ed obannon lawsuit

Yesterday, the NFL settled with a group of former players who had sued them for using their identities without permission. What's more, the NFL had an insane-seeming clause barring those same players from using their own identifies:

Hall of Famer Elvin Bethea and five other retired players filed the federal class-action lawsuit in Minneapolis in 2009 accusing the NFL of blatantly exploiting retired players' identities in films, highlight reels and memorabilia to market the league's "glory days."

"The retired players who created these glory days, however, have gone almost completely uncompensated for this use of their identities," the plaintiffs said. "Notably, while exploiting the identities of retired players for commercial gain, the NFL prohibits retired NFL players from using their own identities as players to promote themselves commercially."

Instead of facing down a court case, the NFL settled to the tune of 42 million dollars. Because they were going to lose, hard. Yesterday was a good day for Ed O'Bannon.

O'Bannon, of course, is the former UCLA basketball player irritated enough that he was in an EA Sports game to launch a class-action suit against the NCAA for almost the same issue the NFL just settled on, down to the insane-seeming cause. In the NCAA, those athletes sign away their publicity rights in perpetuity as a condition of the scholarship they get. But as anyone who's followed discussion about a coach's multimillion dollar buyout clause knows, just because it's in a contract doesn't mean its enforceable. Thus the pending class action.

O'Bannon and company have shifted tack from the relatively paltry amount of money provided by video game publishers to the Big Kahuna, amending their complaint to target game broadcasts. The NCAA's last response is to prevent the class from being certified thanks to a precedent they earned in a different breathtakingly cynical fight:

The NCAA relies heavily on its victory in a case regarding scholarship limits. Walk-on football players filed a class action against the NCAA arguing that in the absence of the 85 scholarship limit, they would have received full athletic scholarships. The court in that case refused to certify the class, because each player would have to prove individually that he would have received a football scholarship.

Yesterday, a bunch of motions in that case were made public, and everyone seized on this Jim Delany statement to laugh at the most hollow threat not made by a Jong-Il in the past 50 years:

Rather, it has been my longstanding belief that The Big Ten's schools would forgo the revenues in those circumstances and instead take steps to downsize the scope, breadth, and activity of their athletic programs. Several alternatives to a "pay for play" model exist, such as the Division III model, which does not offer any athletics-based grants-in-aid, and, among others, a need-based financial aid model. These alternatives would, in my view, be more consistent with The Big Ten's philosophy that the educational and lifetime economic benefits associated with a university education are the appropriate quid pro quo for its student-athletes.

Stupid or deceitful? I think the latter given Jim Delany's extremely malleable opinion on playoffs, but then again he is the man who gave us "Leaders and Legends" and wrote an open letter about how the SEC is poopy pants in 2007, thus dooming us to ALL THE SEC since. We may never know.

This is an organization that feels a university education is a sufficient quid pro quo for work that earns various people seven-figure salaries to play glorified secretary, and then fights lawsuits that would open up those university educations to more people because that might impinge on those seven figure salaries.

And this, of course, is a man who has spent the last twenty years thinking about nothing but money. He created a television network for money. He added Nebraska for money. He split Michigan and Ohio State in the vague hope of getting more money if they played twice. He added Rutgers and Maryland for money despite the fact that 11 of the 12 fanbases in the Big Ten would rather boil themselves in oil than play those teams in anything. Once he is presented with the idea he might have to share some of his money, he threatens to take the whole damn thing out of the system, into another system that will be exposed to the same legal precedent that prevents you from outrageously sharecropping athletes. The answer is probably "both." As Michael of Braves and Birds put it on twitter:

Delany's declaration is one step removed from threatening to attack Fort Sumter. "Our whole economic system is built on exploitation, so if you require that we pay our labor, we'll secede!" - Delany as Jefferson Davis.

As it becomes increasingly clear that the value of a university degree is coming unhinged from how much it costs, athletic departments continue to pile up more and more money that has to go somewhere. Increasingly, that is to the Jim Delanys of the world:

Michigan Budget, 2006

• Revenue of 68 million dollars
• 21 million spent on "salaries, wages, and benefits"
• 11 million spent on "financial aid to students"

Michigan Budget, 2013

• Revenue of 130 million dollars (a 91% increase)
• 44 million spent on "salaries, wages, and benefits" (a 109% increase)
• 18 million spent on "financial aid to students" (a 64% increase)

Despite the increase in athlete outlays, really there is no increased value there for the folks actually making the money. Instead the athletic department adds sports (lacrosse) and the University continues its unsustainable tuition spiral. The net for the athlete is the degree, then and now. When Texas A&M offered Bo a million dollars and he was reduced to tears because he had to choose between securing his family and staying at Michigan, that was maybe plausible. Today? Bitch, please.

