House v NCAA: How NIL Restrictions Exploit Student-Athletes and Reproduce a Modern Day Plantation Dynamic

At the 2015 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Convention, Oliver Luck, the organization's Executive Vice President, asserted that “the name, image, likeness for an individual is a fundamental right.”¹ Throughout the organization’s history, athletes have been denied the ability to financially profit off of their name, image, or likeness (NIL) in the name of protecting the NCAA’s principle of “amateurism.”² However, the prohibition of student-athletes from benefiting from their NIL contradicts Luck's statement, and is only implemented to protect the profits of universities and the NCAA. If amateurism was truly the main concern, neither the coach nor universities would profit off of the NILs of their players. 

Endorsements are one of the primary channels through which the NCAA and Division 1 collegiate athletic programs benefit financially. While the coaches and universities profit immensely, student-athletes are denied the fruits of these endorsements, despite their time and likeness being the basis of the endorsement. Since 2019, top athletic clothing retailers such as Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor have had complete rights to clothe “ninety-seven percent of all Division I football and basketball programs.”³ With these endorsements, in addition to those from other companies and universities, coaches received millions annually. In 2016, the NCAA negotiated an eight year extension of the media contracts associated with March Madness, leading to the NCAA profiting $1.1 billion per year.⁴ Similarly, the emergence of social media has allowed athletes and coaches alike to be involved in online media marketing campaigns, increasing overall engagement and profit. While coaches receive significant financial benefits from working on said campaigns, athletes do not receive a penny. 

These limitations of the ability for student-athletes to profit off of their NIL have been contested by many players in the past several years. One development in the NIL rights of NCAA athletes was passed through California’s Fair Pay to Play Act.⁵ This California statute omits any market restriction to student-athletes in the state. Since 2020, thirty-four states have followed suit and adopted similar statutes that allow college athletes to receive financial compensation for the use of their NILs.⁶ Moreover, in July 2021, the NCAA altered its guidelines which previously prohibited players from receiving financial compensation, now allowing players to profit from their NILs. While the state of California has spearheaded this shift toward a more equitable treatment of student-athletes, former athletes who were directly harmed and denied the right to profit from their NIL are requesting to be compensated retroactively. The desire for back-pay is not only understandable but necessary when considering the ways the guidelines of the NCAA may have stifled the professional trajectory of these individuals. 

In 2020, the named plaintiffs, Grant House and Sedona Prince, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for Northern District of California accusing the NCAA of having willingly violated antitrust laws by restricting NIL activities and enforcing the prohibition of sharing broadcast revenue with student-athletes; additionally, the plaintiffs brought forth claims of unjust enrichment. At the time that the complaint was filed, Grant House was a member of the Arizona State University swimming and diving team, and Sedona Price a forward on University of Oregon’s women’s basketball team. 

The claims in House v. NCAA, particularly those concerning antitrust violations have a basis in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (“The Sherman Act”), specifically Section One of the law which prohibits the “restraint of trade.”⁷ The Sherman Act was enacted to prohibit conspiracies among markets and those involved from unreasonably restraining trade; it aims to prevent the monopolization of the market and protect free-market competition. The plaintiffs contend that due to the prohibition of profit amongst college athletes, this act was violated, and as a result, they are owed backpay. Former University of Illinois football player, Tymir Oliver also filed a lawsuit with substantially similar claims against the NCAA to those in House; due to this overlap, the plaintiffs of both cases filed to consolidate their lawsuits. 

In November of 2023, Judge Claudia Wilkins granted House class-action status,⁸ and in doing so opened the potential for “multibillion dollar payout” to current as well as former college athletes.⁹ The class action certification permits the plaintiffs to introduce testimonies from three experts. According to attorney Thomas Mars, granting the case class-action certification is “a worst-case scenario” for the NCAA, as it creates the potential to become a “kill-the-company case,” causing grave financial and structural ramifications for the organization.¹⁰ Trial is scheduled to begin January 27th, 2025 though a financial settlement is also being discussed. 

In addition to contesting the restrictive nature of the NCAA’s NIL policy, the plaintiffs claim that the NCAA is well aware that many student-athletes often come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and takes advantage of this fact, subsequently exploiting athletes. The calculative nature of the NCAA’s actions speaks to the inequitable and exploitative 

foundation of the organization. The institutionalization of such unscrupulous behavior exposes the vicious cycle of the NCAA's unethical practices as an organization. 

