With the potential for NCAA Athlete Unionization facing schools, the last thing that was needed was a court ruling in favor of Athlete compensation concerning the use of their likeness’s.
First it was football players looking to form a Union, now it is basketball players suing over use of their likeness for profit.
The NCAA’s position on the use of likeness of former players was that they could pretty much do so indefinitely.
Ed O’Bannon wondered how the NCAA could partner in the release of a basketball video game featuring classic college basketball teams, including his 1995 UCLA squad, featuring a player that clearly was him, only to claim it wasn’t him.
Oscar Robertson saw an NCAA-partnered trading card featuring him as a freshman at Cincinnati, nearly sixty years ago. Yet he was never told about it, or offered a share of the proceeds. Sixty years later, the NCAA said they had a right to use his likeness?
A Friday night court ruling made it clear that the NCAA’s arguments were not rational, and unacceptable.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken issued a 99-page ruling that clearly stated the NCAA’s time honored arguments to not hold water.
Claims that schools improve programs to the highest levels simply for the love of the game, and you can’t be paid because you’re an amateur and you’re an amateur because you don’t get paid.
Judge Wilken rejected the idea that anything more than tuition, room and board would upset competitive balance. She laughed at the theory that allowing schools to offer additional compensation would cause them to run from big-time sports and go Division III.
As part of her ruling she issued an injunction preventing the NCAA “from enforcing any rules or bylaws that would prohibit its member schools and conferences from offering their FBS football or Division I basketball recruits a limited share of the revenues generated from the use of their names, images, and likenesses in addition to a full grant-in-aid.”
Of course the NCAA has committed to appealing the ruling. We certainly wouldn’t want to have them just realize that their endless profiteering on athletes is going to end eventually.
While Judge Wilken’s ruling wasn’t a death blow to the profits margins, and is not all encompassing, it is a victory for athletes and former athletes.
While the Unionization and this court ruling have not effected NCAA hockey yet, they will. The threat of Unionization has forced the NCAA to implement rule changes already. This ruling will also force change eventually. Those changes will eventually effect every NCAA sport generating income from anything other than ticket sales.
Joe Hughes
