On November 21, fifteen law professors filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court in support of the NCAA in its O’Bannon appeal.
The fifteen antitrust law professors argued that U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilkin’s decision that the NCAA violated antitrust law was a misapplication of the “less-restrictive alternative prong” of the relevant analysis.
Referring to the “limited appellate authority” in defining the scope of the less-restrictive alternative, the professors stated that if the Circuit Court affirms Judge Wilkin’s judgment, it “would substantially expand the power of the federal courts to alter organizational rules that serve important social and academic interests. . . . This approach expands the ‘less restrictive alternative prong’ of the antitrust rule of reason well beyond any appropriate boundaries and would install the judiciary as a regulatory agency for collegiate athletics.”
The professors added that precedents show the lower court’s decision “overstepped its bounds” and “impose[d] [its] own views.” By affirming Judge Wilkin’s decision, the Circuit Court would allow antitrust courts to “have free rein to rewrite any rule adopted by an organization plausibly found to have restrained a relevant market if they can identify modest changes that may (or may not) be fairer,” the professors wrote in the brief.
They also argued that following Judge Wilkin’s reasoning in the O’Bannon case, a court could even “require compensation for Little League baseball players” at whatever level that seems ‘fair’ to a district judge.
In support of the NCAA in the O’Bannon appeal, Media organizations, including CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, and TBS, the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities also filed briefs.