The NCAA and Antitrust

from USA TODAY, July 27, 2009

The NCAA has a mixed record in antitrust cases such as the one former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon filed last week. Here's a look:

-- 1983: NCAA wins.

The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women accused the NCAA of antitrust violations shortly after the NCAA began sponsoring women's sports. The AIAW contended that the NCAA wanted monopoly control over all college sports. A federal district court ruled for the NCAA.

Effect: The AIAW merged with the NCAA.

--1984: NCAA loses.

The Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA could not restrict teams' appearances on television.

Effect: An explosion of college football on television, with schools and conferences able to strike their own deals.

--1999: NCAA settles.

The NCAA paid a $54 million settlement to so-called "restricted earnings" assistant basketball coaches, whose compensation was limited by association rules.

Effect: Increased salaries. Whenever someone asks how $4 million salaries for football coaches fit into higher education, the answer involves an explanation that capping them is illegal.

--2004: NCAA wins.

A federal appeals court ruled that it was legal for the NCAA to limit schools' participation in basketball tournaments such as the Maui Invitational and the Great Alaska Shootout. Such "exempt" tournaments allowed schools to play multiple games that only count as one toward the NCAA maximum.

Effect: The NCAA eventually eliminated the restrictions on its own.

--2005: NCAA settles.

In the middle of a trial, the NCAA settled with organizers of the National Invitation Tournament, who said NCAA rules illegally blocked competition in postseason basketball by requiring invited teams to compete in the NCAA tournament.

Effect: The NCAA purchased the NIT as part of a $56.5 million settlement and paid additional money to the schools that organized the tournament.

--2007: NCAA settles.

A lawsuit brought by "walk-on" football players challenged the NCAA's limit of 85 scholarships for football teams, saying it restrained open competition.

Effect: Plaintiffs "walked away for an extremely small amount of money, so I consider it a win," NCAA general counsel Elsa Cole said.

--2008: NCAA settles.

The NCAA settled with a group of former players who contested rules limiting what a player's standard athletic scholarship, or "grant in aid," can include.

Effect: Rules on insurance for athletes were loosened, and a $10 million fund was set up for former players to use for education.

Football Media Day '09

The Centennial Conference's Football Media Day is slated for Wednesday, August 5, with a live chat with the nine head coaches. We'll begin at 11:30 with Moravian, Muhlenberg and Ursinus, while Johns Hopkins, Juniata and McDaniel will follow at 11:55. We'll close the day at 12:20 with Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg. Join the fun and ask the coach of your favorite team a question. We'll try to respond to as many questions from our audience as possible.

College Athletic Conference Takes on the NCAA

by Jeff Greer, USNews.com

"Complying with NCAA rules is a lot harder when a school is feeling the effects of a major economic downturn. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone when a group of small-college presidents and the conference to which their schools belong say they can't afford to keep up with the NCAA's newest set of mandated updates.

There just isn't enough room in some schools' budgets to adhere to the rules that the NCAA's Playing Rules Oversight Panel created in 2008, says the Presidents Council of the Centennial Conference, a small, Division III athletics league headquartered in Lancaster, Pa.

The conference, which features 11 full and five associate members, says that dealing with the current economic recession takes precedence over spending extra money on the NCAA's required updates to all members' athletics facilities, Inside Higher Ed reports. The NCAA said that all schools with football teams must give referees wireless microphones to announce penalties. And, for schools with basketball teams, all backboards must have lights that go off when time expires and shot clocks that show tenths of seconds. All the updates must be done before the 2010 fall season.

It's not the changes with which the conference disagrees, Centennial Conference Executive Director Steven Ulrich says—it's the timing of them."

Taking On the NCAA

by David Moltz, Inside Higher Ed.com

"Some small private institutions are bristling at a set of National Collegiate Athletic Association rule changes that will require them to spend money on very specific upgrades to their sporting facilities.

Citing the economic downturn, the Presidents Council of the Centennial Conference has asked the NCAA to reconsider a handful of association-wide changes the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved last year. The panel, which includes representatives from all three divisions, mandated that all football-sponsoring institutions provide referees with wireless microphones to announce penalties. It also ordered that all basketball-playing NCAA members have shot clocks that display tenths of seconds and are mounted on each backboard. All backboards must also have lights that illuminate when the shot clock has expired.

Though the changes do not become mandatory until fall 2010, and institutions will have had more than two years to make the necessary upgrades, the Centennial presidents argue that, given the recession, it is not prudent for them to spend money on these changes to their sporting facilities when they have other grave financial concerns in their academic departments."