40 years ago, the Supreme Court broke the NCAA’s lock on TV revenue, reshaping college sports to this day

A cameraman films the Ohio State Buckeyes before a 2018 game. Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images by Jared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder The Pac-12 is likely to be competing in its last March Madness, as realignment has pushed 10 of its schools to other conferences. What led the most decorated conference in the NCAA to dissolve so quickly? This surprising development arguably dates back to a decades-old court decision. As the NCAA prepared for its tournament regional basketball semifinals in March 1984, the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in a case, NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, that would change how Americans watch college sports. After the court’s ruling, there were no limits on how much college football could be broadcast on TV, which previously was restricted to a maximum of six nationally broadcast games every two years. The regionally focused conferences of the NCAA would become a national business, driven by television money from football. As a professor of critical sports studies, I see the court ruling’s influence today with the downfall of the Pac-12. A history of televised college sports Even during TV’s experimental era of the 1930s, college sports were an attraction....