Justice for NCAA athletes

For years, critics of the college-sports business model—which tends to enrich schools and administrators but not the actual players—have relished the potential of a Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA. The June 21 unanimous court opinion, which allows schools to provide uncapped education benefits to college athletes, offers real change in college sports. But for the good stuff, go to Kavanaugh.

As in, the concurring opinion of It shouldn’t be entirely surprising. During oral arguments in which questioned whether the NCAA was permitted to cap education-related benefits to college athletes—a district court ruled that it couldn’t, and the Supreme Court upheld that decision on June 21—Kavanaugh was particularly aggressive in his questioning of NCAA lawyers. “It does seem … schools are conspiring with competitors—agreeing with competitors, let’s say that—to pay no salaries for the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing,” Kavanaugh said during the March 31 proceedings. “And that just seems entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.”