Judge releases ruling on O'Bannon case: NCAA loses

[jostar1]

A federal judge ruled Friday that the NCAA's limits on what major college football and men's basketball players can receive for playing sports "unreasonably restrain trade" in violation of antitrust laws.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, in a 99-page ruling in favor of a group of plaintiffs led by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, issued an injunction that will prevent the NCAA the "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."

The ruling comes a day after the NCAA Board of Directors voted 16-2 to give the five power conferences and their 65 members a level of legislative autonomy never seen before in the history of the organization.

More to come from USA TODAY Sports

 

[sportsart]

College sports as we know it today will soon RIP.

Sigh....

 

[jfuchs91]

This just appears to be another step towards the eventual demise of the NCAA. And as much as I despise the NCAA as an organization, this also bodes extremely poorly for UConn athletics until we get into a power conference.

Seriously, has Murphy's Law ever been more applicable to anything than UConn in conference realignment? Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong. It's beyond absurd at this point.

 

[CL82]

It's officially lawless now. Offer what you want. They good news is that UConn's MBB is likely to be a pretty desirable product and thus a source of funds for us....to share.

PDF of the decision

 

[upstater]

Wilken showed she was out of her depth on college sports. That's understandable. College sport are nutty. She ended up setting an artificial cap across the board, which is what she found the NCAA guilty of doing.

My question: how would this be enforced? Who is going to force Wake Forest to pay $5k?

I know all the schools are going to pay it, but what if they all decided not to pay it?

 

[noeynox]

If this holds up after appeal, I wonder if you will see the first real signs of schools leaving division one. If anything is going to trigger another round of conference realignment, this has to be it. Like upstater I'm a little surprised she set a cap. That was almost like a little protection for the lower end of the haves.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I see college sports losing an anti-trust trial. I think this bodes well for us, since UConn almost certainly will be a plaintiff eventually.

 

[kyleslamb]

College sports as we know it today will soon RIP.

Sigh....

Not really. This ruling actually was favorable for the NCAA and if they finally stop being too stubborn to realize it, they should forego any appeal and accept this decision with open arms.

This judgment didn't give third party endorsements to athletes and capped the compensation at a very reasonable price. The NCAA can now pursue conference and organization-wide endorsements further and actually be in better shape than they were before since the judge ruled they could institute a cap on monetary compensation to the athletes.

IMHO, this was a rare win-win for all parties involved.

To be honest, though, while I actually like this ruling, the fairest thing would have been to not have a cap, but regulate the amount for each type of endorsement and put all earnings in a clearinghouse/trust. Then upon graduation or expiration of a 5-year clock, the athlete would be compensated for all prorated earnings based on endorsement type. And if the NCAA doesn't tread carefully, that is a more likely scenario... so they should have a smile on their face and take this to the bank.

 

[TerryD]

This is not quite as Pyrrhic a "court victory" as the USFL lawsuit in the Eighties, but it is very far from "destroying college sports as we know it".

I agree with Kyle.

 

[Jimdish255]

I've always felt the NCAA and the Universities should increase their food and travel subsidies to athletes. The other part would be to allocate a percentage of revenues to a trust fund to be paid "upon graduation" as part of the scholarship contract. No graduation within 5 years, no payment. An actual incentive to be a student athlete.

 

[Fishy]

I'm not a lawyer, but I generally find that they don't know what they're talking about anyway, so here goes - I can't imagine that the $5,000 will hold up.

As a response to a restraint of trade issue, the judge just moved the line of restraint from $0 to $5,000...but isn't it still a restraint?!

That is the scary part.

 

[kyleslamb]

I'm not a lawyer, but I generally find that they don't know what they're talking about anyway, so here goes - I can't imagine that the $5,000 will hold up.

As a response to a restraint of trade issue, the judge just moved the line of restraint from $0 to $5,000...but isn't it still a restraint?!

That is the scary part.

