Amateur Sports
Judge Rules Against NCAA
Is sports becoming a part of life where young amateur athlete’s have to get a pay cheque when playing at a school level of the game, where they are still learning?
One would hope not, but south of the 49th US District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled different as noted in the following.
Enjoy the read as from ESPN College Sports
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.
Followed a three-week trial in June, ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and 19 others.
They sued the NCAA, claiming it violated antitrust 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 competition.
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 competition 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.
Any payments to athletes would not be immediate. The ruling said regulations on pay will not take effect until the start of the next FBS football and Division I basketball recruiting cycle.
Wilken said they will not affect any prospective recruits before July 1, 2016.
Lawyers for O’Bannon and the 19 others had sought to have millions of dollars put in trust funds for the athletes. Former athletes will not be paid, because they gave up their right to damages in a pretrial move so the case would be heard by a judge, not a jury.
“I’m excited and trying to keep it all together,” O’Bannon said. “When we decided to take on this case [in 2009], we knew it would be a marathon, that it would get people talking — and that hopefully talk would spark change. And here we are.
“I hope that the players get what they deserve, with all the billions they are helping make for college sports.”
The NCAA said in a statement that it disagreed with the decision but was still reviewing it.
“We disagree with the Court’s decision that NCAA rules violate antitrust laws,” NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy said in a statement.
“We note that the Court’s decision sets limits on compensation, but are reviewing the full decision and will provide further comment later. As evidenced by yesterday’s Board of Directors action, the NCAA is committed to fully supporting student-athletes.”