Appeals panel upholds NCAA anti-trust ruling, disagrees with deferred payments
A panel of appeals judges agreed with a ruling that the NCAA is not above federal anti-trust laws. However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled against the deferred compensation plan proposed by judge Claudia Wilken in her August 2014 ruling in the O’Bannon case.
The three-judge panel’s ruling came down Wednesday. The O’Bannon case, centers around the NCAA’s use of its athletes’ images and likeness and the compensation the athletes feel they are entitled to receive for that use. NCAA athletes currently do not receive any compensation for their images.
As part of Wilken’s ruling last year, she said that schools should set aside no fewer than $5,000 per year per player for the use of the players’ likenesses. She also said preventing players from profiting off their images was a violation of anti-trust laws.
From the New York Times:
“The N.C.A.A. is not above the antitrust laws, and courts cannot and must not shy away from requiring the N.C.A.A. to play by the Sherman Act’s rules,” the three-person panel wrote in what is known as the O’Bannon case.
In July, the panel issued a stay on the judge’s order, which was set to go into effect Aug. 1. Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas filed a separate opinion concurring in upholding the finding that N.C.A.A. rules are subject to antitrust law but dissenting from the finding that struck down the $5,000 cap.
The NCAA had immediately appealed Wilken’s decision last August. After the appeals decision Wednesday, the sanctioning body issued this statement.
The governing body has given conferences the freedom to institute cost-of-attendance stipends along with the athletic scholarships currently given out. But the $5,000 per-year proposal that Wilken included would be in addition to any COA money given to players. The money would have been payable upon the completion of an athlete’s collegiate career.
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The stipends have also been pitched as additional assistance rather than payments to players because they are calculated via a formula and uniform for each player at a school. The judges’ opinion drew a line between those stipends and any possible image payments. Former college football players have said before that they were hard up for food money in their college careers. The NCAA also passed a rule allowing unlimited meals for players.
The opinion, written by Judge Jay Bybee, offered support as well to the NCAA’s amateurism principles. “The difference between offering student-athletes education-related compensation and offering them cash sums untethered to educational expenses is not minor; it is a quantum leap,” the opinion stated. “Once that line is crossed, we see no basis for returning to a rule of amateurism and no defined stopping point. … At that point the NCAA will have surrendered its amateurism principles entirely and transitioned from its ‘particular brand of football’ to minor league status.”
The NCAA’s appeal centered around a 30+ year-old Supreme Court ruling. A line from the opinion in the NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, says to “preserve the character and the quality of the ‘product,’ athletes must not be paid.”
The legal wranglings in the case are likely not over. Depending on their reactions to the 78-page document issued Wednesday, either party could continue the legal process and NCAA chairman Mark Emmert told CBS that the case could head all the way to the Supreme Court.
A separate lawsuit against the NCAA that seeks a free-market payment system for college athletes is asking for class-action status. A hearing with Wilken is set for Thursday.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
