust laws. Three points warrant
    emphasis.
    First, the Court does not address the legality of the
    NCAA’s remaining compensation rules. As the Court says,
    “the student-athletes do not renew their across-the-board
    challenge to the NCAA’s compensation restrictions. Ac-
    cordingly, we do not pass on the rules that remain in place
    or the district court’s judgment upholding them. Our re-
    view is confined to those restrictions now enjoined.” Ante,
    at 14.
    Second, although the Court does not weigh in on the ulti-
    mate legality of the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules,
    the Court’s decision establishes how any such rules should
    be analyzed going forward. After today’s decision, the
    NCAA’s remaining compensation rules should receive ordi-
    nary “rule of reason” scrutiny under the antitrust laws. The
    Court makes clear that the decades-old “stray comments”
    about college sports and amateurism made in National Col-
    legiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla.,
    
    468 U. S. 85
     (1984), were dicta and have no bearing on
    whether the NCAA’s current compensation rules are law-
    ful. Ante, at 21. And the Court stresses that the NCAA is
    not otherwise entitled to an exemption from the antitrust
    laws. Ante, at 23–24; see also Radovich v. National Foot-
    ball League, 
    352 U. S. 445
    , 449–452 (1957). As a result, ab-
    sent legislation or a negotiated agreement between the
    NCAA and the student athletes, the NCAA’s remaining
    compensation rules should be subject to ordinary rule of
    reason scrutiny. See ante, at 18–19.
    Third, there are serious questions whether the NCAA’s
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)             3
    KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
    remaining compensation rules can pass muster under ordi-
    nary rule of reason scrutiny. Under the rule of reason, the
    NCAA must supply a legally valid procompetitive justifica-
    tion for its remaining compensation rules. As I see it, how-
    ever, the NCAA may lack such a justification.
    The NCAA acknowledges that it controls the market for
    college athletes. The NCAA concedes that its compensation
    rules set the price of student athlete labor at a below-mar-
    ket rate. And the NCAA recognizes that student athletes
    currently have no meaningful ability to negotiate with the
    NCAA over the compensation rules.
    The NCAA nonetheless asserts that its compensation
    rules are procompetitive because those rules help define the
    product of college sports. Specifically, the NCAA says that
    colleges may decline to pay student athletes because the de-
    fining feature of college sports, according to the NCAA, is
    that the student athletes are not paid.
    In my view, that argument is circular and unpersuasive.
    The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student
    athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise
    the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly il-
    legal in almost any other industry in America. All of the
    restaurants in a region cannot come together to cut cooks’
    wages on the theory that “customers prefer” to eat food from
    low-paid cooks. Law firms cannot conspire to cabin lawyers’
    salaries in the name of providing legal services out of a “love
    of the law.” Hospitals cannot agree to cap nurses’ income
    in order to create a “purer” form of helping the sick. News
    organizations cannot join forces to curtail pay to reporters
    to preserve a “tradition” of public-minded journalism.
    Movie studios cannot collude to slash benefits to camera
    crews to kindle a “spirit of amateurism” in Hollywood.
    Price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor. And price-fixing
    labor is ordinarily a textbook antitrust problem because it
    extinguishes the free market in which individuals can oth-
    erwise obtain fair compensation for their work. See, e.g.,
    4    NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. v. ALSTON
    KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
    Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, 
    547 U. S. 1
    , 5 (2006). Businesses like
    the NCAA cannot avoid the consequences of price-fixing la-
    bor by incorporating price-fixed labor into the definition of
    the product. Or to put it in more doctrinal terms, a monop-
    sony cannot launder its price-fixing of labor by calling it
    product definition.
    The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member col-
    leges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who col-
    lectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges
    every year. Those enormous sums of money flow to seem-
    ingly everyone except the student athletes. College presi-
    dents, athletic directors, coaches, conference commission-
    ers, and NCAA executives take in six- and seven-figure
    salaries. Colleges build lavish new facilities. But the stu-
    dent athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom
    are African American and from lower-income backgrounds,
    end up with little or nothing. See Brief for African Ameri-
    can Antitrust Lawyers as Amici Curiae 13–17.
    Everyone agrees that the NCAA can require student ath-
    letes to be enrolled students in good standing. But the
    NCAA’s business model of using unpaid student athletes to
    generate billions of dollars in revenue for the colleges raises
    serious questions under the antitrust laws. In particular,
    it is highly questionable whether the NCAA and its member
    colleges can justify not paying student athletes a fair share
    of the revenues on the circular theory that the defining
    characteristic of college sports is that the colleges do not pay
    student athletes. And if that asserted justification is una-
    vailing, it is not clear how the NCAA can legally defend its
    remaining compensation rules.
    If it turns out that some or all of the NCAA’s remaining
    compensation rules violate the antitrust laws, some diffi-
    cult policy and practical questions would undoubtedly en-
    sue. Among them: How would paying greater compensation
    to student athletes affect non-revenue-raising sports?
    Could student athletes in some sports but not others receive
    Cite as: 594 U. S. ____ (2021)            5
    KAVANAUGH, J., concurring
    compensation? How would any compensation regime com-
    ply with Title IX? If paying student athletes requires some-
    thing like a salary cap in some sports in order to preserve
    competitive balance, how would that cap be administered?
    And given that there are now about 180,000 Division I stu-
    dent athletes, what is a financially sustainable way of fairly
    compensating some or all of those student athletes?
    Of course, those difficult questions could be resolved in
    ways other than litigation. Legislation would be one option.
    Or colleges and student athletes could potentially engage in
    collective bargaining (or seek some other negotiated agree-
    ment) to provide student athletes a fairer share of the rev-
    enues that they generate for their colleges, akin to how pro-
    fessional football and basketball players have negotiated
    for a share of league revenues. Cf. Brown v. Pro Football,
    Inc., 
    518 U. S. 231
    , 235–237 (1996); Wood v. National Bas-
    ketball Assn., 
    809 F. 2d 954
    , 958–963 (CA2 1987) (R. Win-
    ter, J.). Regardless of how those issues ultimately would be
    resolved, however, the NCAA’s current compensation re-
    gime raises serious questions under the antitrust laws.
    To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges maintain
    important traditions that have become part of the fabric of
    America—game days in Tuscaloosa and South Bend; the
    packed gyms in Storrs and Durham; the women’s and men’s
    lacrosse championships on Memorial Day weekend; track
    and field meets in Eugene; the spring softball and baseball
    World Series in Oklahoma City and Omaha; the list goes
    on. But those traditions alone cannot justify the NCAA’s
    decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the
    backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated.
    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.
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 20-512

