You’re right. No matter that thousands of kids got free rides to college - and many of them had no hope of ever turning pro, they just wanted the education. No matter that very few women would ever get a chance to play major college athletics without football money (who do think is paying for those teams?). No matter that football weekend is a key part of many town’s economies. They’re just a bunch of crooks.
Acsenray, serious question(s):
Would you remove any requirement for school attendance during play in the “pro” version?
What about the limited eligibility period? I mean, are you thinking Major Junior Hockey or AA Baseball with a university tie-in? Given the number of draft slots every year vs. the number of players needed to make your pro league workable, there’s going to be a LOT of players in that league that don’t make it. Can they stay and keep playing?
What about schools that currently have money-making programs, but aren’t good enough for the big league? See above, how are they going to run their athletic departments or is it okay to fuck over all the “no-money” sports just to make football players some extra money?
Not even that - the only link will be the fact that the team is using the university’s stadium for its home games, and possibly using the university’s nickname and colors as well. Even using the school’s name would be a problem, unless it’s named after the city it is in - you could have the Ann Arbor Wolverines vs. the Columbus Buckeyes, but “Ohio State” is out of the question. (“Maybe” calling the Ann Arbor team the Michigan Wolverines would be allowed, as long as they didn’t say “University of Michigan Wolverines.”)
In fact, the schools couldn’t even enforce a rule saying that the players had to be enrolled at the school (and how many of the players pretty much guaranteed an NFL career would want to enroll in any school?). If there was any link between the school and the team involving the school’s students, there would be hundreds of Title IX-based lawsuits filed the next day.
I think if the NCAA loses, it’s only a matter of time before the NFL starts up a true minor league. Play late February through early May. 12-week season. Put all the teams in smaller cities near the NFL cities (and what the hell, one in LA). It could work.
They are stealing from students and getting rich off of people who are prevented from using their own likeness to profit. They own the faces of people! They might as well be cannibals. So yes, the NCAA is nothing more than a bunch of crooks. No amount of accidental positive results takes away from their thievery
How is it stealing? How is it thievery? The students agreed to this.
Do I steal from you if I buy a painting at your garage sale for $20 and turn around and sell it for $100,000? We agreed to the initial transaction right? Value was exchanged, right? You were happy with the initial deal, what changed later that made it a bad deal for you?
Look there are, no question, a lot of problems with major college athletics right now. This thread is full of people making suggestions for a replacement system and/or modifications to the system. Hyperbole like yours isn’t productive and would cause more harm than good.
The problem with that is that the “stealing” is very ill-defined. Take Electronic Arts. They’re named as a co-defendant because they make NCAA Football games that include the “likeness” of college players. The problem is that this “likeness” consists of the player’s number and some physical stats (Speed, Strength, Agility, etc) that kinda-sorta connect back to the real player.
Look at the first frame of this YouTube video showing NCAA Football 12. That’s supposed to be Andrew Luck (Stanford QB, #12, very good physical stats, 6’4", 235 pounds). This is the real Andrew Luck. They used most of his stuff, but the picture only kinda-sorta looks like him and the hometown is wrong.
Then remember that he was the best player in the country at the time. How many others could be so easily recognized?
Some versions of the game allow editing of the data and you can download a patch that will automatically fill in all the real information so that even the less well known players will be identifiable.
If someone offers you a life-preserver when you’re drowning and all you have to do is sign over your life-savings, is that fair? Its a contract made under duress because these kids know its almost impossible to get into the NFL or have any kind of exposure without them. And yes, that’s the NCAA’s fault, for doing business the way they do. They could very easily allow these kids to keep their likeness and do business with them by licensing their faces, but they don’t and that’s morally repugnant. They take hundreds of millions of dollars from the students that should go to them. So what if they offer scholarships? With the amount they should be getting in TV deals and shared revenues, these guys should be able to afford any kind of education they want
Its not simply based on recognition. If so, no game made in the pre-32-bit era would need any licensing because those polygons and sprites do not in any way resemble real players. If those stats are for Andrew Luck or any real player, than that player needs to have a share of the revenue
I remember in EA NCAA Football 2007, when you edit the players’ names to their real names, changing “ND WR #83” to “Jeff Samardzija”, the announcer would pronounce the new name correctly. That’s because there were sound files for every single player’s name on the disc should you make the effort to make those changes.