Perhaps Terry has a better answer to that, but I was under the impression that they could regulate it reasonably just not restrain it. To me, the cap seems like a fair regulation as long as it permits some access to the market. I do wonder, having not yet read the brief, where the judge came up with that $5,000 figure though.

 

[Fishy]

Perhaps Terry has a better answer to that, but I was under the impression that they could regulate it reasonably just not restrain it. To me, the cap seems like a fair regulation as long as it permits some access to the market. I do wonder, having not yet read the brief, where the judge came up with that $5,000 figure though.

That was my issue with it - it seems so random and arbitrary.

 

[jostar1]

NCAA will appeal O’Bannon ruling

Statement from Donald Remy, NCAA chief legal officer

We remain confident that the NCAA has not violated the antitrust laws and intend to appeal. We will also be seeking clarity from the District Court on some details of its ruling.

https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/press-releases/ncaa-will-appeal-o’bannon-ruling

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I am not sure appealing this is a smart move to Mr. Emmert and the NCAA. I thought the ruling did them a favor by applying an arbitrary cap. The next judge may not be so flexible and blow it up resulting in no cap and free agency coming to the NCAA. Just look at all of the contrasting judicial findings in US healthcare reform.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

I am not sure appealing this is a smart move to Mr. Emmert and the NCAA. I thought the ruling did them a favor by applying an arbitrary cap. The next judge may not be so flexible and blow it up resulting in no cap and free agency coming to the NCAA. Just look at all of the contrasting judicial findings in US healthcare reform.

It may or may not be smart but it was widely anticipated that the NCAA would appeal this into the ground. Some posited that the NCAA threw the trial in a sense, knowing they'd likely lose, but setup points they could appeal and win.

 

[kyleslamb]

It may or may not be smart but it was widely anticipated that the NCAA would appeal this into the ground. Some posited that the NCAA threw the trial in a sense, knowing they'd likely lose, but setup points they could appeal and win.

I don't see any sense in that. If they were likely to lose this trial based on the legal merits of the case, they'd be no more likely to win the appeal unless it were a sheer technicality.

Fact is, there is no logic to what the NCAA's legal strategy is. They are just throwing darts at a wall, at his point. Their legal stance is that amateurs are amateurs and shouldn't get paid because they are students... because they say so!

 

[upstater]

I don't see any sense in that. If they were likely to lose this trial based on the legal merits of the case, they'd be no more likely to win the appeal unless it were a sheer technicality.

Fact is, there is no logic to what the NCAA's legal strategy is. They are just throwing darts at a wall, at his point. Their legal stance is that amateurs are amateurs and shouldn't get paid because they are students... because they say so!

But there is precedent here. The NLRB a while back ruled that teaching assistants were in effect amateurs. Also, what of unpaid internships? Aren't interns amateurs in effect? There is precedence for the NCAA's position.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

I don't see any sense in that. If they were likely to lose this trial based on the legal merits of the case, they'd be no more likely to win the appeal unless it were a sheer technicality.

Fact is, there is no logic to what the NCAA's legal strategy is. They are just throwing darts at a wall, at his point. Their legal stance is that amateurs are amateurs and shouldn't get paid because they are students... because they say so!

That's the thing, they think they can get it on legal technicalities here and there. This will be tied up in the courts for a long, long time.

 

[kyleslamb]

That's the thing, they think they can get it on legal technicalities here and there. This will be tied up in the courts for a long, long time.

If they truly had legal technicalities, they would have used them already. You don't tie up a case through appeals if you truly think you have a technicality that can end it after one trial.

The NCAA doesn't have a case. They don't have any legal loopholes up their sleeve. They are doing nothing more than grasping at straws.

 

[kyleslamb]

But there is precedent here. The NLRB a while back ruled that teaching assistants were in effect amateurs. Also, what of unpaid internships? Aren't interns amateurs in effect? There is precedence for the NCAA's position.

If any of that were there position, they'd have used it in this trial. But they brought none of that to the table. Honestly their legal position throughout this case was 'because we said so!'

