The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Study in Cartel Behavior

Intercollegiate sports is an enterprise that annually grosses over $1 billion in income. Some schools receive more than $20 million from athletic programs, perhaps as much as $10 million simply from the sale of football tickets. Probing the history and business practices of the most powerful sports organization of colleges and universities in the United States, the authors present a persuasive case that the NCAA is in fact a cartel, its members engaged in classically defined restrictive practices for the sole purpose of jointly maximizing their profits. This fresh perspective on the NCAA's institutional structure helps to explain why illicit payments to athletes persist, why non-NCAA organizations have not flourished, and why members have readily agreed on certain suspect rules. Offering a valuable case study for sports analysts and students of economics and cartel behavior, this book is a revealing glimpse inside the embattled NCAA program.