The NCAA’s amateurism rule is rubbish. On its website, the college athletics governing body claims it has “adopted amateurism rules to ensure the students’ priority remains on obtaining a quality educational experience and that all of student-athletes are competing equitably.” The page goes on to list all the things student athletes are not allowed to do under the principle of amateurism, including:

1. Salaries for participating in athletics;
2. Contracts with professional teams;
3. Benefits from an agent or a prospective agent;
4. Agreement to be represented by an agent; and
5. Tryouts, practice, or competition with a professional team.

In the meantime, the University of Texas basketball program collected more than $165 million in revenue for the 2013-2014 season, according to the Office of Postsecondary Education. Forbes values its football program at a cool $139 million, while the NCAA as a whole made nearly $913 million for the fiscal year 2013.

If the NCAA is starting to sound like a cartel, that’s because it is. By definition, a cartel is an agreement between competing firms to fix prices. A long time ago, colleges got together and decided not to pay players, fixing the salaries of their student-athlete employees at zero for the benefit of NCAA and participating universities’ leadership.

So then, it becomes evident that the NCAA needs to get rid of its amateurism rule. Fortunately, the rule is already under assault in the court room.

In a March 2014 National Labor Relations Board decision, Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr ruled that a group of Northwestern University football players are eligible to form a union on the basis that players devote as many as 50 hours a week to football, and that scholarships, which can be terminated yea to year and require student athletes to adhere to certain guidelines, are a contract for compensation.

In an August 2014 California District Court decision, Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that “NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools” in a case involving a former UCLA basketball star who claimed the NCAA and EA Sports violated his right to use his image for marketing purposes when his image was used in a video game without his consent and without compensation.

Nevertheless, there are numerous arguments against compensating student athletes.

Some argue that a vast majority of athletic programs at universities are losing money and need help from their basketball and football programs to stay afloat. Compensating student athletes, they contend, will force athletic departments across the country to cut programs.

Tough luck. We live in a capitalist society where businesses close every day because they fail to make a profit. If a university believes that maintaining these programs leads to more donations from alumni, fine, fund them through donations. But student athletes contributing to profitable programs should not be punished for the financial woes of their unprofitable counterparts.

Others argue that scholarships reasonably compensate student athletes.

No, they don’t. In a Drexel University and National College Players Association study, the average Division I college basketball player would earn $266,000 per year, and the average Division I football player would earn $114,000 per year, if players received 50 percent of the revenue earned by their respective programs, which is approximately the revenue sharing model of the NBA and NFL.

Still, others argue that high school athletes have the right to decide whether or not they want to accept a scholarship and be bound by NCAA regulations.

Well, the NBA enforces a 19-year age minimum for draftees, and the NFL requires its draftees to be three years removed from high school. With the emergence of European and Chinese leagues, some high school basketball stars have opted to spend their last years of ineligibility abroad. With no comparable foreign football leagues, football stars are out of luck.

There is yet another denomination of people who argue that the NFL’s three-year rule protects young athletes who are more susceptible to injuries such as concussions.

In most states, minors become legal adults at the age of 18, and the legal age of consent is 16. High school football players are well aware of the risks associated with playing the sport, and they should have the option to get paid millions of dollars to take on the higher risks of playing professionally with better athletes, or receive scholarships and develop their skills in a less physical college setting.

Consequently, the most sensible solution to the NCAA amateurism problem is for the NBA and NFL to eliminate their age requirements. Unfortunately, college athletics function as a phenomenal developmental league for professional leagues that professional franchises do not have to pay for.

So, as long as these age requirements are in place, amateurism in college athletics is dead. The NCAA needs to stop pretending that its student athletes are students first, athletes second, and open up its leagues to all the intricacies of the free market.

Doing so may involve sports agents that specialize in college athletes, or a free agency period where eligible players can transfer to other universities. The market will invariably take many twists and turns before it settles into a final model, but it will certainly be better than a system in which a cartel blatantly exploits the services of helpless college athletes.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Capitalism and College Sports: Time to Pay Student Athletes appeared first on Law Street.

The NYPD has been under a lot of fire in recent months for its actions, particularly after the death of Eric Garner last summer and the continual debate over stop-and-frisk policies. Now, the NYPD may come under scrutiny once again, after an interaction between officers and NBA player Thabo Sefolosha ended with the Atlanta Hawks player breaking his leg.

