Ed O’Bannon Defends NCAA Antitrust Settlement

The NCAA’s historic antitrust settlement will—if finalized, approved and triumphant over a potential legal challenge – radically changing college sports and put an end to amateurism.

Colleges and conferences will be able to pay players directly. There will be salary caps similar to professional sports and revenue sharing. Players who have been denied payment for NIL, video game and broadcast revenue will receive what is owed to them. In the future, players will get a piece of the pie that athletes created long ago through their work and marketing.

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None of this would have happened without Ed O’Bannon.

“It’s good to see justice coming,” O’Bannon said in an interview. “It’s been a long battle.”

Fifteen years ago, the former UCLA basketball star and NBA forward presented a case that would usher in the evolutionary changes taking place today.

O’Bannon had been retired from the game for five years at the time. He was enjoying life as a 36-year-old father, coaching his sons who played high-level sports. A friend told O’Bannon that he bought a video game called NCAA March Madnesspublished by Electronic Arts. O’Bannon, his friend said, was the best player in the game.

That’s because the game featured classic teams, including the 1995 UCLA Bruins championship team. O’Bannon — who won the John R. Wooden Award that year as the best player in men’s college basketball — was in fact the best player. The game did not have O’Bannon’s name, but the image representation of him had everything else, including race, height and jersey number. The same was true of O’Bannon’s teammates.

“I thought it was strange that EA or the NCAA hadn’t contacted my teammates or me,” O’Bannon recalled. “I’m not a lawyer, but something seemed off about it.”

O’Bannon’s instinct was right. Publisher paid for use of intellectual property associated with schools and NCAA, but not players from them intellectual property. This was due to the NCAA’s amateurism system, which prohibited players from using their right of publicity. This right protects people’s name, image, likeness and other characteristics against commercial misappropriation. But EA faced its own conundrum: It wouldn’t have been able to reach a deal with the NCAA for the game if it simultaneously defied the NCAA by paying players.

O’Bannon and his wife, Rosa, met with lawyers and his longtime friend, Sonny Vaccaro, about what, if anything, to do. O’Bannon was enjoying life and his 11-year professional career was over. It would have been easy for him to ignore her concerns.

But it wasn’t O’Bannon.

“I knew something needed to be done,” he said. “I thought when people started looking behind the scenes at the NCAA rules, they would realize that these rules really didn’t make sense. Why can’t a video game company pay college athletes to participate in a video game when the same company pays NBA and NFL players? It just doesn’t make sense.”

O’Bannon also called the situation unfair to college athletes, many of whom are minorities and few of whom would go pro.

“Most of my teammates never made a dime, but there they were in this video game, selling for $60, while the NCAA got paid,” he said.

O’Bannon then filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and EA, arguing violations of federal antitrust law and California’s right of publicity law. He knew from the beginning that if he won, he wouldn’t have been paid. The case was about changing rules so that college athletes would have equal rights with their peers.

“Not everything is about money or fame,” O’Bannon emphasized. “This is about basic justice and dignity, so that athletes enjoy the same rights as other Americans. . . . Most players don’t become professionals, so having the chance to earn money while studying is essential.”

Before a trial in Oakland in 2014, O’Bannon and EA reached a settlement that required EA to pay about $40 million to more than 29,000 current and former players who were part of the class action lawsuit.

The NCAA was not interested in making a settlement and rolled the dice by going to trial. It proved to be a catastrophic error. O’Bannon’s legal team showed how the NCAA and schools made money from players’ NIL while denying those players the chance to make money.

O’Bannon won the trial and appeal. The NCAA was ordered to change its rules to allow full cost of participation.

In the late 2010s, lawmakers in California, Florida and other states used O’Bannon’s case to push for NIL statutes that would ensure college athletes could be paid through endorsements, sponsorships and influence contracts. The case was also instrumental in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in NCAA v. and has been instrumental in the antitrust cases the NCAA is now resolving.

O’Bannon isn’t bothered by the fact that some of those who resented him for challenging the system are now embracing the new world he made possible.

“I was basically asking the players to share the money they deserved, but hey, that money has to come from somewhere,” he argued. “I know that college sports leaders and some of their friends in the media saw me as someone who was going after their lucrative system. I’m happy that people now see justice as a good thing.”

O’Bannon is also pleased with the return of college sports video games. EA Sports College Football 25 It will be the company’s first college sports video game since 2013.

“It’s great that the game is back, but I honestly wonder why it took so long,” he reflected. “If the NCAA had done what we asked for in 2009 – allowed college players to get paid for appearing in video games and broadcasts – it would have saved them 15 years of defeats in court. It would also have allowed college athletes to capitalize on their fame, like other Americans, and allowed players to play all the time.

Currently, O’Bannon is a juvenile probation officer and youth basketball coach in Nevada. He and Rosa are advocates of using NIL to expand opportunities for young athletes across all sports to excel in school.

During the interview, O’Bannon also reflected on the recent passing of basketball legend Bill Walton. O’Bannon knew Walton, a fellow UCLA Bruin and fellow players’ rights advocate.

“I enjoyed the time we spent together, may he rest in peace,” O’Bannon said.

O’Bannon wrote Court Judge: The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA with Sportico’s Michael McCann.

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