the BigAmateurism monologues

On June 21st, 2021, the United States Supreme Court powerfully delivered a long-overdue course correction to the NCAA in its 37 year-long (post-Board of Regents) imperial march through the federal judiciary. While the Court was not asked to put amateurism out of its misery for good, it rejected the NCAA’s core argument(s) that the NCAA was entitled to absolute judicially created antitrust immunity. In short, the Court told the NCAA it was not above the law. This episode analyzes the Alston decision as a historic—yet symbolic—normative reframe of the NCAA’s fundamental relationship with the laborers whose talents underwrite the NCAA administrative state and the college sports industry writ large.