šŸˆ O'Bannon vs. NCAA gets under way on Monday (Trial updates and commentary)

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Ed O'Bannon v. NCAA is headed for trial Monday in Oakland after nearly five years of litigation. Confused by what this case is all about and what it could mean? Here's what to expect at the trial.

What's the Ed O'Bannon trial about? Licensing money, largely broadcast TV dollars. A group of 20 former and current football and men's basketball players, led by ex-UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, want an injunction to end the NCAA's rules preventing players from being paid for use of their names, images or likenesses. They claim the NCAA's restrictions violate antitrust law.

This case focuses on live broadcasts, rebroadcasts, highlight clips and video games. The O'Bannon plaintiffs lost their attempt to seek $3.2 billion in damages from 2005-06 through 2010-11 and have said they're dropping individual claims against the NCAA. That narrows this trial to whether the NCAA is illegally restricting athletes from being paid for their names, images and likenesses.

What's at stake for the NCAA? The ever-evolving definition of amateurism (or, as it's being called now, the collegiate model). A win for O'Bannon would open the door to athletes being paid for use of their names, images and likenesses. Universities around the country will be paying attention. Also, this case could impact other lawsuits against the NCAA, including the next big NCAA suit: Prominent sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler's case seeking a free market for college athletes to be paid beyond their scholarship. Every piece of evidence and every statement provide future material for the next wave of cases.

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If you've followed this, even casually, I'm sure you've felt a sensation of "information overload." I know I have.

Now, it's time to pay attention.

All of these side stories we've briefly discussed, like autonomy for the Big5, are even bigger when this is resolved.
 
OAKLAND -- You've presumably seen the word referenced in various columnists' inflammatory anti-NCAA screeds over the years. On Monday, in the first day of testimony in Ed O'Bannon v. NCAA, the nefarious-sounding noun entered the official record in a landmark federal antitrust suit, albeit in a strictly academic connotation.
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SI's Stewart Mandelā€”Continue reading...
 
Scene: Smart guy on the stand...questioned, and says something which changes the "smart guy" moniker to "dumbass." How can it not happen?

 
Economist Roger Noll doesn't have the name recognition of former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, but he might be just as important to the future of college athletics. Noll spent an entire day testifying on Tuesday in the O'Bannon-NCAA trial.

ā€¢ Coaches are getting money that otherwise would go to players.

He and Hausfeld emphasized that the compensation of football coaches has risen more than 500 percent since the 1980s, in part because of exploding revenues and NCAA rules controlling how much of that money can flow to players. Additionally, Noll said, schools are redirecting money to the building and gold-plating of athletic facilities -- $5.1 billion in 104 stadiums, arenas and practice facilities since the late 1990s.

None of this has helped level the competitive playing field, either, he said. Hausfeld showed slides highlighting the dominance of about a dozen teams in football and basketball since 1993, in contrast to the bottom quarter of programs that struggled mightily.

Hausfeld pulled up a quote from former NCAA official Wally Renfro, who said, "What we really see are the 'haves,' the 'have-nots' and the 'forget-about-its.'"

ā€¢ Power conferences such as the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC want to do more for the athletes than the NCAA rulebook permits.

Hausfeld and Noll cited NCAA investigations that dinged schools for providing extra benefits -- 27 cases in the Football Bowl Subdivision and Division I basketball between 2000 and 2012 -- as evidence that the market has been distorted by the restraint.

Hausfeld introduced a quote from a presentation made at an NCAA committee meeting by University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and University of Florida president Bernie Machen.

"Most of our institutions are blessed with considerable revenue from our successful programs," they wrote. "However, because of efforts to create 'a level playing field' we can spend these resources in almost any way we want EXCEPT to improve support for student athletes. Too often, our efforts to improve the lives of student athletes have been deflected because of cost implications that are manageable by our institutions but not by institutions with less resources."

Hausfeld also showed a May 14 letter from Pac-12 school presidents proposing to remove a number of restrictions to improve benefits to, and the academic lives of, athletes.

NCAA lawyer Rohit Singla objected to the introduction of the letter into the record, saying that any internal advocacy for reform is not the same as evidence that the NCAA has broken the law.

