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  1. #1
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    In dismissing a motion by the NCAA to prevent football and men's basketball players from legally pursuing a cut of live broadcast revenues, a federal court judge Tuesday raised the stakes for the governing body of college sports as it defends its economic model.


    Judge Claudia Wilken issued her ruling Tuesday, rejecting the NCAA's motion that players in the an rust suit led by former UCLA star Ed O'Bannon should be precluded from advancing their lawsuit on procedural grounds.



    The NCAA had objected to the players amending their lawsuit last year to claim a share of all television game revenues, not just those from rebroadcasts.
    "Now the (NCAA and its co-defendants) are facing potential liability that's based on the billions of dollars in revenue instead of tens or hundreds of millions," said Michael Hausfeld, interim lead counsel for the plaintiffs. "It's a more accurate context for what the players deserve."


    Unlike NFL or NBA athletes, players lack a union or similar body to negotiate a share of revenues flowing from media and other licensing contracts. The NCAA does not legally treat athletes as employees, and players have not organized to represent their interests collectively.


    The O'Bannon suit attacks that model through the means of class-action, the legal question now before Wilken. Former college stars such as Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson have joined O'Bannon on behalf of all Division I players in football and men's basketball, asking Wilken to declare that they are similarly situated and to certify the class.


    Wilken on Tuesday set the hearing on that motion for June 20 and ordered the NCAA to make its arguments against class certification on the merits rather than procedural objections such as the one she just rejected. The NCAA was joined in that motion by its partner, Collegiate Licensing Company.
    http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...levision-money

  2. #2
    The cat won symple19's Avatar
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    Wow

    I've been oblivious to this case but it would be huge if it went against the NCAA.

    There's a heavy duty legal team on the side of the players and the fact that these firms have dumped 20+ mil into the effort points toward a viable case.

    The entire landscape of basketball and football, in both the collegiate and professional ranks, would be massively affected by a win for O'Bannon. Especially CBB and the NBA.

    Gonna be fun to follow

  3. #3
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    There's a heavy duty legal team on the side of the players and the fact that these firms have dumped 20+ mil into the effort points toward a viable case.
    there's that. enforceable rights for players would be a game changer.



    :popcorn

  4. #4
    The cat won symple19's Avatar
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    there's that. enforceable rights for players would be a game changer.



    :popcorn
    Hypothetically, let's say they are successful in winning this case against the NCAA. How, then, does that affect other sports and the student athletes who play them? Other sports like baseball have TV contracts as well. Do they get paid? Seems it would open a giant can of worms that the NCAA would be forced to address.

  5. #5
    Veteran Sisk's Avatar
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    I cannot believe I have not heard of this until now. I hope the players win.

  6. #6
    Damns (Given): 0 Blake's Avatar
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    Hypothetically, let's say they are successful in winning this case against the NCAA. How, then, does that affect other sports and the student athletes who play them? Other sports like baseball have TV contracts as well. Do they get paid? Seems it would open a giant can of worms that the NCAA would be forced to address.
    Don't see why they wouldn't.

    if O Bannon and Co win, getting on tv to get paid will be that much more important for a recruit, right? this would seem to separate the have and have not conferences even further.

  7. #7
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Hypothetically, let's say they are successful in winning this case against the NCAA. How, then, does that affect other sports and the student athletes who play them? Other sports like baseball have TV contracts as well. Do they get paid? Seems it would open a giant can of worms that the NCAA would be forced to address.
    yep. NCAA got pretty good lawyers though. they'll be (alright.)

  8. #8
    Scrumtrulescent
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    Hypothetically, let's say they are successful in winning this case against the NCAA. How, then, does that affect other sports and the student athletes who play them? Other sports like baseball have TV contracts as well. Do they get paid? Seems it would open a giant can of worms that the NCAA would be forced to address.
    This is the reason why I'm against paying players. I know I'm going to sound like a naive idealist here, but I do believe the mission of a school's athletic department is to provide educational opportunities for student athletes who may not have gotten them otherwise. I can't see how paying football and basketball players would have any other outcome than a reduction in scholarships available to the student athletes who play all the sports we don't watch.

  9. #9
    The cat won symple19's Avatar
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    This is the reason why I'm against paying players. I know I'm going to sound like a naive idealist here, but I do believe the mission of a school's athletic department is to provide educational opportunities for student athletes who may not have gotten them otherwise. I can't see how paying football and basketball players would have any other outcome than a reduction in scholarships available to the student athletes who play all the sports we don't watch.
    After thinking about it, I imagine the NCAA would spread the money evenly amongst all student-athletes (in all sports) were they to lose the case. It's the only thing that could prevent a firestorm of complaints about fairness, particularly from female participants in NCAA sports.

  10. #10
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    A federal judge on Friday partially certified a lawsuit filed by more than 20 players, allowing football and basketball players in major programs to challenge as a group NCAA rules prohibiting compensation beyond the value of their athletic scholarships, but also denying their pursuit of billions of dollars in past revenues.

