NCAA loses the O'Bannon Case.
So what does this mean for me?
At first blush, it seems to mean the players are gonna get a pretty small amount of money (cost of attendance + $5,000 per year) compared to what they are bringing in for the schools/NCAA/networks. It also seems to mean that the judge feels these students are incapable of managing that $5,000 per year on their own until they graduate.
At least that is where the NCAA can cap it...if there is an appetite to cap it, especially amongst the newly autonomous Power 5 conferences.
It will be interesting to see how schools deal with holding money in trust, and whether NCAA rules will even regulate how much and on what terms a school may hold money in trust for a student.
I believe that's a minimum of $5,000, not a maximum.
that you get to celebrate two christmases! and also both your parents still love you.
beginning of the end?
"Wilken said the injunction will not prevent the NCAA from implementing rules capping the amount of money that may be paid to college athletes while they are enrolled in school, but the NCAA will not be allowed to set the cap below the cost of attendance."
...but the NCAA will not be allowed to set the cap below the cost of attendance."
But look for many more lawsuits as the NCAA, the several conferences, and courts attempt to make specific out of the arbitrary.
Die NCAA, DIE.
(Yes I know it's a long ways away)
"Wilken said the injunction will not be stayed pending any appeal of her order, but will not take effect until the start of the next football and basketball recruiting cycles."
So when is that? There are already 2017 recruits out there. What cycle are we currently in?
who enrolls in school by July, 2016.
Well, the NCAA (or something exactly like it) will go away when intercollegiate sports does, but I don't understand your enthusiam for the death of intercollegiate sports. It isn't like such an event would make pro sports any better.
It is my opinion that intercollegiate sports can exist without the insufferable N.C Double A. Wishful thinking, I understand, however cases like this are a start at putting an end to said organization.
What do you think would replace it, a charitable organization? Why would colleges necessarily band together in a benevolent enterprise dedicated solely to the well-being of its participants and uninterested in money, if the NCAA were not around?
Unfortunately, you need uniform rules for intercollegiate sports (playing rules, recruiting rules, compensation rules, etc). Thus, you need either the NCAA or something exactly like it. I'd like to see the NCAA become competent, but any bureaucracy (and all such organizations are bureaucracies) are seldom competent. I'd rather live with a semi-competent NCAA than do away with intercollegiate sports.
Most of the moaning I've heard from critics of the NCAA as a whole (not individual decisions, of which the NCAA has made many criticism-worthy examples) come from people who haven't thought it out. How would you handle intercolledgiate sports in the absence of any common rules about game play, team size, etc?
SOME insitution will enter in its place, that much is for certain no matter the outcome. If the NCAA would have seen the writing on the wall they would have started making these changes much sooner than now and continue to survive in a >75% capacity.
I don't believe that the majority of the criticisim that you've heard about the NCAA revolves around the complete abolishment of the NCAA rather the fact that the So. Illionois Syacmores can no longer have the same say as a $100+ million dollar "Power 5" schools (i.e. the playing field is already un-level, let's let the Rich be rich). Everyone realizes that you have to have a governing body to set playing standards even for your over-30 beer league softball team; it's not like your suddenly going to have 200+ scholarship players on a football team.
I fully believe that this argument will come down to going to Michigan and having your room+car+off campus housing+ similar perks of a large school for or going to CMU and only having your tuition + on campus housing paid for. In no way does this really change anything that isn't happening already; richer schools can give you more things/ even if you just ride the pine or you can go to a smaller school and hope you strike it rich by being a starter. It's the 70's all over again 'cept with more (legal) money.
The death of the governing body doesn't mean the underlying sports will perish. It simply means that a bunch of guys who collected paychecks from "overseeing" poorly-attended bowl games and toothless enforcement departments may be looking for some new jobs.
The NCAA doesn't have anything to do with the bowl games (until the NCA playoff was established), so that's a non-argument. The argument that the NCAA doesn't do a good enough job at enforcement is a valid one, but that's on the university presidents who oversee the NCAA. Getting rid of the NCAA or replacing it with the AACN wouldn't change that.