ā€¢ College sports in no way are an "avocation," or hobby, for athletes.

Hausfeld used various quotes from journals and economists to contradict the NCAA's assertion that the athletes are students first. Noll said the avocation idea died a hundred years ago. Athletes in the top tier of college basketball and football "anticipate that they will be professional athletes, and they go to college to prepare for a professional career," he said.

ā€¢ Dispensing with amateurism in major entertainment sports helps, not hurts, an enterprise.

Noll cited the growth of the Olympics as an example, saying that since moving away from that model in the 1980s, "they're much more popular." Hausfeld showed a chart on how various sports leagues and entities have moved away from amateurism, or relaxed prohibitions against athletes receiving money for their performances or images.

From ESPNUā€”Continue reading...
 
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"The Catch" came up on the monitor. Tyrone Prothro, sitting on the witness stand wearing a dress shirt with an Alabama Crimson Tide elephant, smiled and enjoyed seeing what he used to do.

The play in 2005 is still one of the most remarkable catches in recent college football history. Prothro, a former star Alabama wide receiver, somehow caught the ball while his arms were wrapped around the upper body of a Southern Miss defender as they fell to the ground.

Prothro's promising career ended in 2005 due to a gruesome fractured leg and subsequent infection that required 10 surgeries. Prothro testified Wednesday at the Ed O'Bannon trial he still owes nearly all of the $10,000 in student loans he took out years ago. And Prothro also gave an account that he was told by Alabama he would need to pay $10 for each photo he wanted of himself to use in a 2008 book he wrote.

ā€œIt was surprising because I thought it was as easy as going to (Alabama) and asking for some of my action shots,ā€ Prothro said in an interview afterward. ā€œThat part was easy. But after (an Alabama official) telling me I'd have to go online and purchase them, I didn't think that was fair at all.ā€
.....
2. Prothro's $10,000 loan. Prothro, one of the named plaintiffs, said that he received $10,000 in student loans from the U.S. Department of Education and that nearly all of the money still hasn't been paid off.

Prothro said he figured he would be good enough to reach the NFL and easily pay the money back. The injury changed that plan. The purpose for the loans was mainly for summer expenses, such falling behind on bills, items for his dorm and house, and food, according to Prothro.

Today, Prothro still lives in Tuscaloosa and works as an account manager for Coca-Cola after previous jobs at a bank and with a pest control company. He acknowledged making $9,000 off his likeness after college by signing more than 200 autographs on artist Daniel Moore's paintings of Prothro's famous catch, and participating in some autograph signings.

Alabama paid for all of Prothro's surgeries. Prothro said he was told by head trainer Jeff Allen that his 10th surgery would be the final one paid for by the university. Prothro's famous catch resulted in Alabama receiving more than $100,000 in scholarship money as the Pontiac Game Changing Play of the Year -- a replay shown over and over with the Pontiac advertisement.

3. Prothro's education. Just like previous testimony from O'Bannon, Prothro painted a picture of being an athlete first before academics. Prothro testified that he spent about 30 to 40 hours per week in supervised athletic activities by Alabama. The NCAA limit is 20 hours per week.

Prothro was a general studies major in the Human and Environmental Studies department. ā€œThat's the major (football academic advisers) kind of put me in,ā€ said Prothro, adding that was in part because he was interested in becoming a coach.

Prothro said he and teammates studied ā€œvery littleā€ outside of study hall and time in class. ā€œI definitely didn't think of myself as a student first,ā€ he said. ā€œThe amount of time we put in, it felt we were an athlete first, student second.ā€

When asked if Alabama tutors were concerned that he received a good education, Prothro laughed and replied, ā€œSomewhat.ā€ But Prothro stressed he does not believe Alabama took advantage of him. ā€œI don't think they've done me wrong in any kind of way,ā€ he said in an interview. ā€œThis is solely for the players and for the future. I just want to see something fair that's done for the players.ā€

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"Prothro was an undersized wide receiver with a passion for the game and his eyes on the pros when he went up for a catch with just a few seconds left in a game Alabama was losing to Southern Mississippi in September 2005. He leaped up over a safety at the goal line, cradling the ball behind the safety's back with his arms wrapped around him, and the Tide would score on the next play and eventually win 30-21."

