Legal News

NCAA Hit With Another Suit Over Licensing Issue

By Chris Herring

It’s been a rough three months for the NCAA, at least for the lawyers who handle the organization’s licensing and intellectual-property work.

First came the class-action suit in May, filed by former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller, that accused the association of making money off athletes’ likenesses without paying them for it. Then in June, a pair of former football players made the same claim and filed a separate suit.

And we’ve recently learned that the NCAA is on the receiving end of another class-action suit. This one also alleges that thousands of current and former college basketball and football players have been exploited because their images or likenesses were used in things like video games, rebroadcasts of “classic” games and jersey sales. Ed O’Bannon (pictured), a former basketball star at UCLA, is the class representative on the suit. Click here to read today’s NYT story on the suit; here for the complaint, filed by lawyers at Hausfeld LLP.

Though the class-action suits both appear to be complaining about the exploitation of both former and current players, the one filed yesterday seems a bit broader than the first, which focuses more heavily on the video-game likeness issue. Click here to read a previous Law Blog post on the first lawsuit.

O’Bannon, who now coaches a high school basketball team and works as a car salesman in Las Vegas, told the Law Blog he’s disappointed by what he feels is clearly exploitation. “When a player is done in college, they should be able to take their likeness with them. Seeing how [the NCAA has] stopped college players from doing that doesn’t seem right to me.”

The NCAA declined comment on the latest lawsuit, telling the NYT it hadn’t yet reviewed the case. But an NCAA spokesman did tell the paper, "The NCAA categorically denies any infringement on former or current student-athlete likeness rights."

The idea of former players suing for this reason isn’t unprecedented. A group of retired NFL players won a case last November after successfully arguing that the retirees’ union allowed Electronic Arts to use their images without being compensated. The group of about 2,000 players, led by Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, ended up receiving about $26 million as a result.

Former sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro, who convinced O’Bannon to be the class representative on the suit, told the Law Blog he feels this suit differs from the one involving the NFL retirees. “I think the players in this suit were more egregiously harmed,” said Vaccaro, probably best known for inking Michael Jordan to his first shoe deal with Nike. “At least with the NFL retirees, they had a union and a contract. These college players had no rights at all, so I don’t think you can compare the lawsuits.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 22, 2009 (boomark / email).