Supreme Court rules for athletes in benefits-related dispute with NCAA

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the NCAA can't limit certain education-related benefits for student-athletes as a way to enforce amateurism.

All nine justices sided with a group of former student-athletes, led by one-time West Virginia football player Shawne Alston, in their dispute with the NCAA.

The high court's ruling opens the door for institutions to provide Division I football and basketball players with computers, graduate scholarships, tutoring, internships, and other benefits worth thousands of dollars.

The decision doesn't mean student-athletes can receive salaries from their schools, nor does it determine whether they can make money off their name, image, or likeness.

Until the ruling, the NCAA prevented colleges from offering scholarships that go beyond the cost of attending the school.

Colleges won't be required to offer student-athletes these education-related benefits. Conferences can individually prohibit various benefits but can't act in concert with one another to suppress them.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh opined in the decision, which was delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch, that student-athletes may be entitled to salaries in the future.

"Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate," Kavanaugh wrote. "And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."