Wasn't that at the end of the first half?
 
mrchase said:
"Prothro was an undersized wide receiver with a passion for the game and his eyes on the pros when he went up for a catch with just a few seconds left in a game Alabama was losing to Southern Mississippi in September 2005. He leaped up over a safety at the goal line, cradling the ball behind the safety's back with his arms wrapped around him, and the Tide would score on the next play and eventually win 30-21."

Wasn't that at the end of the first half?
Click to expand...

Yes, less than 30 seconds left in the 1st half.
 
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Former
UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon was holding his own on the witness stand in his lawsuit against the NCAA, sticking to the view that college players should be paid because their athletic ability is the main reason they are in school to begin with.

Then he took it a step further. If Little Leaguers bring in money for television networks in their games, maybe they should be paid, too.

The idea of 12-year-olds getting paychecks for anything other than mowing a neighbor's lawn seems a bit preposterous. But O'Bannon's point is at the heart of the trial unfolding in California: Athletics, even at the most amateur level, are worth big bucks.

In a week of testimony in the trial that could redefine how college athletics operate, the amount of money generated by the players performance added up, bit by bit.

''The big thing to understand is how much is being brought in,'' O'Bannon said. ''When the pie that is brought in is huge I think it's big enough for everyone to share a piece of that pie.''

College athletes see the billions of dollars brought in by television contracts that seem to multiply every year. They see their coaches getting rich, and everyone employed by their schools living well. And they try to understand just what so-called ''amateurism'' really means when everyone is making money except the players themselves.

Just how big is that pie? Huge, and about to get much bigger as new television contracts are signed and new networks are formed to show college sports.

According to data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education and compiled by O'Bannon's lawyers, Division 1 basketball schools and FBS football programs took in $4.5 billion in revenue in the 2012-13 school year. Of that, $3.5 billion was generated by the 69 schools that were in the former Bowl Championship Series conferences.

Sports economist Daniel Rascher of the University of San Francisco testified on behalf of the plaintiffs seeking payment for the use of their names and images that 65 of those schools had profitable football programs, with a net total profit of $1.3 billion on revenue of $2.7 billion. The University of Texas alone made $81 million on its football program on revenue of $109 million, and Rascher said his analysis showed profits are even higher than listed, largely because donations to programs aren't allocated to specific sports.

''These schools are highly profitable and their revenues are continuing to grow at a fast pace,'' Rascher said. ''They're even more profitable than on paper because of the way they do their books.''

Those profits will almost surely increase with huge new television contracts that lawyers for the NCAA, major conferences and television networks fought hard in court to keep under wraps.

They were largely successful, getting U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to agree to redact large parts of the NCAA contract for the men's basketball tournament and other conference contracts. Wilken agreed with attorneys for networks, conferences and the NCAA that they would be at a competitive disadvantage if others knew their business.

The deals that are publicly known, though, are whoppers. The NCAA pact by itself is worth an average of $770 million a year, while ESPN will soon pay $470 million a year for college football playoffs. The conferences themselves have TV deals that bring big schools more than $20 million a year and some think Southeastern Conference schools will pocket $40 million each year when a new SEC network is in full operation.

Even though the numbers seem to be growing exponentially, colleges have been grappling with the issue for a long time. In 1921, Union College President C.A. Richmond deplored ''the high cost of athletic victories,'' saying the rush to bigger programs was ''like the contest in dreadnoughts'' before World War I.

That came a decade after a committee of the fledgling NCAA first proposed rules on payments being made to players. The committee's report in 1911 defined an amateur as ''one who enters and takes part in athletic contests purely in obedience to the play impulses or for the satisfaction of purely play motives and for the exercise, training and social
pleasures'' derived from sports.

In court this week there were other attempts to define amateurism, which the NCAA claims is essential to the core of college sports. The NCAA has vowed to fight the suit brought by O'Bannon and 19 others all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, saying paying players to play goes against the core principles that guide college sports.

A former president of CBS Sports agreed, saying fans are attracted to college sports because athletes play only for the love of the game.

