But in a four-page letter first reported by USA Today on Friday, Makan Delrahim, who oversees antitrust issues at the Department of Justice, warned Emmert that the government wanted to ensure that any NCAA rules “will allow college athletes to benefit from robust competition for their talents. ”
“College athletes, like any other American, deserve competition on and off the field,” said Delrahim, the assistant attorney general to whom Emmert wrote on Saturday.
In an interview late on Saturday, Emmert repeatedly expressed frustration and described the Justice Department’s action, which he said had stunned NCAA officials, as a “massive wrench” that eviscerated months of careful planning.
“We were about to make some very, very important changes to provide the necessary flexibility and suddenly, now we have to take a break,” said Emmert, who, however, swore that the NCAA would eventually change its rules.
“We just have to take the time to resolve this” with the government, he said.
Even before the Justice Department expressed its doubts, some of the most influential figures in college sports, including Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeast Conference, suggested that NCAA officials consider postponing voting on the matter. Recent and imminent machinations in Washington, they reasoned, could reorganize the debate once again.
Perhaps most importantly, the United States Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the association’s appeal in an antitrust case related to student-athlete benefits. The shift in the balance of power in Washington will certainly affect deliberations on a possible federal law governing university athletics.
Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, for example, announced in December a proposal to give student-athletes a share of the profits in lucrative sports like basketball and football. A Republican-led bill that appeared in the Senate last year would have granted the NCAA an antitrust exemption.