According to a recent report in USA Today Sports, athletic directors at FBS schools are paid an average of $515,000 annually, an increase of more than 14 percent since … 2011. At the low end of the scale, Louisiana-Monroe AD Bobby Staub took home $109,923; at the high end, Louisville's Tom Jurich pocketed $1,401,915. Over the last two years, the number of athletic directors making $1 million or more has jumped from six to nine, while the number making $800,000 or more has risen from nine to 15. None of this is entirely new. Back in 2010 -- that is, when unemployment was at 9.9 percent and the nation was still reeling from the worst financial crisis since 1929 -- at least 10 public schools gave their athletic directors pay raises of $75,000 or more.

But you feel that a university education is the same bonus it's always been. You feel that it's fair that every extra dollar the players on the field make is destined for someplace other than their pockets. I feel that if every athletic director in the country disappeared tomorrow, no one outside their families would notice, and that if you took the best player off of every BCS football team the country would collapse into riots and chaos by Thursday. Useless vampires of college sports, I hope the courts annihilate your business model so thoroughly you end up shining Denard Robinson's shoes.

"People who have talent and bring something significant to the party expect to be paid fairly. I have no problem stepping up and paying talent for what they deserve."

-Dave Brandon

Iowa: not very good. BHGP on the Hawkeye depth chart at guard and RB:

IOWA FOOTBALL TAKES ON MICHIGAN SATURDAY (/GROAN).Here's the two-deeps. Conor Boffeli is your left guard this week. Jordan Walsh, Austin Blythe, Nolan MacMillan and Boffeli have all had a turn playing turnstile there since Brandon Scherff and Andrew Donnal left the Penn State game due to injury. Neither Mark Weisman nor Brad Rogers are listed at running back or fullback.

Last week, Damon Bullock got to play an Iowan version of Poor Damn Toussaint, rushing for 1.9 yards a carry against Purdue, the #85 rushing D in the country. Iowa is not good. FWIW, the game was off the board yesterday but has now been set at Michigan –20. Iowa is not good.

YAHHHHHHHHHH / Bryan Fuller

Basketball: possibly very good. I took in my first non-tiny-stream version of Michigan basketball last night*, and this happened:

"I probably should've dunked it," the Michigan freshman forward joked. "I missed a little tip-in, I was kind of upset about that."

It was awful. I'm so depressed.

The Wolverines' freshman forward showed off every facet of his game, and his potential, scoring 21 points on 8 of 9 shooting. He went 3-for-3 from behind the 3-point line, he finished off alley-oop dunks and even grabbed six rebounds.

Oh right that part well you guys just aren't demanding enough excellence. It is only by doing so on the internet that excellence can be achieved.

But seriously folks. !!!

Let us take a brief moment to consider Jordan Morgan, who continues to lose weight and get more athletic. He uses this additional athleticism to be incredibly annoying. Here is a screen in your face. Here is a hedge of your screen that puts you in the corner six feet from the three point line. Also it comes with free batting at the ball. He is going to rotate back now and not block your shot but just make it so that when you jump you're bouncing off him a little. And then he will run the floor.

Morgan's still undersized and may still be foul-prone against better competition, but this year Michigan can turn to Mitch McGary and Jon Horford when that happens instead of a badly miscast Evan Smotrycz, so I don't even care that much except Morgan does seem a step or two better than those guys because of the aforementioned embodiment of the most annoying noise in the world.

Big guys have a tendency to make that senior step up—Chris Young, Pete Vignier, Graham Brown—that makes them loveable lunch-bucket little-coaching-squee machines, and Morgan is in that year even if he's a junior thanks to the redshirt. There's a reason he's starting.

He'll probably see his minutes reduced against teams that can put out a post guy who can simply outhuge him; other than that it's going to be hard to get him off the floor.

