College Football and Television, Part III
NCAA vs. Board of Regents (Part 3)
The NCAA lost the first round of the battle to Oklahoma and Georgia when the district court defined the NCAA controls as a “classic cartel” with an
...almost absolute control over the supply of college football which is made available to the networks, to television advertisers, and ultimately to the viewing public. Like all other cartels, NCAA members have sought and achieved a price for their product which is, in most instances, artificially high. The NCAA cartel imposes production limits on its members, and maintains mechanisms for punishing cartel members who seek to stray from these production quotas. The cartel has established a uniform price for the products of each of the member producers, with no regard for the differing quality of these products or the consumer demand for these various products.
The NCAA ‘s next step was on to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the NCAA fared no better, as the court stated the NCAA plan amounted to “illegal per se price-fixing”.
Finally, the NCAA took their case to the Supreme Court where arguments began on March 20, 1984. The Supreme Court found that yes, the NCAA played an important role in the maintenance of the tradition of college sports and preserving the ideals of amateurism (no need to laugh or make any wise cracks, we can discuss the hypocrisy of big time college sports some other time), but the court went to say:
But consistent with the Sherman Act, the role of the NCAA must be to preserve a tradition that might otherwise die; rules that restrict output are hardly consistent with this role. Today we hold only that the record supports the District Court's conclusion that by curtailing output and blunting the ability of member institutions to respond to consumer preference, the NCAA has restricted rather than enhanced the place of intercollegiate athletics in the Nation's life.
We won’t get into all the details of the court’s ruling here, but it is sufficient to say that the NCAA ‘s television contract was found to restrict member schools from such benefits as a free market affords. Marketing efforts to exploit each school’s popularity could now be made in earnest.
The 1984 Supreme Court decision, coupled with the rise of ESPN and other cable networks, enabled the college football boom on television. Interestingly enough, the two conferences that were not a part of the CFA, and had nothing to do with the suit, benefited as much or more than the schools in the CFA. The Big Ten and Pac Ten went on to reap rewards from major television contracts following the decision. The benefits enjoyed by CFA schools were quickly adversely affected when both Notre Dame and Penn State decided to look for greener pastures in 1990 and 1991, respectively. Notre Dame made its own television contract with NBC in 1991, which sent shock waves through world of college football.
Finally the SEC went independent of the CFA by negotiating their own deal for television in 1995. By 1997, with all the defections that had taken place, the CFA officially disbanded. But the 1984 Supreme court ruling had cleared the way for the college football fan to enjoy a multitude of televised games. Just think, this weekend you get USC at Ohio State, and probably about any other game you care to watch. At the same time, attendance at most stadiums will not be hurt at all by all the games on television.
Memphis’ appeal is filed.
Infractions Appeals Committee will have 30 days to respond. Read, too, of further procedural provisions:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ap-ncaa-memphis&prov=ap&ty
pe=lgns
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