''If we go down the road of paying the players substantial funds I think there would be a sense we're just developing a cadre of hired guns who will have no link to the colleges other than showing up for practice and games,'' Neal Pilson said.

In a surprise twist, the NCAA will soon indirectly be playing some players itself after agreeing on the eve of the trial to a $20 million settlement stemming from an ill-fated decision to license video games featuring the likenesses of college players. Some of that money, the NCAA acknowledged, will go to current athletes, something technically in violation of the organization's own rules.

As for the Little Leaguers, no one is arguing their case - yet. ESPN pays millions to broadcast the Little League World Series. Unlike the NCAA, though, there is nothing in Little League regulations for players getting extra benefits, like an ice cream party after the game by the team sponsor. But even O'Bannon himself admits he might have gone a little too far in suggesting that children get paid.

''There will be things I say and do that not everyone will agree with, like the Little League thing,'' he said. ''But there are certain things you have to say to get your point across.''

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Well, since this is about the nzaa, which uses as much common sense a typical barner...If they were paid for being the LLWS, which won't happen, you think the nzaa would make them forfeit their eligibility (some five to six years later)? After all, isn't there a fairness issue with these kids?? :sarc:
 
Football players at big schools could make several hundred thousand dollars in their college careers if they were paid a portion of the broadcast rights to games similar to what NFL players now get, under a model suggested by a sports economist.

Basketball players would do even better, with some earning more than $1 million over four years if schools split their broadcast revenues equally with athletes. That figure could rise even higher as billions of dollars in new television contracts for the rights to games are negotiated.

University of San Francisco economist Daniel Rascher testified Friday that the figures are at the high end of his model because they come close to the 55 percent of broadcast revenue the NFL shares with its players. He pointed out on the witness stand that he did other models that would give players as little as 10 percent of revenues if they were allowed to share in broadcast rights.

Rascher's testimony came under cross examination in a landmark antitrust trial brought in federal court against the NCAA by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon and 19 others. They are seeking an injunction that would allow players to band together and sell the rights to their names, images and likenesses (NILs), with the money likely being put in a trust fund and given to them after they leave college.

Just how much that money would be would likely be the subject of long negotiations and other court fights. The NCAA has already indicated it will take the take the issue all the way to the Supreme Court if it loses in a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, saying current model of "amateurism" is the best for both the football and Division I basketball players as well as the thousands of other athletes in other college sports.

On a trial day dominated by talk about big money, Rascher spent nearly five hours on the stand laying out -- and then defending -- his studies on behalf of the plaintiffs. Most of them centered on how much money is being made in college sports and Rascher's contention that colleges would not be hurt if they used some of the money now spend on facilities and coach's salaries to pay athletes."We've seen the NCAA change its rules over decades on how much they should be paying athletes," he said. "The fanaticism and the demand continue to rise during that time period."

He defended his studies against suggestions by NCAA attorneys that the competitive balance in college sports would be upset if the richer schools paid athletes more than the ones with smaller budgets, saying his research shows that athletes recruited by both big and medium-sized universities almost always go to the bigger school anyway.

Rascher said his studies showed that big schools are making money -- and lots of it -- while running programs that are in many cases more profitable than their professional counterparts. He cited data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education that showed Division I basketball schools and FBS football programs took in $4.5 billion in revenue in the 2012-13 school year, which he said didn't include another $1.5 billion that should have been allocated to the sports.

Rascher said 65 of the 69 schools that were in the former Bowl Championship Series conferences had profitable football programs, with a net surplus of $1.3 billion on revenue of $2.7 billion. The University of Texas along made $81 million on revenue of $109 million in its football program, which Rascher said likely didn't include many millions more donated to the program but not specifically allocated to it in the financial filings.

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bama alum said:
Well, since this is about the nzaa, which uses as much common sense a typical barner...If they were paid for being the LLWS, which won't happen, you think the nzaa would make them forfeit their eligibility (some five to six years later)? After all, isn't there a fairness issue with these kids?? :sarc:
Click to expand...
That's one of so many ironies in this whole story.

The socialistic model that is the NCAA is now being asked to share the wealth with the labor force...kills me everytime I think of it in that light.

I've chuckled at those who've said "this could lead to changing collegiate sports." There's no way around it; it will.
 

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