Exactly what happened that caused Sefolosha’s broken leg is still unclear–as with many of these stories there are two distinctly different narratives. According to the NYPD:

Sefolosha sustained the injury while resisting arrest outside a Manhattan night club early Wednesday morning. Sefolosha was arrested along with teammate Pero Antic for interfering with local police’s efforts to set up a crime scene following the stabbing of Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland.

However, a video shows Sefolosha being pulled in different directions by officers, and quite possibly being hit by one of the officer’s batons. At one point he’s grabbed by the neck and pulled to the ground by an officer. There were at least six officers present to take down Sefolosha.

Pero Antic, the other player who was arrested in the scuffle, claims that he and Sefolosha weren’t trying to interfere with the police, nor were they involved in the incident that led to fellow NBA player Chris Copeland, his girlfriend, and another woman being stabbed. Antic stated:

I would say that it’s a pure example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, people know Thabo for so many years in the league. He’s probably one of the greatest guys. The reporters who are here know me. … It’s just a pure example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, it’s difficult to determine from the video what the players were doing before the fight, as the police claim that Sefolosha was charging at them. Both Sefolosha and Antic were arrested on charges of obstructing authorities and disorderly conduct, but were released from prison. They’ve both said that they intend to fight these charges.

As a result of Sefolosha’s broken leg, he will be out for the rest of the season and unable to play with the Atlanta Hawks in the playoffs, despite the team’s surprisingly stand out season. Sefolosha’s absence will absolutely be a big blow to the team moving forward.

Now the NBA Players’ Association has announced that it will be looking into the incident and conducting an investigation into the actions of the NYPD. What it determines will be interesting, especially in light of the other issues with tactics the NYPD has had over the last few years.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s been a few weeks since the announcement that the Ferguson grand jury would not indict Officer Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown to death. It’s been about a week since a Staten Island grand jury announced that Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted for the death of Eric Garner. Protests have continued in many major cities, and everyone is still talking about the injustices inherent in our judicial system. #ICan’tBreathe, a reference to Garner’s last words as he died after being put in a chokehold by Panteleo, is still trending on Twitter as I write this.

Now, celebrities are starting to get involved. A few nights ago, Kobe Bryant and other members of the Los Angeles Lakers wore “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts before their game.

Kobe and the rest of the #Lakers wearing #ICantBreathe T-Shirts during warm ups ( pic via @lakers ) pic.twitter.com/kd2OlxrZfm

— Jeff G. (@TheSportsDude) December 10, 2014

The Lakers weren’t the first team to participate in protests. The St. Louis Rams, shortly after the Ferguson grand jury decision, walked out onto the field with their hands in the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture that has been a symbol of the Ferguson protests:

Rams players said they ‘absolutely’ would repeat ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture http://t.co/lxshSRD8wrpic.twitter.com/H4Z71QQWau

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 4, 2014

Rams player Davin Joseph also kept his support going by writing “I Can’t Breathe” on his shoes before a recent game:

R.I.P Eric Garner pic.twitter.com/i84grny7pR

— Davin Joseph (@DavinJoseph75) December 7, 2014

Detroit Lions player Reggie Bush also showed his support with a homemade “I Can’t Breathe” shirt:

ICYMI: Reggie Bush supports Eric Garner with message on shirt http://t.co/N6oDRFTcQD pic.twitter.com/LqMsc2eCsx — Josh Katzenstein (@jkatzenstein) December 7, 2014

It’s not just professional athletes who are showing their support; other celebrities have chosen to throw their weight around as well and bring attention to the Brown and Garner-inspired protests. Singer/songwriter John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen, a model, paid for an entire fleet of food trucks to serve protesters in Lincoln Square in New York on Sunday. 

.@johnlegend and his wife pay for a food truck to feed #EricGarner supporters at #NYC protest. http://t.co/HYLPqHTFZxpic.twitter.com/0JJqqEuIIu — Jassiel Perez (@fl_dreamer) December 8, 2014

Finally, members of Congress have shown their support. Four members have done the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture on the floor of the House of Representatives: New York Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, and Texas Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green. 

Four Members of Congress do ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ gesture on House floor. http://t.co/EMPkdTk6otpic.twitter.com/YanQI5RzJ4 — NYDN Politics (@NYDNPolitics) December 2, 2014

Although many celebrities have made their opinions known about the lack of indictments in these cases, these athletes, celebrities, and politicians have stood out. They’re in good company–it’s only by bringing attention to these issues that we can ever hope to enact change. 

