M
Mars"In a landmark decision, a federal judge ruled Friday that the NCAA is in violation of the nation's antitrust laws by restricting the compensation that major college football and men's basketball student-athletes can receive for use of their names, images and likenesses.
"The Court finds that the challenged NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools," Wilken wrote in issuing an injunction prohibiting the NCAA from enforcing its rules on money given to athletes when it comes to their names, images and likenesses. Wilken rejected the NCAA's arguments in defense of its economic model, saying the "justifications that the NCAA offers do not justify this restraint and could be achieved through less restrictive means" while preserving college sports competition.
The NCAA cannot stop schools or conferences from paying football and Division I men's basketball players money that is generated through the use of their names and images, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled.
Wilken said it could set a cap on the money paid to athletes for use of their names and images, as long as it allows at least $5,000 per athlete per year of competition for players at big football and basketball schools. "The NCAA's witnesses stated that their concerns about student-athlete compensation would be minimized or negated if compensation was capped at a few thousand dollars per year," Wilken wrote. Wilken said they will not affect any prospective recruits before July 1, 2016. Former athletes will not be paid, because they gave up their right to damages in a pretrial move so the case would be heard by a judge, not a jury.
The ruling comes after a five-year battle by O'Bannon and others on behalf of college athletes to receive a share of the billions of dollars generated by college athletics' huge television contracts. The case was centered on federal antitrust law and whether the prohibition against paying players promotes the game and does not restrain competition in the marketplace. In a scathing post-trial brief, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the NCAA basically staked its defense on a 1984 Supreme Court decision that said the fundamental rule of amateurism was at the core of the NCAA's regulation of college athletics and that the organization could have suggested other remedies to help athletes to justify its control of the college sports marketplace.
Attorneys for the NCAA, though, said moving away from the concept of amateurism in which players participate for the love of the game would drive spectators away from college sports and would upset the competitive balance among schools and conferences. Witnesses called by the NCAA during the trial spoke of the education provided athletes as payment for their services and said the college model has functioned well for more than a century. They contended that paying players would make college sports less popular and could force schools to cut other programs funded by the hundreds of millions of dollars taken in by big time athletics. The head of the Big Ten painted a dire picture of what college sports would look like in his testimony, saying his conference would likely cease to exist. Jim Delany said the idea of paying players goes against the entire college experience and he couldn't see league members agreeing to it. If some did, he said, they likely would be kicked out of the conference because the move would create an imbalance among schools that could not be resolved. That theme has since been echoed by college and conference administrators, even as they move forward on plans -- prompted in party by the O'Bannon suit and a unionization effort by players at Northwestern -- to give expanded benefits to athletes in the 65 schools that comprise the five biggest conferences in the country."
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"The Court finds that the challenged NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools," Wilken wrote in issuing an injunction prohibiting the NCAA from enforcing its rules on money given to athletes when it comes to their names, images and likenesses. Wilken rejected the NCAA's arguments in defense of its economic model, saying the "justifications that the NCAA offers do not justify this restraint and could be achieved through less restrictive means" while preserving college sports competition.
The NCAA cannot stop schools or conferences from paying football and Division I men's basketball players money that is generated through the use of their names and images, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled.
Wilken said it could set a cap on the money paid to athletes for use of their names and images, as long as it allows at least $5,000 per athlete per year of competition for players at big football and basketball schools. "The NCAA's witnesses stated that their concerns about student-athlete compensation would be minimized or negated if compensation was capped at a few thousand dollars per year," Wilken wrote. Wilken said they will not affect any prospective recruits before July 1, 2016. Former athletes will not be paid, because they gave up their right to damages in a pretrial move so the case would be heard by a judge, not a jury.
The ruling comes after a five-year battle by O'Bannon and others on behalf of college athletes to receive a share of the billions of dollars generated by college athletics' huge television contracts. The case was centered on federal antitrust law and whether the prohibition against paying players promotes the game and does not restrain competition in the marketplace. In a scathing post-trial brief, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the NCAA basically staked its defense on a 1984 Supreme Court decision that said the fundamental rule of amateurism was at the core of the NCAA's regulation of college athletics and that the organization could have suggested other remedies to help athletes to justify its control of the college sports marketplace.
Attorneys for the NCAA, though, said moving away from the concept of amateurism in which players participate for the love of the game would drive spectators away from college sports and would upset the competitive balance among schools and conferences. Witnesses called by the NCAA during the trial spoke of the education provided athletes as payment for their services and said the college model has functioned well for more than a century. They contended that paying players would make college sports less popular and could force schools to cut other programs funded by the hundreds of millions of dollars taken in by big time athletics. The head of the Big Ten painted a dire picture of what college sports would look like in his testimony, saying his conference would likely cease to exist. Jim Delany said the idea of paying players goes against the entire college experience and he couldn't see league members agreeing to it. If some did, he said, they likely would be kicked out of the conference because the move would create an imbalance among schools that could not be resolved. That theme has since been echoed by college and conference administrators, even as they move forward on plans -- prompted in party by the O'Bannon suit and a unionization effort by players at Northwestern -- to give expanded benefits to athletes in the 65 schools that comprise the five biggest conferences in the country."