Judge Nixes NCAA Players Antitrust Claims -- Case Not Over...Yet

[UniversityofArizona]

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

So... We both agree that there should be a developmental league for players who don't want to attend college. We disagree on having to meet academic standards to play at the D1 level. Can we leave it at that and ?

Sounds good to me. I was only arguing in favor of not having to meet academic standards in the long term continued absence of a developmental league. I don't think any college fan wants to see a 40 year old washed up NFL qb playing against your favorite school who only has an 18 year old who chooses to spend time in class towards a degree. And I do realize you would still disagree with me on my point because we do need to keep what makes college sports special which is amateur 18-20 somethingish year old college students playing against each other regardless of a developmental league being in place.

[Pielet]

Quote: Originally Posted by agte

I haven't read this whole thing, but even when I signed my letter of intent to run track at a local NAIA school, there was a part in the letter that said the school could use my likeness (photos, videos, billboards, anything, etc.) for anything they wanted, or something along those lines.... That's part of why you should always read everything you sign

Forcing someone to sign something in order to participate, how is that a legal "offer and acceptance" for a contract? More like coercion.

The language the NCAA uses for the likeness waiver is utterly ridiculous. It states they can use their likeness in "perpetuity in this or any other universe".

The people saying the players are getting paid via a scholarship should wake up. These schools could give two craps if these kids goto school or graduate. Their direct supervisors, the coaching staffs, frankly care more about saving their own jobs than guiding the academic careers of their players. A simple look at graduation rates proves this. In addition a scholarship after the first year can be pulled at will to maintain an 85 man roster. Simple use and abuse.

Good discussion on topic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8I_...feature=relmfu

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

Stop trying to complicate the issue. Its simple. College athletes are given a scholarship in exchange for them playing football....thats it. They dont agree to sign over their likeness rights.

Are you sure? It seems back in the day, you did sign a piece of paper that specifically did give away your likeness rights or basically it gave the school and the NCAA the rights to market themselves based on your likeness. Or something to that affect. (Gimme a break it was almost 20 yeas ago) . It came right after the speech from the FBI guy about the dangers of associating with gamblers on the first day of practice.

Maybe they don't do that anymore or maybe the concussions finally caught up to me.

[JerseySuave4]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkrich83

Are you sure? It seems back in the day, you did sign a piece of paper that specifically did give away your likeness rights or basically it gave the school and the NCAA the rights to market themselves based on your likeness. Or something to that affect. (Gimme a break it was almost 20 yeas ago) . It came right after the speech from the FBI guy about the dangers of associating with gamblers on the first day of practice. Maybe they don't do that anymore or maybe the concussions finally caught up to me.

no i believe they do it and you basically are signing your rights over for life.

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by JerseySuave4

no i believe they do it and you basically are signing your rights over for life.

Considering no one wanted to use my likeness and no one would ever want to, I was ok with that.

[GoToledo]

Quote: Originally Posted by MBFranchise

Actually, yes they do. Heck, I was a DIII Cross Country runner and I signed over my likeness.

I believe this is correct. Signing over your likeness IS part of the deal, at least according to some friends who played football at Toledo when I was there.

[saunders45]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

Thats a bad comparison. One, giving players a small percentage of the tv rights fees would not cause TV networks to start charging for all televised sports games. The goal of a TV network is to get as many people to watch its programming as possible. Making college football completely pay per view would be counter to that. Two, a decent comparison to the video game dispute is apparel like jerseys and t-shirts. A video game is a product. EA and the NCAA are selling that product partially bu using the likeness of college players. Just like the NCAA is doing the same thing with most of the jerseys it sells.

What do you think TV networks do? They market games using actual player images (not generic digital models) in advertising the games. They also broadcast real footage of the players. They pay the schools & conference boatloads of money to broadcast games. Why? To sell billions and billions in advertising.

If they players get a chunk of that pie, you're insanely naive if you think ABC/ESPN/FSN are going to absorb that cost. It will get passed onto the cable providers and advertisers. Now that the Cable providers and advertisers/manufacturers are having to pay more money, who's going to absorb this increased cost? The consumers. Us.

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

I'm just going to put my imput on this. As a high school senior, if a college was giving me a four year "free" ride, I would not be complaining.

College is not cheap and these players have the ability to go to class and get a degree. They chose to sign their letter of intent for the scholarship. Nobody forced them to do so. College loans are available and if you did well in high school getting acceptance to a decent college should not be that hard.

Forgive me if I do not have sypathy because these players are being "taken advantage of."