The National College Players Association, Ramogi Huma’s athlete advocacy group, is voicing its adamant opposition to the proposed settlement in the House v. NCAA antitrust case, calling the deal “completely out of touch” with the present-day NIL system and “economic realities.”
Through an embargoed press release Thursday, Huma, a former UCLA football player, argued that by effectively shutting down NIL collectives, the settlement would enable schools to “re-monopolize booster money” while threatening to “stifle a new direct NIL pay market” forged by Virginia lawmakers this spring.
“This is an unjust settlement that would not only harm current athletes but future college athletes who are only in fourth grade,” Huma said in a statement, referencing the House agreement’s 10-year term. “It could even affect children who aren’t even born yet because the lawyers can agree to extend the terms of this settlement without limits.”
Huma’s harsh assessment puts him at odds with his longtime athlete rights’ ally, Jeffrey Kessler, the House plaintiff’s lead lawyer, who has been vociferously arguing in the public for the benefits of the accord.
“[Kessler] has done a lot of great work in the past on issues in and around college sports,” Huma said in a phone interview with Sportico, “but we don’t agree with this settlement and our goal is to do what we can to stop it and give the lawyers another bite.”
Earlier this summer, when the broad strokes of the settlement began leaking out in media reports, Huma seemed encouraged by the developments.
“Even though it was only because of the overwhelming legal pressure, the NCAA, conferences and schools are agreeing that college athletes should be paid,” Huma told the Associated Press in May. “And there’s no going back from there. That’s truly groundbreaking.”
But when the House parties submitted the long-form agreement to U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in late July, Huma was “surprised to a degree” about the extent to which it restrained financial opportunities for athletes.
For Huma, the experience called to mind the 2008 denouement of the White v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit, which targeted the governing body’s cap on the cost of athletic scholarships. Huma had been an influential force behind the scenes of White, helping to enlist several of the case’s named plaintiffs, but ultimately felt sold out by the class counsel for striking a deal he found feeble.
Earlier this year, Huma told Sportico that the disappointments from White had a profound impact on his advocacy work, making him cautious of associating his group with other parties whose commitment to the cause might not be as resolute.
Kessler and Huma were originally introduced by DeMaurice Smith, the former NFLPA executive director, and Huma ended up helping Kessler find athlete plaintiffs to be part of both the Jenkins v. NCAA lawsuit—later consolidated with the Alston v. NCAA case—and Carter v. NCAA case, which is part of the House settlement.
“I think Ramogi understood that I had spent my career advocating for player rights, representing the NFLPA and NBA and MLBPA,” Kessler told Sportico in an interview earlier this year. “He had confidence that I would be pursuing the case relentlessly to try and advance those rights.”
Over the last decade, Kessler and Huma have described each other as mutual sounding boards in their parallel and often intertwining attempts to countermand the NCAA’s amateurism, with Kessler praising Huma as, if not its leader, the paragon of the reform effort. Huma has similarly voiced his high regard for Kessler, though at times privately worried about whether the litigator was truly aligned with his end goal of a free market for college athletes.
Though Huma says he did not have any informal role in the House case, as he did with White, “it is definitely déjà vu.”
The House settlement proposal has made for strange and seemingly paradoxical bedfellows, with Kessler now campaigning along the NCAA and even agreeing to advocate on the governing body’s behalf before Congress. It is now also creating new lines of demarcation in the athlete advocacy space.
Earlier this month, attorneys representing college athletes in two other pending cases, Fontenot v. NCAA and Cornelio v. NCAA, asked Wilken to deny preliminary approval of the House settlement, making similar arguments as Huma. They were joined as objectors by current Brown University basketball player Grace Kirk and and former Brown player Tamenang Choh, who have sued the Ivy League for allegedly violating federal antitrust laws by disallowing its schools to offer athletic scholarships.
Meanwhile, Houston Christian University is appealing Judge Wilken’s denial of its attempt to intervene in House as a non-party. Wilken is set to hold a hearing next Friday to discuss the settlement’s preliminary approval.
When asked whether the NCPA would likewise take its opposition to a courtroom, Huma said “we are exploring all options.”
