Recent Supreme Court rulings could impact college athletics significantly

The supreme court recently ruled that NCAA student-athletes can profit off of endorsements and can see increased educational benefits from their schools. It’s a big change for college athletics and we talked about it with ASU sports historian Victoria Jackson.

The Supreme Court said in a unanimous decision that the NCAA and its 1200 schools are in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and that they did in fact come together to restrict the amount of compensation that athletes can receive from their schools.

In a separate, narrow ruling, the court ruled that football and basketball athletes can receive more money from their schools related to education benefits.

Jackson also explained the meaning of the name-image likeness. She said that students who play sports will now have some of the economic rights enjoyed by other students on the campus restored to them.

“This means that athletes can now sign with agents, do endorsement deals, they can monetize a youtube channel, basically the broader rules restricted student athletes from making money with third parties,” Jackson said. Now, they have the capability to do so. She added that, as it stands right now, there aren’t any rules in place to cap the amount of deals or money that students can make.

Regarding the capping of education benefits, Jackson said that there wasn’t anything set by the court either. The justices on the Supreme Court left that decision to the parties involved, or in this case, the NCAA, conferences, or even schools. One district court justice suggested a cap of $6,000 to each student, simply because that’s the amount that schools are already permitted to give students.