O'Bannon Legal Team Reacts to NCAA Decision

[lord_mike]

Quote: Originally Posted by Greencollarbaseball

I can't for the life of me understand how the NCAA or schools don't have a waiver that athletes need to sign that says the school and or NCAA can use their likeness while they are in the athletic programs. It seems like that would have been thought of a long time ago.

They do. That doesn't mean it's legal.

[LastExit]

Quote: Originally Posted by JLoco11

O'Bannon's legal team will beat the likeness argument in court... I can't imagine how he loses that end of the lawsuit. Where the lawyers are going to fail, is going to be what compensation amateur athletes are entitled to. When you register with the NCAA (in any sport, not just football), you waive your rights of representation on the universities behalf. They can put you on posters, programs, television from games to sports shows, to media guides... and every athlete signs their rights away when they join NCAA division sports. O'Bannon and Keller are going to win the battle of likeliness in a game, but they're going to lose the war against the NCAA for signing their rights away. They're going to lose against a system of amateur rules (as unfair as they may be), going back to old Olympic rules that most governing bodies have adopted.

Agreed - and it seems difficult to see how they will hold EA accountable given the fact that they paid a fee to both the NCAA and the other licensing agency each year. If the NCAA, which makes the rules, wasn't finding fault in what they were doing and they are the governing authority in all of this as far as the student-athletes are concerned then it will be difficult to seek damages against EA.

[simgamer0005]

what are the chances that the NCAA ceases to exist? if you're goin after video games of all things, why stop there O'Bannon? might as well sue ESPN for making all that money covering college football.

[K0ZZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by goalieump413

This, of course, has been an increasingly popular discussion across the country. Should student athletes get paid to play (football)? The answer, I think, lies in the scale to which college football has become such a powerfully profitable enterprise. Think about it, EA Sports sells an NCAA football game because college football is huge. They don't sell a college baseball game because college baseball isn't huge. It comes down to market demand. This lawsuit is more a catalyst to changing the landscape of money in college athletics than the largely academic debate that's been ongoing. Former players think that they should profit from video game sales, but that only kicks down the door to any other sale of merchandise related to their college playing career. Watch out.

This is true, this case has extremely wide sweeping ramifications. I've looked into it, and some of it could really be ugly.

[K0ZZ]

Quote: Originally Posted by simgamer0005

what are the chances that the NCAA ceases to exist? if you're goin after video games of all things, why stop there O'Bannon? might as well sue ESPN for making all that money covering college football.

That would be the likely next step.

[paconaifas]

Quote: Originally Posted by Razorback73

If O'Bannon wins this lawsuit and college football videogames go away, I'm going to sue him for stealing my potential enjoyment of future videogames. I value the damages as a result of this at no less than $4 million. Anyone else wanna jump in on this?

I'm in. Let's sue his sorry ***

[loccdogg26]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sundown2600

Lol at the ppl mad at O'Bannon. Ya'll are funny man

Amen to that. Grown people getting mad over stuff they can't control.

[Retropyro]

The growth of interest in College Football over the last 20 years is huge, I wonder how many people out their have had their interest in CFB either started or increased because of a video game?