Economics Expert’s Statistical Model Survives Daubert Challenge in NCAA Volunteer Coach Case
Posted on March 13, 2025 by Expert Witness Profiler
The NCAA is an association whose members are colleges and universities competing in intercollegiate athletics. The NCAA governs student athletic competition at its member schools.
NCAA schools are divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II, and Division III. Division I schools, which are at issue in this litigation, generally “manage the largest athletic budgets and offer the highest number of athletics scholarships.” Coach compensation is the largest athletics expense for NCAA Division I schools.
NCAA bylaws limit the number of coaches that Division I schools can hire in a given sport. Prior to 2023, Division I programs other than basketball and men’s bowl-division football were permitted to hire a certain number of “unrestricted coaches,” who had no restrictions on compensation, plus one or two “volunteer coaches.” The bylaw at issue here, NCAA Bylaw 11.01.06 (hereinafter “Volunteer Coach Bylaw” or “the Bylaw”), defined a “volunteer coach” as “any coach who does not receive compensation or remuneration” from the school’s athletics department.
Following the repeal of the Volunteer Coach Bylaw, effective July 2023, the volunteer coach designation was eliminated and the number of unrestricted coaches was increased, typically by the number of volunteer coaches allowed under the prior rule. For instance, programs previously permitted one volunteer coach were allotted one additional paid coach.
Plaintiffs brought this putative class action alleging that the Volunteer Coach Bylaw violated § 1 of the Sherman Act. The proposed class consists of “[a]ll persons who, from March 17, 2019, to June 30, 2023, worked for an NCAA Division I sports program other than baseball in the position of ‘volunteer coach,’ as designated by NCAA Bylaws.”
Dr. Orley Ashenfelter created a statistical model to estimate the damages suffered by the members of the proposed class. Defendants, however, sought to exclude all evidence from this expert.
Economics Expert Witness
Orley C. Ashenfelter is an economist specializing in labor economics, antitrust policy, and the economic analysis of labor markets. He is the Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, where he also serves as a Senior Scholar in Economics.
Ashenfelter holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University and a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College. His professional experience includes directing Princeton’s Industrial Relations Section and serving as President of multiple economic associations, including the American Economic Association, the Society of Labor Economists, and the American Law and Economics Association. He has also held editorial positions at the American Economic Review and Journal of Wine Economics.
Discussion by the Court
Orley Ashenfelter
To formulate his model, Ashenfelter relied upon wage data and other documentation from hundreds of NCAA Division I schools, focusing on those that expanded their coaching staff beyond the prior limits on the number of unrestricted coaches following the repeal of the Volunteer Coach Bylaw.
He focuses on this subset of schools because they “provide the best currently-available evidence of what a competitive market will look like” in the absence of the repealed Bylaw. The model uses actual coach salary data following the Bylaw repeal as a “benchmark” to estimate the “but-for” compensation class members would have received. “But-for” analysis refers to the practice in antitrust cases of calculating classwide damages based on what class members’ economic position would have been absent the alleged antitrust violations (i.e., in the world that would have existed but for the alleged violation).
Ashenfelter’s analysis proceeds in two steps. In the first step, Ashenfelter categorizes sports programs according to how many unrestricted coaches each program was permitted to have under NCAA rules beginning July 1, 2023 (i.e., following the repeal of the Bylaw).
In the second step, Ashenfelter produces an estimate of the compensation class members would have received in the “but-for” world.
Defendant’s Objections
In the instant case, discovery is ongoing and Ashenfelter is still receiving new data and updating his analysis, which indicates that a full Daubert analysis is “premature” at this stage of the proceedings.
Ashenfelter’s Model Fails to Control for the Experience and Skill Level of Coaches
Defendant argues that Ashenfelter’s report is nonetheless inadmissible because it fails to account for several key factors. First, Defendant contends that Ashenfelter’s model fails to control for the experience and skill level of coaches because (1) his calculations did not incorporate experience level as a variable, and (2) he did not address potential selection bias in the sample of additional paid coaches hired after the bylaw repeal, who could have higher experience levels and therefore warrant higher wages. The Court clarified that these arguments are factually unfounded, as Ashenfelter’s analysis does account for experience using both pay ranking within the coaching hierarchy and age as proxies for experience.
Second, Defendant argues that Ashenfelter “excluded evidence from schools that did not add paid coaching positions after the bylaws were amended.” Again, this argument is unfounded.
Ashenfelter’s Analysis is Based Around Groupings of Dissimilar Sports
Finally, Defendant argues that Ashenfelter’s analysis is based around groupings of dissimilar sports and “tries to estimate market rates of pay for coaches in one sport by using salaries for coaching in other sports that are determined by different supply and demand conditions.” The Court ruled that this argument mischaracterizes Ashenfelter’s analysis. While the calculation of the step-down differential at step one uses groupings of sports based on how many coaches the NCAA permits a school to hire, the damage calculation at step two uses actual salary data from each sports program at each school and therefore accounts for differences across sports.
To the extent that Defendant thinks Ashenfelter’s analysis inadequately accounts for the variables discussed above, that is not a basis for exclusion under Daubert, but rather goes to the weight of the evidence.
It is undisputed that Ashenfelter possesses extensive experience and qualifications in the field of labor economics and that he based his analysis on the review of reliable documentation produced by NCAA Division I member schools. Regression analysis based on a “benchmark” or “yardstick,” like that employed by Ashenfelter, is a well-established method of calculating class-wide antitrust impact.
Held
The Court denied Defendant’s motion to exclude the testimony of Orley Ashenfelter.
Key Takeaway:
The ruling reinforces the use of established economic methodologies, like benchmark regression analysis, in antitrust cases, and addresses the standard for admissibility of expert testimony under the Daubert standard.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Shannon Ray v. NCAA |
| Docket Number: | 1:23cv425 |
| Court: | United States District Court, California Eastern |
| Order Date: | March 10, 2025 |
