NCAA facing new antitrust suit on behalf of athletes seeking 'pay-for-play' and damages

[Gopher_In_NYC]

NCAA facing new antitrust suit on behalf of athletes seeking 'pay-for-play' and damages

Three college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and Power Five conferences challenging rules prohibiting athletes from being paid by schools.

www.usatoday.com

This is a long way from settled -

Lawyers representing three college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences on Wednesday that challenges the association’s rules prohibiting athletes from being paid by their schools to play in their sports.

The case is being led by attorneys Steve Berman and Jeff Kessler, who have been — and remain — involved in several cases challenging various of the NCAA’s fundamental limits on compensation for athletes.

In this case, they are seeking an injunction that would end the association’s rules that prohibit schools from compensating athletes “for their athletic services.” They also seeking "substantial damages " for Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men’s basketball and women’s basketball players at Power Five schools between Dec. 7, 2019, and whenever the date of judgment in this case occurs. This four-year reach-back for damages is permitted in antitrust cases.

The suit alleges that that the NCAA’s member schools “have passed a byzantine set of rules prohibiting the extremely talented young men and women who generate billions of dollars for the Division I sports business from receiving any compensation for their athletic services beyond an athletic scholarship and certain types of education-related benefits.

“These draconian, collusive rules prohibit what the NCAA refers to as ‘pay-for-play,’ but what anyone else would call market-value compensation. In college sports, only the athletes are treated as ‘amateurs.’ Everyone else involved enjoys the compensation that results from unrestrained competition for the athletes’ services.”

This becomes the latest in the type of antitrust lawsuit that the NCAA, its conferences and member schools are seeking to end through federal legislation that they also also want to use as vehicle to put national rules around college athletes’ activities to make money from their name, image and likeness (NIL).

The complaint was filed two days after NCAA President Charlie Baker sent a letter to NCAA membership proposing dramatic changes to the association's rules concern athlete compensation. The changes include creating a new competitive subdivision whose school would be required to “invest at least $30,000 per year into an enhanced educational trust fund for at least half of the institution’s eligible student-athletes.” In addition, Baker wrote that "rules should change for any Division I school, at their choice, to enter into name, image and likeness licensing opportunities with their student-athletes.”

Clock on the link for the rest of story

 

[MGGopher]

 

[BilldGopher]

I guess we could go back to the original funding model...fans paying to be in the stands for the actual games, with everyone not there informed by using the telegraph to transmit the play-by-play for the newspaper to print for the next day...or week...etc. There is of course the revenue from ads in the gameday program that probably adds up too.

That will certainly take the $$$ out, which of course is the root of all this.

EDIT: Guessing there were beer sales too, which was a plus until prohibition.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

so apparently, this is a separate case from the 'House vs NCAA' case. the House case is a class-action lawsuit being heard in Federal district court in California. if the plaintiffs win that case, schools could potentially have to compensate over 10,000 current and former athletes who - according to the lawsuit - had their potential NIL earnings restricted. that suit is also seeking to have athletes share in TV broadcast revenues.

this new case discussed in the OP appears to be filed based on anti-trust issues and deals with the question of whether schools can compensate athletes directly.

some of the same lawyers are involved in both cases.

it appears that they are carpet-bombing the NCAA with lawsuits and hoping that at least one is successful.

 

[Full Speed Ahead]

Are we headed to a situation where schools will no longer have teams? For example, there could be a "Minnesota Gophers" sports corporation (just like today there's a Minnesota Timberwolves organization with men's and woman's teams), but it'd be legally separate from the university. This sports corporation could join a league called the "NCAA" and within that league, there could be a conference called the "Big 10", but it'd just be another professional sports league like any other professional sports league, with multiple conferences, where the champions of each conference could meet in playoffs. Just like current leagues, there could be salary caps and all the player's union rules. We basically keep the programs going, but they're no longer under the umbrella of colleges and universities.

 

[DarthGopher]

so apparently, this is a separate case from the 'House vs NCAA' case. the House case is a class-action lawsuit being heard in Federal district court in California. if the plaintiffs win that case, schools could potentially have to compensate over 10,000 current and former athletes who - according to the lawsuit - had their potential NIL earnings restricted. that suit is also seeking to have athletes share in TV broadcast revenues.

this new case discussed in the OP appears to be filed based on anti-trust issues and deals with the question of whether schools can compensate athletes directly.

some of the same lawyers are involved in both cases.

it appears that they are carpet-bombing the NCAA with lawsuits and hoping that at least one is successful.

Parasites exhibit similar behaviors. They exist only to consume and multiply, eventually killing the host.

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

Are we headed to a situation where schools will no longer have teams? For example, there could be a "Minnesota Gophers" sports corporation (just like today there's a Minnesota Timberwolves organization with men's and woman's teams), but it'd be legally separate from the university. This sports corporation could join a league called the "NCAA" and within that league, there could be a conference called the "Big 10", but it'd just be another professional sports league like any other professional sports league, with multiple conferences, where the champions of each conference could meet in playoffs. Just like current leagues, there could be salary caps and all the player's union rules. We basically keep the programs going, but they're no longer under the umbrella of colleges and universities.

First thing that happened when I read SON’s post, was I thought, when is the expiration date for the NCAA five or ten years; their fee ride is over. My second thought was, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) time - they could take over the second most popular sport in the country for pocket change on their end.

In the article in my OP, Bilas, who i like and respect - especially because he overcame his Duke Disability, says a billion dollar entity cannot get away with not paying the content producers(athletes) - click on the link to see his brief thoughts on it in a video interview.

Some days I wanna go back to middle school waiting for my SI to come and having limited games to watch, as the simplicity was charming.

However, more importantly, I’m glad the athletes are finally getting some equity for their efforts.

The NCAA should have deal with this directly when Ed O’Bannon sued and Northwestern football tried to unionize - now they’re going to get cremated in court.

 

[MplsGopher]

The NCAA is not a for-profit organization. They don’t bring in money by the truck load, to impress shareholders.

All this could end up doing is make the NCAA go: “F this S. Go do it yourself.”

 

[MplsGopher]

The easiest way around Title IX is to make football players be employees of the Big Ten conference, and pay them a salary that gets taken right off the top of the football TV money, before the money ever makes it to the school.

Having it done by the school, is what makes it a Title IX issue.

The conference, on the other hand, is not an educational institution that receives federal aid (ie. FAFSA grant money).