Ruling in NCAA Case May Bring Some Players Closer to Share of Profits

[Serious]

In a case that could fundamentally shake the economic model of college athletics, a federal judge on Friday agreed to partially certify a lawsuit challenging restrictions on how student athletes may be compensated in exchange for playing sports.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken allows a group of about 20 current and former college players to press ahead with a class action against NCAA rules that prevent athletes from sharing in licensing deals or television revenue. Current guidelines classify players as amateurs, prohibiting them from earning compensation beyond the value of their athletic scholarships.

However, the ruling also came with one major caveat: While Judge Wilken cleared a pathway for players to share in future revenues, she rejected a separate bid that would have allowed them to collect damages for the past use of their images and likenesses both on television and in video games. Had that effort succeeded, the NCAA’s legal tab could have run into the billions.

The split decision left both sides claiming victory.

“We have long maintained that the plaintiffs in this matter are wrong on the facts and wrong on the law,” wrote the NCAA’s chief legal officer, Donald Remy, in a statement. “This ruling is one step closer to validating that position.”

In a competing statement, attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote, “While we are disappointed that the court did not permit the athletes to seek past damages as a group, we are nevertheless hopeful that the court’s decision will cause the NCAA to reconsider its business practices … The court’s ruling is a giant leap in the effort to end these unfair practices.”

Wilken’s ruling comes a little more than a month after the video game maker EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company agreed to a $40 million settlement with players in the NCAA suit, including former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon.

In 2009, O’Bannon became the lead plaintiff in the NCAA case after learning on a visit to a friend’s house that his likeness had been licensed to EA for a video game. As he told FRONTLINE in the below scene from the 2011 film Money & March Madness, “[The NCAA] didn’t ask me for my image. They didn’t ask me, you know, for my left hand, for my sweet jump shot … Selfishly speaking, I want the way the NCAA does business, I want that to change.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...ring-some-players-closer-to-share-of-profits/

 

[godkiller]

I'm against paying athletes but they should be allowed to profit on their own image.

 

[the cac mamba]

I'm against paying athletes but they should be allowed to profit on their own image.

came in to say exactly this, they should get almost all of the profit that results from their video game likeness/jersey sale etc

contracts and shyt tho

 

[nineteeneightysix]

College Athletes should get paid to play...The money they are generating is educating everybody else...But not everybody else is doing all that work and making all those sacrifices...

College athletes should get paid...
(1) Most of them will NOT make it to the pros...Not all of them are academically talented...Their sport is their god given gift, and they work hard, and make a lot of sacrifices, they need to be reimbursed for that..

(2) The schools are making Billions extorting and exploiting these athletes...This is modern day slavery...F+ck that "education" excuse...
Why was Mark Zuckerberg allowed to profit of Facebook...?

If Mark Zuckerberg can profit from Facebook, then Johnny Manziel should be allowed from profit off Football...It may be his only chance to make something of himself...

(3) The world has advanced enough for us to understand that "education" is not just being book smart...There are multiple ways of being intelligent...It takes just as much work (even more probably) to be an elite college athlete than to be an elite college academic...For the athletes, playing sports is their education, the system should support that...