The Ninth Circuit disagreed with the NCAA’s argument that its rules preventing athletes from being paid makes college sports more attractive to recruits.
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The $5,000 cap decided by Wilken won’t actually happen, but paying athletes full cost of attendance must be allowed.
Mr. Vaccaro said he did not expect the ruling to be appealed.
“I was an athlete masquerading as a student”, O’Bannon said in court. The group was led by former UCLA basketball star, Ed O’Bannon, and a trial court judge sided with them last August. The decision is a rare bit of good news for an organization that has been under perpetual attack in antitrust litigation during the past several years. “Justice [John Paul] Stevens’ conclusion is still correct. They’re getting their education paid for”.
The appellate judges wrote that the 1984 Supreme Court case “did not approve the NCAA’s amateurism rules as categorically consistent with the Sherman Act”. However, Wednesday’s decision struck down the part of District Judge Claudia Wilken’s decision that would have allowed for deferred compensation of $5,000 to players for the use of their likenesses. The athletes could appeal the ruling on cash compensation, an option Hausfeld said his clients are considering. “The athletes as a whole have a right to participate in the broadcast licensing market”. These games have made the NCAA a lot of money, so it’s not silly to think they’ll probably want to do that again someday. The NCAA scored a victory last month when the National Labor Relations Board overturned a finding that Northwestern University football players were employees who could unionize. But those rules must be reviewed under antitrust laws to determine whether there are less restrictive alternatives.
The governing body has given conferences the freedom to institute cost-of-attendance stipends along with the athletic scholarships now given out.
Although the NCAA is the clear victor in this decision, the court’s reasoning set off a few alarms that may result in an appeal by the NCAA.
Wilken also ruled that those players should be compensated with the full cost of attendance. Our goal is for our students to learn teamwork and leadership through sports, and then graduate and be successful.
“We need a Presidential Commission to figure all this out”, she said. But it’s a far cry from the full compensation that O’Bannon and other suing athletes are seeking.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in Tennessee threw out a class action lawsuit filed by 10 former athletes against ESPN and other broadcasters, ruling that telecasts were exempt from right of publicity claims.
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the NCAA violates antitrust laws by curbing how much athletes can receive while playing collegiate sports.
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“We’re analyzing that”, Remy said. “We’ll just see how that plays out during the hearing”. That case later settled for $40 million.