The NCAA is involved with the bowl games - they erect rules as to which teams are eligible for the bowls, work with the conferences in designing which teams are slotted for each game, and as the de-facto licensing arm for the teams they have some oversight over how the team's names and likenesses are used in the publicity surrounding the game.
And while the course of the trial seemed to make this result--at least broadly (ie Platniffs win, to whatever degree)--fairly obvious... My mind is still pretty blown. Appeal or not, this is a BFD.
SBNation has there own take as well as an embed of the full opinion on their site - HERE
One potentially important note:
"However, the NIL rights ended up being the entire focus of the ruling. While schools will not be forced to pay athletes a certain amount of money above the full cost of attendance — that nuance could have a major impact on smaller schools with tighter budgets — the NCAA cannot stop them from doing so below $5,000."
So, the cap is uniform for now, and as they mention, this could be problematic for schools outside of the power conferences (and perhaps for a few schools IN those conferences). Skimming through it myself, the market didn't open up like some people thought it might, but the days of players making nothing at all seem over. for the moment (pending any successful appeal, of course, but no stay will happen, it seems, so for now this stands).
I think the Kessler suit is probably the one that, if it doesn't go in favor of the NCAA, forces the NCAA to reinvent itself or ceast to exist essentially.
This will almost certainly be overturned on appeal imo.
Seeing as most legal experts seemed to expect the NCAA to lose this case I don't see why it would be overturned on appeal.
I think that you are correct, and the fact that the judge was confident enough in her ruling to not even suspend it pending appeal says a lot.
Uh no it doesn't. Judges never almost never stay their own rulings pending appeal.
Untrue. Here's a recent case of similar breadth from a few days ago: http://blogs.rollcall.com/hill-blotter/judge-stays-d-c-handgun-ruling-for-90-days/?dcz=
if by "almost never" you mean "fairly often."
Yeah, might want to pump the breaks on that "almost never" claim considering a simple Google search shows MANY instances where that is the case. Judges are aware that their decisions will be up for review, and oftentimes they use them to lay down a precedent for appeal. But they are aware of the effects such decisions will have on affected parties, so in many circumstances they will stay enforcement pending review.
I'm not sure which legal experts you're talking about, but many practicing sports lawyers, including our very own Sherman Clark from U of M, believe that the NCAA has the better case. Claudia Wilken is one of the most liberal federal district court judges in the Western U.S. Let's take this with a grain of salt.
This is how the legal system works - if everyone agreed on one side of the argument it wouldn't be before a judge. Yes, Sherman Clark feels the NCAA has a strong case; Robert McCormick at MSU (who is a leading sports lawyer in his own right) disagrees and thinks NCAA athletes should be treated as employees.
This is going to be appealed, but dismissing the judgment because of the political proclivities of the judge (when all judges typically display some biases) ignores the reality this decision points toward - the elimination of the NCAA's total control over amateur athletics at colleges.
Obviously depends on the panel drawn, but broadly speaking the Ninth Circuit is pretty pro-plaintiff in anti-trust cases and class actions, isn't it?
I think that this ruling is pure win. The athletes get paid for the use of their likenesses, but the NCAA can limit the ability of bagmen to offer to buy $50,000 autographs if the recruit just signs on with Old State U.
It will be interesting to see how the players will oraganize to leverage their share of the likeness fees - and I think they will have to do so, and that no one can stop them from doing so. If they have ownership of their likeness rights, then presumably they have the right to create a mechanism by which they enforce thoat right.
Just bring back the video game, man.
August 8th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^
Opinion here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/236268643/Wilken-NCAA-Order
I think this is headed for SCOTUS. 9th Circuit will give the players more, I feel, and SCOTUS will take the writ the NCAA will likely file after.
August 8th, 2014 at 10:41 PM ^
Sometimes it takes someone like a judge who probably doesn't give a damn about college football to state the obvious for you:
“The fact that high-revenue schools are able to spend freely in these other areas cancels out whatever leveling effect the restrictions on student-athlete pay might otherwise have,” Wilken wrote. “The NCAA does not do anything to rein in spending by the high-revenue schools or minimize existing disparities in revenue and recruiting.”
So much for the competitive balance argument. She basically called a crock of shit, a crock of shit.