That said, clearly merely being 'amateur' is in itself not a legal position for denying access to the free market for one's own likeness. You can't cite the NRLB position on amateurs since the NLRB has now specifically applied the employee label to athletes. Remember the Brown University case was different because the teaching assistant label was specifically tied to academic requirements within their training, whereas the role of an athlete is not. So that precedent, according to the NRLB, is not applicable to this case.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

This covers only mens FSB football and D1 basketball.
There are only 12o FSB who are currently allowed 85 scholarships.They are evenly divided between P5 and G5. There are over 300 Div1 basketball schools .
Half of the which might have difficulty with compliance. So Even DI basketball participation could be effected.
FCS football schools are only allowed 63 ,Div II only 36. DIII 0.
With zero opportunity for FSC schools to have money games and only a handful of FSB non P5 . Not to mention lack of opportunity to ever move up
Why stay at FSC move to DII.
The ratio of women's scholarships is based somewhat on men's.
For every school that decides to drop an equal number of Women's Scholarship possibly could be reduced. Talk about a civil rights issue.
The P5 move and the O'bannon ruling could reduce the the number of scholarships available by hundreds even thousands.
There are currently 40,000 kids playing . At least half are receiving aid. About 5,000 of these in p5. Those kids are safe everyone else is in jeprody.

 

[upstater]

If any of that were there position, they'd have used it in this trial. But they brought none of that to the table. Honestly their legal position throughout this case was 'because we said so!'

That said, clearly merely being 'amateur' is in itself not a legal position for denying access to the free market for one's own likeness. You can't cite the NRLB position on amateurs since the NLRB has now specifically applied the employee label to athletes. Remember the Brown University case was different because the teaching assistant label was specifically tied to academic requirements within their training, whereas the role of an athlete is not. So that precedent, according to the NRLB, is not applicable to this case.

The NLRB ruling is being appealed. I expect it will be overturned. If not, you're going to have to revisit Brown. Because the Northwestern guy totally misunderstood that the service provided had little to nothing to do with academic training. I saw a long review of the decision in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. that was very convincing about what a debacle the decision was. Either way, I don't think the two rulings can diverge. If Northwestern is upheld, then Brown will be challenged.

 

[kyleslamb]

The NLRB ruling is being appealed. I expect it will be overturned. If not, you're going to have to revisit Brown. Because the Northwestern guy totally misunderstood that the service provided had little to nothing to do with academic training. I saw a long review of the decision in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. that was very convincing about what a debacle the decision was. Either way, I don't think the two rulings can diverge. If Northwestern is upheld, then Brown will be challenged.

I wholly disagree. Anyone around athletics knows that the NLRB made absolutely the right decision. Athletes are not tied to their academic credentials. Flat out they are told what classes to take by their coaches/advisers in many cases and their academic schedules & credentials are tailored to athletics. The NLRB flat out got it right. They have no business being treated, legally, as if athletics has anything to do with the academic mission. It simply does not.

With all due respect, the Chronicle of Higher Ed is probably living in the same fantasy land these school presidents are living. They simply are in a Utopian Society and have no clue about how the day to day operations are being run. They do not have their finger on the pulse with the legal aspect nor the reality.

 

[upstater]

I wholly disagree. Anyone around athletics knows that the NLRB made absolutely the right decision. Athletes are not tied to their academic credentials. Flat out they are told what classes to take by their coaches/advisers in many cases and their academic schedules & credentials are tailored to athletics. The NLRB flat out got it right. They have no business being treated, legally, as if athletics has anything to do with the academic mission. It simply does not.

With all due respect, the Chronicle of Higher Ed is probably living in the same fantasy land these school presidents are living. They simply are in a Utopian Society and have no clue about how the day to day operations are being run. They do not have their finger on the pulse with the legal aspect nor the reality.

It wasn't an Op-Ed piece. It was someone that was involved with the Brown decision. As for the NLRB, I wrote it misunderstood the Brown decision. There were so many specious assumptions made that it defied belief. We went over this when it came out. Like I said, the two decisions should not diverge since both deal with students who provide a service to the university. There're no distinctions between the two.