Any hopes that the NCAA might hold on to the status quo it has lived by since its existence has seemingly gone out the window.
The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed a ruling on Monday that would allow for incremental increases in how collegiate athletes can be compensated and opens up the door for much more to be on the table in the near future.
According to reports from ESPN, the decision allows schools to provide their athletes with unlimited compensation as long as it is some way connected to their education.
"“The NCAA is not above the law,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. “The NCAA couches its arguments for not paying student athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The NCAA’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.”"
This U.S. Supreme Court ruling is just the first in much more to come down the pike. States are already introducing NIL legislation and many are set to go in place as soon as July 1st. The state of South Carolina has also signed an NIL bill, but that will not go into effect until July of 2022.
The NCAA is dying a slow, painful death
What this ruling- a 9-0 defeat- says is that things are about to change in a big way. The NCAA is no longer going to be able to sit back and maintain that its athletes are amateurs.
The organization has spent years ‘passing the buck’ and looking towards other entities- like congress- to make decisions and that has come back to hurt it in a big way.
Its financial model is dying and there are certainly more questions than answers right now on part of the organization. How is the NCAA going to monitor payments from schools pertaining to recruitment? How will it monitor NIL payments and maintain an equal playing field? That answer right now seems that it would be almost impossible.
If it can’t perform its supposed one useful duty- to maintain fairness- what’s going to stop conferences and universities from pulling away from the NCAA altogether?
Why couldn’t we see a College Football Association in the future? Why couldn’t we see a College Basketball Association, etc. with no influence from the NCAA?
The NCAA has been losing its influence and power for years and this new ruling tells us what many of us have been expecting for years: The organization is dying a slow, painful death.