原文刊登日期：2021年6月22日
The Supreme Court ruled Monday unanimously that the NCAA may not prohibit student-athletes from receiving benefits related to their educations, such as laptops or paid internships, on the grounds that such compensation would poison the spirit of allegedly amateur college athletics. The decision opens the way for a long-overdue reckoning. The NCAA, a college sports monopoly, and the universities party to it have made enormous amounts of money on the backs of unpaid players. Now the court has properly called the legality of the whole exploitative operation into question. It is past time the athletes get what they deserve.
美国最高法院周一一致裁定，NCAA不得以毒害所谓的大学业余体育运动的精神为理由，禁止学生运动员获得与其教育相关的福利，如笔记本电脑或带薪实习。该决定为姗姗来迟的清算铺平了道路。NCAA，一个大学体育垄断组织，以及加入它的各个大学，通过雇佣无薪球员赚取了大量的金钱。现在法院实际上对整个剥削行为的合法性提出了质疑。运动员们早就该得到他们应得的了。
Writing for the court, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch stressed that the court did not consider whether it is legal for the NCAA to deny other forms of compensation — such as direct pay — to the athletes who sustain the billion-dollar college sports business. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion “to underscore that the NCAA’s remaining compensation rules also raise serious questions under the antitrust laws.” Pointing out that the NCAA is undoubtedly a monopoly and incontestably holds its athletes’ compensation below market rates, he argued that the organization has no special exemption from antitrust rules.
大法官尼尔·m·戈萨奇在为最高法院撰写意见书时强调，最高法院没有考虑NCAA拒绝向支撑数十亿美元大学体育产业的运动员提供其他形式的补偿——比如直接支付报酬——是否合法。大法官布雷特·m·卡瓦诺写了一份并存意见，“强调根据反垄断法，NCAA其他的薪酬规定也有严重问题。”他指出，NCAA无疑是一个垄断机构，其运动员的薪酬低于市场水平，这是无可争议的。NCAA在反垄断规则中没有特别的豁免。
Paying players would make the situation fairer. No longer would coaches take seven figure salaries while even star players worry about whether their families have enough to live. No longer would universities and the NCAA rake in billions in endorsement deals, television rights and ticket sales while the talented individuals who provide the show get practically nothing. And no longer would schools do so on the pretext that they are compensating so many of these young people with a valuable education, a prevalent fiction that intense athletics schedules and worthless curriculums designed for athletes so often render impossible.
付钱给球员会让情况更公平。不再会有教练拿七位数的薪水，而即使是明星球员也在担心他们的家庭是否有足够的生活费。不再有大学和NCAA在代言交易、电视转播权和门票销售上捞到数十亿美元，而那些提供比赛的天才球员却一无所获。学校不再以给这么多年轻人提供有价值的教育为借口，这是一种普遍的谎言，激烈的体育日程安排，以及为运动员设计的毫无价值的课程，往往使所谓的教育成为不可能。
Yet paying players would only ameliorate the effects of, rather than solve, the underlying problem. Alleged institutions of higher learning would still be involved in a major entertainment business that scandal after scandal has proved to be incompatible with their mission to educate and enlighten. Recruiting malfeasance and other bad behavior would still occur and might find new channels. Many other thorny issues would remain, such as whether student-athletes should really be considered students at all, whether they should have the right to unionize and other questions involving their status as quasi-employees of their schools. Congress would likely need to get involved to manage the NCAA’s monopoly.
然而，付钱给球员只能改善而不是解决潜在问题。被指控的高等院校仍将参与这种大型娱乐产业，一桩又一桩丑闻证明，这与他们的教育和启蒙使命不符。招生作弊和其他不良行为仍会发生，并可能找到新的作弊渠道。许多其他棘手的问题仍然存在，例如学生运动员是否真的应该被视为学生，他们是否有权利成立工会，以及其他涉及到他们作为学校准雇员的地位的问题。国会可能需要参与管理NCAA的垄断。