The NCAA has come to a settlement in regards to Electronic Arts using players’ likenesses without paying them. This is big news, because the NCAA has been adamant about not playing athletes while they attend college.
The NCAA conceded it would pay current and former Division I Men’s basketball players and Bowl Subdivision football players $20M. The O’ Bannon Trial, named after former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon, featured testimony from O’Bannon and Stanford sports economist Roger Noll, who claims that athletes are entitled to half the revenue produced from television contracts.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken will decide whether to force the NCAA to share its profits from television networks with student-athletes whose likenesses they use for commercial purposes.
Noll stated that the NCAA rules over the marketplace of college sports because it governs who can participate in big business and forbids players from getting paid. He claimed that these are the characteristic actions of a cartel based on findings by NCAA expert Daniel Rubinfeld.
NCAA lead outside attorney Glenn Pomerantz defended the NCAA’s position, asking O’Bannon about the benefits of attending UCLA, to which he replied, “I was an athlete masquerading as a student. I was there strictly to play basketball.”
Additionally, Electronic Arts came to a settlement of $40M that could pay 100,000 former and current student athletes anywhere between $48 and $951 for use of their likenesses in NCAA-branded video games dating back to 2003.
The position that student athletes deserve compensation for the use of their likenesses is strong. Since the results from this case can be considered successful, it wouldn’t be a surprise that the NCAA may be forced to surrender a percentage of their television profits to student athletes in near future.
Photo: Ed O’Bannon / Credit: Isaac Brekken/AP
Comment Template