As we all know, the NCAA came down with harsh penalties on Penn State University and their football program in the wake of Jerry Sandusky scandal. Those penalties included reduction of scholarships, fines, and loss of playoff and bowl eligibility for the program for four years.
Following the NCAA ruling, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett filed an antitrust suit against the NCAA alledging that the reduction of scholarships would lead to a reduction of competitive advantage for future college football players, and that this was a concerted action that was against United States law.
That lawsuit has failed, and failed spectacularly, as Corbett’s arguments have essentially fallen flat on their face. U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane has threw out the suit on Wednesday citing “any factual allegations supporting (Corbett’s) allegation of ‘concerted action’ that might nudge its conspiracy claim into ‘plausible’ territory.”
Kane went on to say, “The fact that Penn State will offer fewer scholarships over a period of four years does not plausibly support its allegation that the reduction of scholarships at Penn State will result in a market-wide anticompetitive effect, such that the ‘nation’s top scholastic football players’ would be unable to obtain a scholarship in the nationwide market for Division I football players.”
What does this mean? In layman’s terms the Judge has found that Corbett’s suit is wasting the courts time and resources and will not allow it to proceed. The judge is saying that Corbett does not have enough evidence to support his claim, and even if everything he has alledged is true, and the NCAA does nothing to defend itself, he would still fail in proving that they acted contrary to anti-trust law. The suit can not even reach the threshold where an actual breach of the law has occured even if we believe everything Corbett says.
This ruling may also impact the recently filed Paterno family suit against Penn State and the NCAA in that it makes many of the same allegations, and stands on many of the same principles as Corbett’s suit. While a determination hasn’t been made, this ruling makes things even more of an uphill battle for that action.
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