Forgotten Foundations: Why the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and a 1984 Supreme Court Case Could Shape the Future of College Sports

The NCAA Hangs in the Balance

As college sports brace for a seismic shift — with NIL money flowing, athletes eyeing employee status, and the Supreme Court potentially weighing in again via House v. NCAA — a lot of the conversation is understandably focused on what's happening now. But to really understand where things might be going, we have to look back. Specifically, to two key legal landmarks: the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and the 1984 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma.

They're not exactly water cooler topics. You won't hear many fans debate them between bites of stadium nachos. But they’ve quietly shaped the financial and legal infrastructure of college sports for decades. And depending on how courts and lawmakers respond to the mounting pressures on the current system, they could either become relics of a bygone era — or central battlegrounds in the next phase of reform.

The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961: A Law Born in the NFL, Inherited by the NCAA

Let’s start with the Sports Broadcasting Act (SBA) of 1961. It was passed by Congress to help the NFL, of all things, after a court ruled that the league’s method of pooling TV rights across teams violated antitrust law. In response, Congress carved out a special exemption: professional sports leagues could pool their media rights and sell them collectively, as long as the broadcasts didn’t interfere with high school and college football on Fridays and Saturdays.

Sounds simple enough. But here’s the twist — while the SBA was written with pro leagues in mind, its ripple effects extended into college sports, which, at the time, were being governed centrally by the NCAA. Back then, the NCAA controlled the television rights to all its members’ games, effectively setting who could be on TV and when, in a classic top-down system.

For a while, that central control kept things orderly. The NCAA claimed it was protecting in-person attendance and preserving competitive balance. But not everyone agreed — especially not the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia, who wanted more freedom (and more money) to negotiate their own TV deals.

NCAA v. Board of Regents (1984): The Case That Broke the NCAA's Media Monopoly

The tension came to a head in 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents that the NCAA’s control of college football television rights violated antitrust law. The justices didn’t buy the NCAA’s argument that it was necessary to restrict broadcasts to protect the “amateur” nature of college sports.

In other words, the Court said: you can't act like a cartel.

The decision cracked open the door to what we now know: individual conferences (like the SEC and Big Ten) — and eventually even individual schools — cut their own TV deals, bringing billions in revenue. It also meant the NCAA’s power, especially over football, began to erode.

But here’s where it gets interesting: the SBA’s antitrust exemption didn’t apply to the NCAA after Board of Regents. That’s because the Court made clear the NCAA wasn’t a league in the way the NFL was — and its broadcast control wasn’t justified under the same logic.

That left the NCAA exposed on multiple fronts, even if it took a few decades for the full consequences to play out.

Why It All Matters Now

Fast forward to today, and the college sports world is in upheaval. NIL rights are blowing up old amateurism norms. Lawsuits like House v. NCAA promise to retroactively compensate athletes. Congress is debating whether to create federal rules for NIL or even a carveout to allow collective bargaining without classifying athletes as employees.

So why should we care about a 60-year-old law and a 40-year-old court case?

Because they define the rules of engagement. And those rules may need to change — or be challenged — if we’re going to build a sustainable new model for college sports.

• Media Revenue Is the Golden Goose: Any future where athletes are compensated directly — whether through revenue sharing, employment models, or unionization — will bump up against the current way media rights are sold. Who owns those rights? Who can sell them? Can a new athlete association bargain for a share of that revenue — or does antitrust law get in the way?

• Centralized vs. Decentralized Governance: The SBA allows leagues to centralize media deals. But the NCAA isn’t a league in the legal sense. Could a new governing body — say, the thrown-around concept of a "College Sports Commission", or a commissioner of a new RevGen "Super League" made of the Power 4 conferences — fall under the SBA's protection? Or would it trigger new antitrust battles?

• House v. NCAA Could Change Everything: If the plaintiffs in House win, it could lead to massive backpay for athletes and a system where schools are forced to share media revenue. That revenue-sharing model would directly clash with the decentralized world created by Board of Regents — and could prompt calls to revisit that ruling or even amend the SBA.

Here’s the big picture: the future of college sports likely requires new governance structures, new financial arrangements, and new legal interpretations. But the old rules — written in 1961 and handed down again in 1984 — are still on the books. And they’re not exactly designed for the world of NIL collectives, multi-billion-dollar media deals, and athletes who know their worth.

Some reformers argue that Congress should update or replace the SBA to reflect the modern realities of college athletics. Others suggest that conferences should reorganize into formal leagues to gain antitrust protections under the SBA. Still others believe we may need a new judicial reinterpretation of Board of Regents to allow collective action that doesn’t violate antitrust law.

Whatever path we take, we’re going to have to grapple with the legal scaffolding that underpins the system — even if it was built long before streaming rights, transfer portals, or TikTok endorsements were part of the equation.

So as the legal and legislative storm clouds gather, keep one eye on the future — and the other on the past. Because the Sports Broadcasting Act and Board of Regents may not be trending topics, but they’re the bedrock we’re building (or breaking) everything on.