Sunday, September 29, 2013

EA Sports Settled; Where Does the NCAA Go From Here?

EA Sports Settled; Where Does the NCAA Go From Here? Some thoughts on the EA Sports settlement with the O’Bannon/Keller plaintiffs. The right of publicity claim against EA Sports was pretty strong because the game avatars looked just like players and an app made game use of their names easy. To get the NCAA on the use of the game, the court would need to decide that the NCAA’s licensing of the logo – with NCAA knowledge of how player names and likenesses were used – makes the NCAA liable for the way the game was produced (and that in a lawsuit – rather than a settlement -- the plaintiffs would prevail on the right of publicity claim). Assume all that. The NCAA no longer is licensing its logo for use on a game. So where does the O’Bannon/Keller lawsuit go from here? Some of their other claims against the NCAA are that they should get a share of revenues from NCAA sales of game DVDs and sale of pictures of famous plays that feature players. The NCAA could stop doing all that too. It would reduce revenues some. But it’s a hit the NCAA could take. The big claim in the lawsuit is that players are entitled to a share of the TV rights in the games in which they play. That’s where the real money is. That’s the one thing neither the NCAA nor individual schools could afford to stop doing. And that’s also a claim on which it will be harder for the plaintiffs to prevail. And, by the way, none of the O’Bannon/Keller claims have anything to do with whether athletes should be paid to compete.