As the NCAA moves toward a $2.8 billion settlement that could resolve three antitrust lawsuits — with the Big Ten being the latest conference to give its approval — it is uncertain whether a fourth case will also be part of the settlement.
Lawyers in Fontenot v. NCAA said Wednesday they would like their case to remain in Colorado federal court rather than be moved to California and combined with another antitrust case involving college sports. They said they won’t know whether their claims will be covered by the settlement until they have full details of the proposal.
“One way or another, they’re going to have to deal with us or I just don’t see how a deal is going to get done,” said George Zelcs, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “They have to include us or get an order that requires us to be involved in this. We also have arguments against all of which.”
The NCAA and five major college conferences cited in House vs. The NCAA, which is at the center of the settlement negotiations, asked U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Colorado to combine the Fontenot case with another antitrust case, Carter vs. is being heard in the Northern District of California.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the House v. NCAA gave the defendants a deadline of Thursday to agree to a settlement.
The NCAA has already gone through two steps of a three-part approval process, which needs to be completed by its Board of Governors.
The Big 12 and ACC presidential councils voted to move forward with the deal on Tuesday. The Big Ten presidents voted to approve the agreement on Wednesday during spring meetings in Los Angeles, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the conferences were not publicizing their internal discussions.
The SEC and Pac-12 presidents are scheduled to meet Thursday and consider the deal.
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the NCAA will pay $2.77 billion over 10 years to former and current college athletes who were denied by the now-defunct rules the ability to earn money from endorsement and sponsorship deals dating back to 2016. The NCAA and the conferences would also agree to establish a revenue-sharing system, with schools allowed to spend about $21 million a year on their athletes.
House and Hubbard vs. NCAA have already been combined in the Northern District of California and are being overseen by US judge Claudia Wilken, who has ruled against the NCAA in several high-profile antitrust cases in recent years.
Carter is being supervised by District Judge Richard Seeborg. Fontenot would be added to Seeborg’s cases.
Former Colorado player Alex Fontenot filed his lawsuit last November, alleging that NCAA rules illegally prevented college athletes from earning their fair share of the millions of dollars in revenue that schools generate. Garrett Broshuis, a colleague of Zelcs at the law firm Korein Tillery, said the Fontenot case should not be combined with the other three because they present fundamental differences.
“House was focused on name, image and likeness issues, which is really just a small segment of the overall revenue that the NCAA and the conferences and their members are generating,” Broshuis told the AP. “Our case is focused on what the true free market value of the services provided by these athletes would be.”
Broshuis said the Carter case focuses only on basketball and players from the Power Five conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference.
“Considering that the class proposed by Fontenot is broader than that. Revenue is revenue, no matter the sport,” he said.
The Chamber’s case is a class action seeking back pay for college athletes who have been denied name, likeness and likeness compensation since 2016. The NCAA has lifted its ban on athletes earning NIL money in 2021.
Steve Berman, one of the House’s top lawyers, said in a statement to the AP that the issues in Fontenot completely overlap with the other cases and that the settlement — if approved — “will release all of their claims.”
“And as for your claim, they’re waiting to see if they want to be a part of it, they’ve already filed objections to the Colorado court without even seeing the settlement, a completely irresponsible thing to do,” Berman said. “Even more so when they didn’t contribute to the momentum that allowed us to accomplish this, rather than Johnny arriving recently.”
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