Specifically in regards to Black student-athletes, despite the fact that only 5.7 percent of students at Power Five predominantly white institutions (PWIs) are Black, Black athletes make up 55.9 percent of men’s basketball, 55.7 percent of men’s football and 48.1 percent of women’s basketball teams¹¹. In the Power Five conference alone, it is estimated that Black athletes are losing anywhere from $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion a year, attesting to the concrete disparities of valuing Black talent and work.¹²In other words, this “underpayment” equates to paying “Black labor” about “$250,000 a year” less than what they are rightfully owed.¹³ This “interracial wealth transfer” from Black athletes to White coaches, administrators, and institutions has led many Supreme Court justices and members of Congress to consider the apparent and inequitable creation of wealth.¹⁴ 

Moreover, the predatory nature of the NCAA’s athletic system sustains this modernized “plantation system” through PWIs offering large “scholarships and better facilities” due to their abundance of “state funding.”¹⁵ However, this degree of funding is not provided to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Consequently, Black athletes are lured into a system 

of exploitation due to PWIs understanding that “eighty-six percent of players” come “from backgrounds below the poverty line” and often have no choice but to make the most economical decision, while the universities they play for make billions of dollars off their talents and NILs alike.¹⁶In the United States, forty-five percent of white adults aged twenty-five to twenty-nine have completed a bachelor’s degree compared to only twenty-eight percent of Black Americans in the same age group. Additionally, both at the average and median, Black families across the country have less than fifteen percent of the wealth of white families.¹⁷ As a result of these disparities, for a number of Black athletes, athletic scholarships have become a necessity as opposed to merely a choice.¹⁸ This is a form of financial coercion that reproduces a pattern of harmful practices that exploit Black labor. 

As college athletics are steeped with practices and regulations that perpetuate historical injustices, merely granting student-athletes the rights to their NIL will not shift the entire system, nor will it bring about just action on the NCAA’s part. As described by Kaiya McCullough, former UCLA soccer player and co-founder of United College Athlete Association, so long as “coaches are signing multimillion dollar contracts to control a largely Black labor force while that same labor force is denied adequate compensation, prohibited from unionizing, and literally killed from a lack of safety guarantees, plantation dynamics are here to stay, regardless of how much an individual athlete can make from their NIL.”¹⁹ This level of exploitation is not exclusive to the NCAA and the landscape of college athletics, rather, it is a reflection of a practice of dehumanization through the commodification of Black bodies that undergirds the very foundation of the United States. Therefore, while legal action that addresses the exploitative practices of the NCAA is a meaningful step, in order to bring about true equity for Black student-athletes, the NCAA and the nation as a whole must first reckon with this legacy and establish policies that address and ameliorate these systemic inequities. 

Works Cited 

The Associated Press. “Judge's ruling in latest antitrust lawsuit against NCAA could lead to billions in damages.” AP News, 3 November 2023, 

https://apnews.com/article/ncaa-lawsuit-house-3c6b373a3c18cd02be0f2f9abcfcfdbf. Accessed 1 December 2023. 

Baker, Thomas. “If NIL Lawsuit Is Deemed Class Action, It Could Cost NCAA More Than $1 Billion.” Forbes, 22 September 2021, 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbaker/2023/05/05/if-nil-lawsuit-is-deemed-class-acti on-it-could-cost-ncaa-more-than-1-billion/?sh=1b9c685f44b2. Accessed 15 November 2023. 

Dodd, Dennis. “Judge's ruling could lead to billions in damages as 'worst-case scenario' rears head for NCAA.” CBS Sports, 4 November 2023, 

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/judges-ruling-could-lead-to-billions-in damages-as-worst-case-scenario-rears-head-for-ncaa/. Accessed 1 December 2023. Hannon, Austin, and Shamiel Moore. “A Player's Worth: The exploitation of Black athletes and the rise of NIL.” The Crimson White, 20 October 2022, 

https://thecrimsonwhite.com/101442/sports/a-players-worth-the-exploitation-of-black-ath letes-and-the-rise-of-nil/. Accessed 14 November 2023. 

Justia Dockets. “Oliver v. National Collegiate Athletic Association et al.” Justia Dockets, https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2020cv04527/362102. Accessed 1 December 2023. 

Kalman, Nathan, et al. “Race, money and exploitation: why college sport is still the 'new plantation.'” The Guardian, 7 September 2021,

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/07/race-money-and-exploitation-why-colleg e-sport-is-still-the-new-plantation. Accessed 14 November 2023. 

“Monopoly Power And Market Power In Antitrust Law.” Department of Justice, 25 June 2015, https://www.justice.gov/atr/monopoly-power-and-market-power-antitrust-law. Accessed 1 December 2023. 

Sigety, John. “Bringing Down The House: The Antitrust Lawsuit That Could End The NCAA.” Conduct Detrimental, 18 October 2022, 

https://www.conductdetrimental.com/post/bringing-down-the-house-the-antitrust-lawsuit that-could-end-the-ncaa. Accessed 1 December 2023. 

“State and Federal Legislation Tracker.” Troutman Pepper, 6 October 2023, https://www.troutman.com/state-and-federal-nil-legislation-tracker.html. Accessed 15 November 2023. 

Tatos, Ted, and Hal Singer. “Amateurism Costs Black NCAA Athletes Billions.” Global Sport Matters, 25 October 2021, 

https://globalsportmatters.com/opinion/2021/10/25/college-sports-amateurism-costs-blac k-athletes-billions-nil/. Accessed 14 November 2023.