A short treatise on Sports Antitrust Law: Why the Supreme Court of the United States should have granted the petition for writ of certiorari in Edward O'Bannon, Jr., et al. versus National Collegiate Athletic Association

摘要

By most accounts, intercollegiate sporting contests commenced in 1852 with a boat race between Yale and Harvard on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire (Reyburn, 2013). The first intercollegiate baseball game was played in 1859 between Amherst and Williams (Reyburn, 2013). The first college football game was between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869 (Gubi, 2011; Resvine, 2014). Since their inception, problems and issues arose with respect to safety, recruiting, compensation, sportsmanship, and commercialism. In response, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was formed in 1905 (originally Intercollegiate Athletic Association); over 111 years thereafter it still vehemently litigates concordant with its traditional and foundational amateurism model of collegiate sports. In October 2016, the Supreme Court denied review of O'Bannon v. NCAA: an antitrust case filed by former UCLA basketball star and 1995 Final Four MVP, Edward O'Bannon. Jr., and others, who petitioned seeking compensation for name, image and likeness rights which resulted in the first decision by a federal court to hold that NCAA amateur rules violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. This study examined the following: (1) the history and purpose of the NCAA as well as antitrust laws; (2) why the Supreme Court should have granted review of O'Bannon and how this will impact the current crisis and uncertainty with respect to the rights and responsibilities of the respective parties inclusive of the NCAA in its role in intercollegiate sports; (3) the relevant albeit discordant and balkanized federal court jurisprudence involving the NCAA, and (4) the policies, morality, and pragmatic considerations of the aforementioned issues, inclusive of amateurism, eligibility rules, and compensation of college athletes within the educational institution of higher learning.