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Amateurism And The Ncaa: How A Changing Market Has Turned Caps On Athletic Scholarships Into An Antitrust Violation, Daniel Laws

Law Student Publications

The college athletics industry is worth $16 billion, and it only continues to grow as the number of collegiate students and student-athletes increases. The governing body of collegiate athletics, the National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NCAA"), prides itself on the amateur status of its athletes. To preserve its athletes' amateurism, the NCAA mandates that its member institutions agree not to compensate student-athletes with athletic scholarships that are above the university's cost of attendance. Typically, this type of horizontal agreement- one between competitors that artificially caps the amount a worker can earn violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act as an unreasonable …