    In her long-awaited, 24-page report, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken carved a pathway for fundamental change in the economic model of college sports in a ruling that will help college athletes in their arguments to receive a share of television and other media revenues.


    The ruling also minimized the prospect of forcing the NCAA to pay billions of dollars in past damages to players who may have been wronged under anti-trust law. Players can still sue for damages, but only as individuals.
    The mixed ruling left both sides claiming victory in statements sent to ESPN.


    "The court's decision is a victory for all current and former student-athletes who are seeking compensation on a going forward basis," said Michael Hausfeld, lead attorney for the players. "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."
    http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...pursue-damages

  11. #11
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    tangent: Northwestern players seek to unionize.

    For the first time in the history of college sports, athletes are asking to be represented by a labor union, taking formal steps on Tuesday to begin the process of being recognized as employees.

    Lester Munson writes that the Northwestern football players' attempt at unionization is likely to fail, but the impact could still be far-reaching.



    Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, filed a pe ion in Chicago on behalf of football players at Northwestern University, submitting the form at the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.


    Backed by the United Steelworkers union, Huma also filed union cards signed by an undisclosed number of Northwestern players with the NLRB -- the federal statutory body that recognizes groups that seek collective bargaining rights.
    ESPN's "Outside The Lines" first broke the story.


    "This is about finally giving college athletes a seat at the table," said Huma, a former UCLA linebacker who created the NCPA as an advocacy group in 2001. "Athletes deserve an equal voice when it comes to their physical, academic and financial protections."
    http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...in-labor-union

  12. #12
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    EA settles for $40M, the NCAA is now the sole defendant:

    College football and basketball players have finalized a $40 million settlement with a video game manufacturer and the NCAA's licensing arm for improperly using the likenesses of athletes, leaving the NCAA alone to defend itself in the upcoming Ed O'Bannon an rust trial. Lawyers for the plaintiffs filed the settlement agreement with a federal court in Oakland, California, on Friday night in an action that could deliver up to $4,000 to as many as 100,000 current and former athletes who appeared in EA Sports basketball and football video games since 2003.

    "I'm thrilled that for the first time in the history of college sports, athletes will get compensated for their performance," said Steve Berman, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. "It's pretty groundbreaking."
    EA and the Collegiate Licensing Corporation had come to an agreement in principle with the plaintiffs in September 2013, but the settlement was held up by a variety of issues. The NCAA objected to the departure of their co-defendants, and plaintiffs' lawyers representing three different classes of players haggled over the financial cuts that would go to each.


    In the end, according to the agreement, 77 percent of the funds that are due to players (after lawyer fees) will go to the class of players represented by Berman, who sued the NCAA on behalf of former Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller. Just over 12 percent will go to players in the class represented by O'Bannon, the former UCLA basketball star. The final 10 percent will go to the class represented by former Rutgers football player Ryan Hart and former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston.
    Additionally, O'Bannon, Keller, Hart and the other named plaintiffs would receive payments of $2,500 to $15,000 for their time and efforts in representing the classes.
    http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...-licensing-arm

  13. #13
    Damns (Given): 0 Blake's Avatar
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    $40 mill seems like a good deal for EA

  14. #14
    I concur. They probably made hundreds of millions in not in the billions off of the NCAA sports games. The real winners in class action suits are usually the lawyers. They will get a nice chunk of that $40 million.

  15. #15
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    They will get a nice chunk of that $40 million.
    deets @ the link

  16. #16
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    related:

    In the most direct challenge yet to the NCAA's longstanding economic model, high-profile sports labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler filed an an rust claim Monday in a New Jersey federal court on behalf of a group of college basketball and football players, arguing the association has unlawfully capped player compensation at the value of an athletic scholarship.


    "The main objective is to strike down permanently the restrictions that prevent athletes in Division I basketball and the top tier of college football from being fairly compensated for the billions of dollars in revenues that they help generate," Kessler told ESPN. "In no other business -- and college sports is big business -- would it ever be suggested that the people who are providing the essential services work for free. Only in big-time college sports is that line drawn."



    The lawsuit names the NCAA and the five largest conferences (the Southeastern, Big Ten, Pacific-12, Atlantic Coast and Big 12) as defendants and effectively asks for an end to NCAA-style amateurism. The players listed as plaintiffs include Clemson defensive back Martin Jenkins, Rutgers basketball player J.J. Moore, UTEP tight end Kevin Perry and Cal tight end Bill Tyndall, though the claim is a class action and proposes to represent all scholarship players in FBS football and Division I basketball. Jenkins is a junior, while the other three are seniors who recently completed their NCAA eligibility.


    The move comes on the heels of a similar, if less aggressive, claim filed earlier this month by a Seattle firm on behalf of former West Virginia running back Shawne Alston. In that suit, which does not include current players, the same defendants that Kessler's group is targeting are asked to pay damages for the difference in the value of an athletic scholarship and the full cost of attendance -- an amount equivalent to several thousand dollars annually.