An O’Bannon win will probably force the schools to share in those revenues, maybe as much as 50% to the athletes. That’s gonna be a pretty sticky ongoing problem to determine the split, seeing as how there’s no organized body representing the athletes in the negotiations. Look for the schools to do a lot of bobbing and weaving on this issue because it’s probably their biggest source of revenues.
OTOH, well-heeled boosters who can buy a direct pathway to the athletes are a whole new monkey wrench in the equation. They can enact business relationships with any athlete – past, present or future – they wish to and that is a powerful force in its own right. The hotshot HS QB might be enticed by Oklahoma State’s TV-fueled stipend of $30,000 a year but the deal might be sealed by a signing bonus of $150,000 directly from T. Boone Pickens.
I’m afraid that colleges and all the deserving beneficiaries of the system that you note don’t have the right to any of those things. The football and basketball players, however, do have commercial rights as individuals, rights they don’t check at the institution door to make the system flow best.
I don’t blame the schools for the mess they’re in, even though it’s easy to think it. I think this is a situation that couldn’t have been foreseen when the system was constructed and now it’s evolved to one that can apparently function (I don’t believe this, btw) only by forcing the most important component to give up one of the most basic freedoms in the country.
How many skill-based jobs have a governing body requiring school attendance? Film acting? Plumbing? Professional tennis?
“Just to make football players some extra money?” — I’m afraid that’s the heart of our disagreement. Being a college football player should not have this nearly unique circumstance of not being able to bargain for compensation, whatever the source.
I am not familiar enough with this area of the law to know whether this is true or not, but, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. There will be professional football teams in Ann Arbor, Columbus, and State College. Their names and colors will be close enough to satisfy the university community.
Well, yeah, they shouldn’t be able to enforce such a rule if it’s a revenue-generating commercial activity. If a school wants to offer any-student-can-sign-up athletic activities, they’re free to do so, but as soon as the activity starts generating income, the players should be able to demand and accept compensation.
“Unofficial” in a purely technical sense. It is clear that EA expects its customers to do it and it is one of the most attractive features of the game.
Whoa! How? The NCAA has zero control over the NFL’s business model. As for exposure, that’s on the networks (see Kim Kardashian, et al). If the networks want you to have exposure, you get it. Why aren’t they part of the lawsuit?*
Really, your employer doesn’t have a deal with you that any idea you develop during company time doesn’t belong to them? Wow. Mine does (as do most). Guess I need to find a lawyer and sue them, huh?
Ummm…Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers? Nurses? (In my state) Interior Decorators? Seriously?
BTW, I note that only Red Wiggler addressed the greater impact of destroying college football (and his response was a big fuck you to everyone else). I really think that y’all need to think about the fact that you aren’t just dismantling the current football system, you’re dismantling most collegiate sports.
Those are licensing bodies. Do we have a body that licenses athletes? Do we need one? If we do, then it should be an independent body of experts that sets professional standards.
The basic fact, though, is that athletes don’t need a licensing body. So long as you can play the game, you are an athlete.
If collegiate sports is built upon the back of uncompensated workers who aren’t allowed to bargain for compensation, then it’s a sick system and needs to be dismantled.
Your employer does not require you to sign away your identity rights permanently. At most, they own what you create on company time using company resources. Remember, the NCAA contracts make the student-athletes hand over the rights in their names and images for eternity. They get to sell their images and their names on jerseys forever without any compensation.
I’m not talking about how the NFL or anyone else should change, that’s untouchable by this lawsuit. But the NCAA can change but won’t, and because they are in charge of these students and making the rules and profiting off them, they bear the responsibility.
A better question would be to ask why the kids are not allowed to profit off their own likeness. Its their own freaking faces and they can’t make a dime from it, something about that is wrong.
An example of NCAA idiocy: Joel Bauman was kicked off the University of Minnesota wrestling team because he recorded a song and sold it on Itunes.
College students are always selling their work—writers and artists are creating and selling, musicians are taking paying gigs, designers are taking on freelance assignments. Students in many fields go professional while they are still studying.
And in Bauman’s case, his song had nothing to do with his athletic career. It was an entirely separate activity.
Sure they do. They’re called the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc. Don’t work for one of them? Then you aren’t a professional athlete in that sport.
Holy crap! I had no idea that Peyton Manning’s Papa John’s commercials benefitted UT! Wow. Thanks for the education. Oh wait, you mean Manning’s name and face in UT gear! I think you’ll find that the concept is that UT already GAVE Manning his compensation.