Judges: Neil Gorsuch

Filed Date: 6/21/2021

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 6/21/2021

Authorities (20)

Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. , 127 S. Ct. 2705 ( 2007 )

o-leon-wood-aka-leon-wood-v-national-basketball-association-an , 809 F.2d 954 ( 1987 )

Brown v. Allen , 73 S. Ct. 397 ( 1953 )

Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis v. ... , 124 S. Ct. 872 ( 2004 )

Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co. , 127 S. Ct. 1069 ( 2007 )

American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League , 130 S. Ct. 2201 ( 2010 )

Barry Wright Corporation v. Itt Grinnell Corporation , 724 F.2d 227 ( 1983 )

United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co. , 26 S. Ct. 282 ( 1906 )

Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co. , 68 S. Ct. 996 ( 1948 )

Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League ... , 42 S. Ct. 465 ( 1922 )

Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. , 99 S. Ct. 1551 ( 1979 )

Brown v. Pro Football, Inc. , 116 S. Ct. 2116 ( 1996 )

California Dental Ass'n v. Federal Trade Commission , 119 S. Ct. 1604 ( 1999 )

National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n v. Board of Regents of ... , 104 S. Ct. 2948 ( 1984 )

Polk Bros., Inc. v. Forest City Enterprises, Inc. , 776 F.2d 185 ( 1985 )

Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership and Wgn ... , 95 F.3d 593 ( 1996 )

Rothery Storage & Van Co. v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc. , 792 F.2d 210 ( 1986 )

Flood v. Kuhn , 92 S. Ct. 2099 ( 1972 )

Federal Trade Commission v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers ... , 110 S. Ct. 768 ( 1990 )

Texaco Inc. v. Dagher , 126 S. Ct. 1276 ( 2006 )

View All Authorities »