Justice Brett Kavanaugh Calls Out NCAA For Not Paying Players: ‘Disturbing’

Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered an unpredictably harsh line of questioning during a Supreme Court hearing on the NCAA and alleged antitrust violations. Kavanaugh is, of course, the second Trump-appointed member of the nation’s highest court and has traditionally presented conservative values.

The NCAA makes a ton of money through the sale of licensing fees to their major revenue sports, namely men’s basketball and college football. CBS and Turner pay roughly $1.1 billion a year in exclusive rights to air March Madness (and other non-revenue sports.) Just the ad revenue for the men’s college tournament alone draws in $1 billion each year, while the women’s tournament earns $15 million. These figures are just for the post-season tournament.

While the scholar-athletes often earn full scholarships, and many live in lavish conditions, none of them are paid for their athletic endeavors, an issue which lies at the core of the current case before the Supreme Court.

Based on some of Wednesday morning’s questioning, Kavanagh appeared to be among the many critics of the current set up, agreeing with Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito — all of whom sounded a similar note. Kavanaugh, for his part, suggested that schools are “conspiring with competitors, agreeing with competitors to pay no salaries to the workers for making the school billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing.”

Kavanaugh added that this “just seems entirely circular and even somewhat disturbing.”

Seth Waxman, attorney for the NCAA, immediately replied to Kavanaugh by saying “the notion that these amateurism rules were imposed or constitute a cover for exploitation as athletes is wrong and not an antitrust issue,” before continuing his argument.

Listen to the audio above via CSPAN.