Almost one year has passed since the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous antitrust decision in NCAA v. Alston. That well-publicized decision affirmed the district court’s rejection of the NCAA’s limits on education-related compensation paid to student athletes as well as the NCAA’s implicit request for the court to create a judicial antitrust exemption for college athletics, much like the judicially crafted antitrust exemption for Major League Baseball, also the topic of much media coverage as of late.

As predicted, the repercussions of Alston continue to be felt in the sports world, particularly coupled with the NCAA’s announcement of new rules regulating the ability of college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). In the wake of Alston, minor league baseball clubs have sued challenging the antitrust exemption for baseball. And renewed federal legislation, now from Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been introduced potentially threatening that exemption. College athletes have brought claims under the FLSA in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, challenging the “amateurism” rationale for refusing to compensate college athletes as employees. See Johnson v. NCAA, 556 F.Supp.3d 491 (2021). Athletes have alleged that NCAA eligibility is now a business or property interest under RICO law. See, e.g., Bowen v. Adidas America, 2021 WL 371131 (D.SC. 2021). And college athletes have sought compensation for exploitation of their NIL for which they were not permitted to be compensated under then-applicable NCAA rules, which prohibited any such remuneration absent some waiver from the NCAA. See House v. NCAA, 545 F.Supp.3d 804 (N.D.Cal. 2021).