A California federal judge has rejected the NCAA’s efforts to have a two-year old antitrust case thrown out. The class action, brought by former UCLA and NBA forward Ed O’Bannon and former college and professional stars Bill Russell and Oscar Robinson, asks the court to lift the NCAA’s ban on payments to college players for team-related activities. The players’ major claim is that they are entitled to a cut of the revenues and profits colleges and universities earn from using their likenesses and names in such things as TV broadcasts and licensed video games. As a remedy, they propose establishing a trust fund to hold each player’s share of these profits and revenues and disburse payments to players when they leave school.
The NCAA argues that current and former players are ineligible for a cut of colleges’ profits because they (1) are amateurs and (2) waived their marketing rights when they joined college teams.
The economic stakes are high: TV broadcast revenues from college sports are estimated at nearly $2 billion a year. And merchandise licensing revenue from items like T-shirts, caps, shoes, and video games were valued at $4.6 billion in 2012.
The case is scheduled for trial in July 2014.
