The NCAA’s historic antitrust settlement will—if finalized, approved and triumphant over potential legal challenge—radically change college sports and end amateurism.
Colleges and conferences will be able to directly pay players. There will be pro sports-like salary caps and revenue sharing. Players who were denied pay for NIL, video games and broadcasting revenue will get what they’re owed. Going forward, players will gain a piece of the pie athletes have long created through their labor and marketability.
None of this would have happened without Ed O’Bannon.
“It feels good to see justice arrive,” O’Bannon said in an interview. “It’s been a long battle.”
Fifteen years ago, the former UCLA basketball star and NBA forward brought a case that would set in motion 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 dad, coaching his children who played sports at high levels. A friend told O’Bannon he bought a video game called NCAA March Madness, published by Electronic Arts. O’Bannon, his friend said, was the best player in the game.
This was 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 indeed the best player. The game didn’t have O’Bannon’s name, but its depiction of his likeness had everything else, including race, height and jersey number. The same was true of O’Bannon’s teammates.
“I thought it was strange EA or the NCAA hadn’t contacted my teammates or me,” O’Bannon recalled. “I’m not a lawyer, but something seemed off about that.”
O’Bannon’s instinct was spot on. The publisher had paid for use of intellectual property associated with schools and the NCAA, but not the players for their intellectual property. This was because of the NCAA’s system of amateurism, which forbade players from using their right of publicity. That right protects people’s name, image and likeness and other features from commercial misappropriation. But EA faced its own conundrum: It wouldn’t have been able to strike a deal with the NCAA for the game if it simultaneously defied the NCAA by paying the players.
O’Bannon and his wife, Rosa, met with attorneys and their longtime friend, Sonny Vaccaro, about what, if anything, to do. O’Bannon was enjoying life, and his 11-year pro career was long over. It would have been easy for him to shrug off his concerns.
But that wasn’t O’Bannon.
“I knew something had to be done,” he said. “I figured once people began to look under the hood of NCAA rules, they’d realize those rules really didn’t add up. Why can’t a video game company pay college athletes to be in a video game, when that same company pays NBA and NFL players? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
O’Bannon also saw the situation as unfair to college athletes, many of whom are minorities, and few of whom would ever turn pro.
“Most of my teammates never earned a dime, but there they were in this video game, selling for $60, while the NCAA gets paid,” he said.
O’Bannon then led a lawsuit against the NCAA and EA, arguing violations of federal antitrust law and California’s right of publicity law. He knew from the start that if he won, he wouldn’t have been paid. The case was about changing rules so that college athletes have equal rights as their classmates.
“Not everything’s about money or fame,” O’Bannon stressed. “This is about basic fairness and dignity, so that athletes enjoy the same rights as other Americans. . . . Most players aren’t going pro, so getting the chance to earn money while gaining an education is key.”
Before a trial in Oakland in 2014, O’Bannon and EA reached a settlement that called for EA to pay about $40 million to more than 29,000 current and former players who were part of the class action.
The NCAA wasn’t interested in settling and rolled the dice by going to trial. It proved to be a catastrophic mistake. O’Bannon’s legal team showed how the NCAA and schools made money from players’ NIL while denying those players a chance to make money.
O’Bannon won the trial and the appeal. The NCAA was ordered to change its rules to allow for the full cost of attendance.
In the late 2010s, legislators in California, Florida and other states used O’Bannon’s case to push for NIL statutes that guaranteed college athletes could be paid for endorsements, sponsorships and influencing contracts. The case was also instrumental in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in NCAA v. Alston and has been key in the antitrust cases the NCAA is now settling.
O’Bannon isn’t bothered that some of those who resented him challenging the system now embrace the new world he made possible.
“I was basically asking that players share in money they deserved, but look, that money has to come from somewhere,” he reasoned. “I know the leaders of college sports, and some of their friends in the media, viewed me as going after their lucrative system. I’m just glad people now see fairness as a good thing.”
O’Bannon is also pleased to see the return of college sports video games. EA Sports College Football 25 will be the company’s first college sports video game since 2013.
“It’s great the game is returning, but I honestly wonder what took long,” he reflected. “If the NCAA did what we asked for in 2009—let college players be paid for appearing in video games and broadcasts—it would have saved them 15 years of losing in court. It would have also let college athletes capitalize on their fame, like other Americans, and let gamers have their game the whole time.”
These days, 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 of 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 advocate of players’ rights.
“I enjoyed our time together, may he rest in peace,” O’Bannon said.
O’Bannon wrote Court Justice: The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA with Sportico’s Michael McCann.
