NCAA settles with players on EA lawsuit for $20 million
Per CBS Sports.
Football and basketball players appearing in the games from 2005 to 2014 are expected to receive approximately $1,000 per year they appeared in the game. It applies only to players at certain schools.
As mentioned below, the NCAA is still denying the claims of the O'Bannon case and that case is proceeding. This only applies to the use of their image in the EA games.
This isn't the O'Bannon suit. It's the related Keller suit.
The O'Bannon trial started today.
and was scheduled to go to trial in 2015. Pales in significance to O'Bannon, which started today, and potentially paves the way for individuals to market their own likenesses if NCAA cartel is judged to be in violation of antitrust laws.
Interesting part of Keller is that NCAA is saying it's OK with payments going to current players who joined the class and are entitled to proceeds. They're giving as much tactical ground as they possibly can and fighting on the ground that counts, i.e. the antitrust issue.
"The NCAA said the settlement will award $20 million to various Division I football and men's basketball players who attended certain universities during the years the games were sold."
From the players' view, I believe, this helps to desconstruct that the argument that the NCAA maintained that the selection of numbers and/or likenesses was random when the NCAA used them in various media. Clearly - no, obviously - it was not. Hopefully, this helps to pave the way for schools recognizing that they make on these kids, if you will.
except teams in the SEC would still throw money at someone to sway their decisions. If athletes get paid the same at michigan, and florida, Florida would just double it (under the table of course)
No, we leave the jackass-ness to the coaches, NCAA executives, and entitled fans.
thought you were the in-house lawyer around here?
Again, stupid athletes not wanting to be exploited!
This perfectly crystalizes why the players are complaining. Fans buy these games because they want to play as their favorite college players. EA then says the characteristics are "totally random", yet UM a couple years ago had this #16 who was really fast but a mediocre thrower. And oh yeah, Texas A&M absolutely had a stud QB who was a sophomore but totally wasn't Johnny Football.
My point is, the reason these games made money was because they featured the players on the field in everything but name. If "paying kids we are exploiting" is the reason they won't make these games (which I absolutely don't believe will be the long-term case), then so be it.
In all fairness to EASports, #16 for Michigan never had dreads and his shoes were always tied.
I didn't say they weren't tricky about it...
Also, the offensive coordinator called a coherent gameplan, so that definitely threw me off in the beginning as well.
Come on, it's obviously not about the specific amount of money. The case was about the idea that it was laughable that the NCAA claimed that the likeness of players were not used. They were making millions of dollars off of these kids faces and claiming they were not. It isn't about whether the game was fun or not.
To get a tiny sliver of the million-dollar franchises their likenesses gave immense value to? Again, I don't see why there is a groundswell of support for a bunch of video game executives who were getting away with not paying for the likenesses of the players that made their games so valuable.
some will applaud this as a "win" for those being "exploited", but all it really is is a massive loss for the fans of college football. A few ex-players get chump change, and no one will ever make an NCAA related video game again. Meanwhile, players will continue to be exploited, because let's be honest--the video games were really the least of their problems.
I don't disagree that the system needs to make some changes. But was basically destroying all ability to create college sports video games really at the top of the list of important things to accomplish?
I'm not exactly savvy on the details of "likeness," but what would happen if someone made an NCAA game, but all the players had Slenderman heads? I guess it really depends on what determines "likeness."
I'm not too torn up about it. I support this case because of the meta effects, not the specifics. Of course players will continue to be exploited to a degree, but this lets the people upstairs know that they can and will be challenged at a certain point.
I seriously doubt that this is the end of college sports games. EA and 2K aren't going to pass up all that money. They'll just wait for the NCAA-union situation to hammer itself out, then go about licensing the games from the new governing entity. To the gamemakers, it's just a check they are going to be paying to a licensing body like they always did. How it gets distributed isn't of their concern.
Yeah a lawsuit that could help change college sports for the better is a loss for everyone because we can't play a video for the 5 years it takes to settle this.
I wonder how many players were actually upset about their likeness appearing in the game. I went to a school with an FBS program (albeit a pretty bad one) and was friends with a few of the players. They were thrilled every year when the new NCAA game came out and they could play "themselves" on the game.
Those probably aren't the guys who are actually bringing in the money so it is kind of a moot point. Nobody is buying the game so they can use the backup running back at random directional school university.