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post #HandsUpDontShoot #ICantBreathe: Celebrities Weigh In appeared first on Law Street.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has ruled college athletics in a manner that would make dictators green with envy, and each decade under its rule seemed to indicate the increased power they’ve gained. In 1976 the association was entrusted with the authority to penalize schools directly. In 1988, the Supreme Court held that despite its quasi-governmental makeup, the NCAA was not a state actor and therefore need not provide procedural due process. Throughout the nineties and into the present day, the NCAA brokered broadcasting deals for more and more money, resulting in a body that generated more than $750 million as of 2013.  But as any powerful politician knows, you can’t stay on top forever.

On August 8, 2014, Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California held in O’Bannon vs. NCAA that the NCAA’s current structure violates federal antitrust law. Specifically, Judge Wilken found that the NCAA can’t forbid schools from providing marginal compensation to their student athletes. For now, the ruling only approves of a $5,000 yearly allowance to an eligible NCAA basketball or football player’s trust fund. But the old guard should be nervous, as this decision is just one of several recent (and well-designed) attempts to wrestle power away from the NCAA. Earlier this year, Northwestern University football players successfully petitioned the NLRB to form a players union. Around the same time, famed labor lawyer Jeffrey Kessler filed suit against the NCAA, which essentially seeks to remove all caps on a college athlete’s earning capacity. Some journalists have indicated this is the beginning of the endfor the NCAA, but if that’s so, what lies ahead?

The good news is that courts are unlikely to reverse the advances made by the students. The NCAA has already indicated its plan to appeal O’Bannon, but since the Ninth Circuit is generally labor friendly, it’s unlikely the decision will be overturned at the next stage.

A reversal at the Supreme Court isn’t likely either. Despite a recent trend of being generally unfriendly to labor (e.g., this and this), SCOTUS is unlikely to decide O’Bannon purely on employment/labor law grounds. O’Bannon is an antitrust case, and plaintiffs in antitrust cases generally argue to oust a singular bully and restore free market principles. This is a notion most friends-of-management favor, perhaps especially in the Supreme Court’s case considering they’ve restored free market principles against the NCAA in the past.

The bad news for the student-athlete revolution is that their respective schools may have conflicting interests, and they may continue to thwart any effort to provide meaningful pay to students. Not too long ago the NCAA attempted to pass a resolution whereby student-athletes would get a stipend in addition to their scholarships. The schools, not the NCAA, pushed back against the idea.  Essentially, the schools that generated less sports-related revenue believed they would be unfairly burdened if they were forced to offer stipends in equal proportion to money makers like Texas and Wisconsin, especially after considering Title IX funding requirements.

Okay, so tax-paying Americans live with a progressive income tax rather than a flat tax, why can’t NCAA schools construct something similar with regard to student-athlete trust funds? Because the aforementioned money makers in college sports are already positioning themselves to avoid it. The day before the O’Bannon decision came down, the NCAA voted to allow the richest schools in D-I sports to have more autonomy. The autonomy could enable big schools to provide their students with more financial aid and could allow students to receive money through other pursuits (something former Colorado receiver Jeremy Bloom would have enjoyed).

The possible downside to the autonomy is that it becomes less likely the richest schools would be forced to comply with a graduated trust fund plan akin to a progressive tax. The richest schools would pay their recruits what they wanted, while the less-flush schools would be forced to pay the same amount, or risk losing even more recruits to bigger schools. This dichotomy could widen the income gap between large and small schools.

So why would the NCAA do this? Because the NCAA was a puppet government all along, man. Unlike sports oligarch FIFA, the NCAA doesn’t have a lot of disposable income. Ninety-six percent of its annual revenue is returned to charter schools, which is disproportionately given to the moneymakers of football and basketball. This money, AKA leverage, forced the hands of the NCAA and smaller schools to vote for the power-five conference autonomy, because they were scared the big schools would split off and create their own league.

In sum, the students won the day on August 8, but the real war could pit wealthy schools against not-so-wealthy schools. And in the end, the tyranny felt under the NCAA may not compare to the misery that the students and administrators of less fortunate schools feel when they try to compete against the power brokers of college sports. But ya know, viva la revolution.

Andrew Blancato

The post Watch the Throne: Who Succeeds if the NCAA Loses Power? appeared first on Law Street.

Donald Sterling’s dramatic month was capped off with a fittingly tumultuous final week. Let’s review: Sterling authorized his wife to sell his beloved basketball team, then disavowed that plan. He received an offer for $2 billion to buy the team, then was deemed mentally unfit to make authorizations on behalf of his family trust. He then filed a lawsuit against the NBA for $1 billion, only to have the NBA approve the $2 billion sale of the Clippers and forego the now unnecessary forced sale process. Got it?

