The NCAA might have lost Alston at the U.S. Supreme Court in a 9-0 shutout, but the organization contends last year’s historic defeat supports its assertion that college athletes aren’t employees.
The argument was raised in the NCAA’s opening brief filed on Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for Johnson v. NCAA. The case centers on a group of current and former college athletes from Villanova, Fordham, Cornell and other colleges who maintain they are employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
The FLSA guarantees minimum wage and overtime pay, and the players assert their colleges and the NCAA, as a joint employer, are responsible to pay them hourly wages. The players have noted the peculiarity of work-study classmates being paid to work at the ticket gate and concession stands for games where the NCAA prohibits the athletes from pay.
Last year, U.S. District Judge John Padova rejected NCAA and the colleges’ motions to dismiss Johnson, reasoning, among other points, that Alston deemed restrictions on athlete compensation legally problematic and unnecessary for amateurism. Earlier this year, Padova certified the case for interlocutory appeal, meaning an appeal before a case is decided. Most of the claims in Johnson are now before the Third Circuit.
The NCAA’s brief portrays Johnson as opportunistic litigation that relies on “press reporting sympathetic to their cause.” The brief contends that other federal circuits have rejected the FLSA...
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