This week saw the U.S. Supreme Court reject hearing arguments in the Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA court case. Both parties lobbied the Supreme Court to hear the case, even though Judge Claudia Wilken ruled against the NCAA and ordered the organization to pay $42.3 million to the plaintiffs in the case. Despite the reward, the Supreme Court was still a goal for O’Bannon’s group.
“While we would have liked the Supreme Court's review, we remain pleased with our trial victory and the Ninth Circuit's decision upholding the finding that the NCAA violated the antitrust laws and affirming a permanent injunction to remedy that violation, which enables NCAA member schools to offer college athletes significant additional funds toward the cost of attendance," Michael Hausfeld, the lead attorney for plaintiffs, said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports .
With the refusal from the Supreme Court, this leaves the 9th Circuit of Appeals ruling in tact, which is as follows:
- The NCAA’s regulations are subject to antitrust scrutiny and rules limiting football and men’s basketball players to receiving tuition, fees, room, board and books violate antitrust laws.
- While antitrust law requires that schools be allowed to provide these athletes with scholarships that cover all of their costs of attending college, including travel and personal incidentals, “it does not require more,” such as what it termed “cash sums untethered to educational expenses.”"
The bigger question is this: Where does this leave college sports games in the future?
In an interview with Polygon back in August, EA’s Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore stated he believes that EA Sports’ college football franchise could make a return.
"It was an unclear future for us," Moore said. "It was a really sad day and we said, 'We just can't do this anymore.' And one day I know we'll be back."
Meanwhile, 2K recently released ten of the best all-time college basketball teams in NBA 2K17 , which got many sports gaming fans excited about the potential return of college sports to video games.
When it was announced that EA Sports was dropping the NCAA Football franchise in 2013, it was because they were part of the original lawsuit that was brought against the NCAA. After EA settled the case earlier this year for $60 million , the door was opened, albeit slightly, to start thinking about college games once again. The problem is without the NCAA allowing college athletes to get paid for using their likeness, the argument being that the student-athletes are amateurs, no one can make a video game using college athletes without fear of more court fights. Without that guarantee, no college sports games will be made and fans can only continue to play NCAA Football 14 until the disc turns to dust.
The future of college sports games are murky at best. EA, I would assume, would be ready and willing to pay players to use their likeness in their games, but the NCAA would fight that. Unfortunately, the NCAA are holding firm with its assertion that college athletes should not be paid, even though the NCAA is making billions off the sweat and blood of the student athletes.
Until the rules are changed and players are able to receive at least a stipend for being in video games, college sports games seems destined to be on the backburner and we could only dream about how cool it would be to play as Stanford's Christian McCaffrey or Clemson’s DeShaun Watson in NCAA Football 17.
The ball is in your court NCAA.