    By contrast, the Kessler suit dispenses with the cost-of-attendance argument and does not ask for damages as a group. It simply states that no cap is legal in a free market and asks the judge to issue an injunction against the NCAA ending the practice. It contends that NCAA member universities are acting as a cartel by fixing the prices paid to athletes, who presumably would receive offers well in excess of tuition, room, board and books if not restricted by NCAA rules.


    "We're looking to change the system. That's the main goal," Kessler said. "We want the market for players to emerge."
    http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...-amateur-model

  17. #17
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    NCAA settles in Keller lawsuit for $20M:

    The NCAA announced Monday that it will pay $20 million to former football and basketball players who had their images and likenesses used in video games, hoping the settlement will help keep amateurism rules intact for college sports.

    Hours before the O'Bannon trial began in California challenging the NCAA's the authority to restrict or prohibit payments to athletes, the largest governing body in college sports said it had settled another potentially damaging lawsuit scheduled to go to trial next March. Sam Keller, the former quarterback at Arizona State and Nebraska, filed the class-action suit in May 2009 and contended the NCAA unfairly deprived college players of revenue.


    "I think they're going to be pleased that they were the catalyst to being the first (college) athletes to be paid for their performance for the first time in history," Steve Berman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press shortly after the deal was announced.
    http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...eo-game-claims

  18. #18
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    The NCAA's plan for Tuesday in the Ed O'Bannon trial was to give Judge Claudia Wilken a detailed look at an ideal combination of athletics and academics at the University of Texas. The plan also included finishing an aggressive attack on the players' expert witness, who said college football and men's basketball were no longer amateur sports and had become professional.

    It was a perfectly good plan. Had it worked, it could have provided powerful support for the NCAA's claims that a ban on player pay helps integrate athletes into the academic community and that it maintains the organization's ideal of amateurism.
    But as Christine Plonsky, the women's director of athletics at Texas, described in the loftiest of terms how Texas connects its "student-athletes" to the values of higher education, she opened the door to a cross examination on her work on NCAA committees that considered the idea of allowing payments to players as a realistic possibility.




    Paying players is not something the NCAA wants to recognize at any level of possibility, much less get the word out that it actually had been considered by top NCAA leaders in a task force that existed for four years. The organization has been trying to say that paying players is unthinkable; after Tuesday, the judge now knows NCAA leaders had actually been thinking about that very thing.
    http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/...rial-backfires

  19. #19
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Isaacson also made it clear to the judge that the Texas athletic department, with its budget of $165 million, offers only 20 sports involving a total of only 500 athletes. Wilken, who seems fascinated by the amounts and the movements of money in college sports, is likely to notice these numbers indicate a large commercial and professional enterprise. It is, again, something the NCAA would prefer to leave unmentioned.
    same

  20. #20
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    NCAA loses O'Bannon lawsuit, student-athlete earnings capped:

    Major college football and men's basketball student-athletes could be in line for paydays worth thousands of dollars once they leave school after a landmark ruling Friday that might change the way the NCAA does business.


    A federal judge ruled that the NCAA can't stop players from selling the rights to their names, images and likenesses, striking down NCAA regulations that prohibit players from getting anything other than scholarships and the cost of attendance at schools.
    U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, in a 99-page decision that followed a contentious three-week trial in June, ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon and 19 others who sued the NCAA, claiming it violated an rust laws by conspiring with the schools and conferences to block the athletes from getting a share of the revenues generated from the use of their images in broadcasts and video games. The injunction she issued allows players at big schools to have money generated by television contracts put into a trust fund to pay them when they leave.



    "The Court finds that the challenged NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools," Wilken wrote.


    Wilken rejected the NCAA's arguments in defense of its economic model, saying the "justifications that the NCAA offers do not justify this restraint and could be achieved through less restrictive means" while preserving college sports compe ion.


    In a partial victory for the NCAA, though, Wilken said it could set a cap on the money paid to athletes for use of their names and images, as long as it allows $5,000 per athlete per year of compe ion for players at big football and basketball schools. Individual schools could offer less money, she said, but only if they don't unlawfully conspire among themselves to set those amounts.


    That means Football Bowl Subdivision players and Division I basketball players who are on rosters for four years potentially could get around $20,000 when they leave school. Wilken said she set the $5,000 annual threshold to balance the NCAA's fears about huge payments to players.


    "The NCAA's witnesses stated that their concerns about student-athlete compensation would be minimized or negated if compensation was capped at a few thousand dollars per year," Wilken wrote.


    The compensation will be paid into a trust fund. However, if a school does not try to sell anything with the players' names, images and likenesses, there will be no money to pay into the trust fund. A player then would be limited to his cost-of-attendance scholarship.
    http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...an rust-case

  21. #21
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    settled


  22. #22
    4-25-20 Will Hunting's Avatar
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    Based on how the NCAA’s SCOTUS hearing went a few months ago I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a 9-0 ruling in favor of athletes being paid. Even Uncle Ruckus and Alito asked questions that were pretty scathing about the NCAA’s current regime.

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