Court Filing Shows NCAA Had Concern About Use of Athlete Likenesses

As more details leak out with regard to the Ed O'Bannon and Sam Keller case versus EA Sports and the NCAA, we are finding that the NCAA has had a long history of being worried about what EA was doing with student athlete likenesses.

In a report in the USA today today, lawyers representing former and current college athletes allege that EA and the Collegiate Licensing Company (the NCAA's licensing arm) worked collaboratively "to affirmatively mislead the public" and college athletes about how far EA went to model digital athletes like the real players.

Once again, we got an insight into how the NCAA has had plans to include player likenesses within games. In an email from NCAA executive Greg Shaheen to the CLC's Pat Battle, Shaheen wrote, "Re: the S/A likeness, this will come in stages, we suspect. We're trying to determine the best strategy to get it all passed over the next two legislative cycles. The current take is that we need to do this first phase and then go back for photos and video games in the next phase. The read is that if we lump it all together, it will become loaded down and be killed"

The NCAA released a statement yesterday about the case, alleging that they (of course) are in the right, "The fact remains -- the NCAA is not exploiting current or former student-athletes but instead provides enormous benefit to them and the public. Plaintiffs are wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. The NCAA remains hopeful the court will agree and deny this motion."

We will get our next update on how this case is going in June, when the class action is either certified or dismissed. [USA Today]