Other things:

• Vogrich > Stauskas at the moment because of defense, Stauskas > anyone in terms of three point shooting ever. Totally not getting ahead of myself based on three games.
• The defense started off a little ugly, but after it was 26-25 ten minutes in the Jags scored only 29 more points in the final 30 minutes. It doesn't seem like it will be a strength, though. That's the tangible thing Michigan will miss without Novak/Douglass.
• Jon Horford thunderdunk + Tim Hardaway thunderdunk + GRIII alley-oop festival == John Beilein looking at his team, thinking about the dudes he coached at Cansisius and wondering if it's even the same sport.
• Not a huge fan of the two post setup. If you're going to do that one of them has to be able to operate out of the high post or shoot—not necessarily threes, but midrange jumpers—and I'm not sure Michigan's posts are prepared to do that yet. McGary might be a high post guy in time. They'll probably run it 10 minutes a game or so.
• McGary's blown layup thing definitely looked like a guy used to having more up than he currently has. Looks like he'll have time to round into shape.
• Fact: Spike Albrecht is better than half of the guys Amaker recruited.
• Hardaway took no threes. In fact, there were exactly two shots all game that irritated me, one a long contested heat check Burke three, the other a long Hardaway two with 20 seconds on the shot clock. Two is kind of an amazing low number.

*[Defensive defense of self: It's hard for me to carve out the time to go to Crisler early in the week because I am working so hard for you, reader, and hockey versus MSU against BBball versus Slippery Rock is no contest.]

The vexer is now the vexee! Or maybe vice-versa. I'm vexed.

Will Campbell wrapping up vexing career by playing his best football

Commence the Rodriguez rabbling!

"It's been bumpy, it's been up and down," Campbell said. "I wish I was under this coaching staff all four years, but I wasn't, so the opportunities they gave me I just tried to capitalize on.

"I'm not saying that (the previous staff held me back). I was just lazy and young, and didn't realize the opportunities in front of me."

You could have had a stuffed animal rubbed on your face, man. That was the opportunity you missed in favor of eating cheeseburgers and playing video games. Verdict: good call.

Format set, mostly. The people who made the playoff thing got together to hammer out some playoff details. They are:

• A 12-year contract featuring a bucket of money delivered by ESPN.
• The Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowl all have set lineups, with the Orange featuring the ACC champ versus the highest ranked SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame entity that did not make the playoff or the Rose/Sugar.
• The highest ranked team from a minor conference—Big East now included—gets an auto bid to an "access" bowl. In years when the Rose/Sugar/Orange are all out of the semifinal business that means there is essentially one slot up for grabs.
• It's unclear what happens when the Rose hosts a semi and the Fiesta/Cotton/Peach bowls are acquiring teams. When the Rose/Sugar are hosting semis they will not allow the Big Ten or SEC champ to be in the Orange Bowl to make the Fiesta/Cotton/Peach setups more attractive in a long term TV contract.
• There is another bucket of money coming for the title game.

More documents, more facepalming for the NCAA. Get The Picture has been all over every document released as part of the Ed O'Bannon case's discovery process, and here's the latest palm-to-forehead moment:

Davis then writes: "Here's my concern -- Eil [sic] is a current player on the Ole Miss team. Is using his actual number and attributes (height, race, etc.) too close to reality thereby using Eli's likeness (if not his name) and causing an eligibility issue?"

Another NCAA staffer, Melissa Caito, wrote in response: "Pls be cautious as you move through this -- any more 'watering down' of the video games will likely move the manufacturers to cease operations with us."

I'm not a lawyer, but that seems bad.

BONUS:

Another document made public Monday by the plaintiffs lawyers showed the results of an NCAA commercialism and licensing survey in which 12 of 150 responding Division I schools said they "engage in the sale of licensed products bearing a current student-athlete's individual likeness."

This was 2004 to 2006. I wonder what constitutes "likeness" here—it's possible some schools admit that putting 16 on a jersey and selling it is enough, while others are like "16, never heard of him, who's named 16 lol nobody."

Etc.: MGoUser hops on reddit to ask if people actually show up at other schools. Burke is now 20, also scoring and assisting. Billy Taylor documentary is FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY. Even the most reasonable minds have to wonder about whether there is some conspiracy at Penn State. Oh… against Penn State? Oh. Safety blitzin'.