Anti Trust Suit Filed Against NCAA Over Student Compensation

An anti trust suit was filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)  in New Jersey this week by labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler.  The NCAA’s policy of compensating student athletes up to the value of an athletic scholarship has been challenged by Kessler, who has taken a stance against this compensation cap and says that players should be paid above the scholarship value.  According to the attorney, the open market should determine the value of the student’s compensation.

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

Kessler’s lawsuit targets the NCAA and its five top leagues, namely the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Pacific 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Kessler said that he believed that the business had grown so big in Division I men’s basketball and in the football championship series system that he was convinced that the judges and jurors, as well as the public, the media and many in college sports themselves “recognize that change has to come.”

This is not the first time an initiative such as Kessler’s has made headlines.  Last month, a group of Northwestern football players said that they would be forming a union and demanded that the university recognize athlete students as paid employees of the institution.