O'Bannon Ruling: NCAA Loses
A federal judge has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the Ed O'Bannon v. NCAA antitrust case, knocking down the restrictions against college athletes profiting off their name, image, and likeness.
How Not To Reform The NCAA
There will be no new release of an EA NCAA Football game this year. The man most frequently blamed for this is a former UCLA basketball star named Ed O’Bannon, who had the temerity to sue the NCAA and EA for using his image without asking permission and without negotiating to pay for it.
College Players Can Get a PS4 From a Bowl Game, But They Can't Be Paid
The Military Bowl is no one's idea of a major college football bowl game. It's a shitty bowl, in fact, inviting five-loss teams to stage background-noise football two days after Christmas. Despite that, every player from Maryland and Marshall will receive a PlayStation 4 for showing up this year.
Electronic Arts has budgeted $40 million to settle lawsuits brought by college football players against its NCAA Football series, which EA Sports canceled last month. The publisher reported the figure to investors today. Though the settlement has yet to be made public, the figure is consistent with rumors reported in…
No College Football Video Game Next Year, Says EA Sports [Update]
EA Sports will not publish any college football video game next year, the label said moments ago, citing ongoing litigation brought by current and former college players that threatens to change how all of big-time college sports does business.
EA Sports' First Amendment Defense in College Lawsuits Shot Down Again
For the second time, a federal appeals court has struck down a key defense Electronic Arts has used in its long-running legal fight against college athletes who say their likenesses have been used in EA Sports video games without their permission.
NFL Pros Go Back to College to Fight for Their Video Game Rights
Two letters and a number. That's all you need to be a household name in college football—or its video game, at least. But this year, when NCAA Football 14 hits shelves on Tuesday, South Carolina's fearsome DE#7 and Texas A&M's do-it-all QB#2 will be joined, for the first time, by active players appearing under their…
NCAA Football Used Tim Tebow's Real Name Before He Graduated
Real college football players' names are not supposed to appear in video games if they're still in school at the time they are published. But Tim Tebow's name slipped into NCAA Football 10, which came out during the Heisman Trophy winner's senior year at Florida.
EA Sports Has No 1st Amendment Right to College Players, Judges Say
A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit brought by a college quarterback against EA Sports, on grounds the video game publisher used his likeness without permission in their popular NCAA Football series.
EA Sports' former executive producer on NCAA Football testified that the game "generally tried to make the players perform as their real life counterparts, short of their name and likeness." EA and the NCAA are defendants in a potential class-action suit over the unauthorized use of college players' likenesses.
College Athletes are More Than a Number, and Everyone Knows It
For many sports fans, a number is as identifiable as a name. Growing up far away from a professional team, those numbers didn't really imprint on me until I covered football for four years at college. Ever since, I remember uniform numerals not with a name, but as a name.
Real Names in Games Mean More Money for the NCAA, Executive Argued
Five years ago, an NCAA executive said EA Sports should be allowed to use actual names of its amateur athletes—commanding a higher licensing fee as a result—because players' likenesses were "rigged into the games now by illegal means." Permitting their use would clear up the matter and bring more money to the NCAA, he…
EA Sports Coded College Games With Real Names, Say Lawsuit Emails
EA Sports used the real names of college players when coding its NCAA rosters internally and the NCAA's licensing authority argued that the publisher should be allowed to include them in the games themselves, according to emails turned up in a lawsuit against both the publisher and the NCAA, ESPN reported yesterday.