The flurry of events would be hard enough to understand were they to make sense, but they don’t seem to do that. Why would you authorize your wife to sell the team then sue after she fields a great offer? Maybe there is another motive at work? Maybe Donald Sterling is mentally incapacitated . . . like a fox.

Make no mistake, Donald Sterling was a shrewd attorney and businessman in his day. His ability to navigate the greater Los Angeles real estate market made him millions of dollars and gave him the means to buy the Clippers in the first place. But if the average shrewd businessman felt he were being unfairly forced to sell his largest asset, he might try to halt the sale by requesting injunctive relief from a court. At the very least, he might request a temporary injunction to slow the process. Sterling hasn’t done that. In fact, in the complaint filed by his attorneys on May 30, Sterling asks only for money damages.

Perhaps Sterling believes the value of his basketball team has been artificially inflated. Upon hearing whispers regarding what his team could sell for, he instructs his attorney to draft a letter ceding all selling responsibility to his wife, Shelly. After his instinct regarding his team’s worth is seemingly validated upon Steve Ballmer offering to buy the Clippers for $2 billion, Sterling decides to let the sale proceed. He instructs his attorneys to remove from their suit any provision requesting temporary or injunctive relief.

Ostensibly approving of a sale could make him appear feckless and get his lawsuit against the NBA thrown out of court, so next he agreed to undergo a mental evaluation knowing he would be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. This diagnosis would leave Shelly alone to approve the sale, while Donald could still carry on his lawsuit against the NBA while still projecting the image of an angry, dangerously litigious man. After the sale is completed, Donald would remove his assets from the Sterling family trust. This way, if Donald Sterling was to successfully sue the NBA, the latter could only collect reimbursement from Shelly Sterling. Donald meanwhile, would be resting comfortably with his recently improved pile of money, and a newer, possibly even more vapid young lady to spend it on.

Possible? Maybe. Probable? Maybe not. The flurry of chess-like moves may only appear strategic considering the wealth and profiles of the parties involved. The truth may be that Donald Sterling is a spiteful man who no longer possesses the abundance of fluid intelligence he once had, but maintains the wealth to fire various shots via high priced attorneys. But even that would seem to make too much sense, and really nothing in this saga is as it appears.

Andrew Blancato

The post A Donald Sterling Conspiracy Theory appeared first on Law Street.

It’s no secret that many Americans feel there are too many lawsuits in this country. If you’ve ever been selected for jury duty, then you know that one of the most common questions asked before sitting on a civil case is whether or not people sue too often. The answer back to the attorney is often “yes,” not just because the panelist is seeking to avoid jury service, but because that’s the view espoused by many when reflecting on the American zeitgeist.

This sentiment is caused, or at least reinforced, by the media’s reporting of lawsuits. The headlines that make the largest waves are often based on huge, seven-digit verdicts. Laura Beth Nielsen and Aaron Beim alluded to this correlation in a recent paper claiming the courts are not as favorable to plaintiffs as the media often portrays, yet the media’s reports are what the public absorbs. Neilsen and Beim’s chief example is a Boston Globe report of an MBTA worker who was awarded a $5.5 million discrimination verdict. The verdict was later reduced by 80 percent on remittitur, an important detail the Globe did not feature as prominently as the original verdict. It seems that cases alleging discrimination in the workplace carry a stigma with the public and media.

Just as the figures of a verdict can be lost on the average American, so too can the merits of the underlying discrimination case. In 2009, former Los Angeles Clippers executive Elgin Baylor sued team owner Donald Sterling alleging racial discrimination. A jury of 12 unanimously rejected Baylor’s suit, and many called the hall of famer’s action frivolous.

Cases alleging tales of sexual discrimination are no different. This year alone, cheerleaders from three different NFL teams have sued their employers, often alleging sexual harassment among a variety of different wage claims. Knee-jerk reactions to such suits are often negative, as evidenced in the comments section of ESPN articles covering the matter.

A closer look at both situations may evoke a more tolerant response. Since his lawsuit, Elgin Baylor’s former employer has allegedly been caught on tape making racist comments against African Americans, and some former Clippers aren’t surprised by his discriminatory tendencies. Details have also emerged in the cheerleading case of the Buffalo Jills, whose employer allegedly instructed them on how to control their menstrual cycles and how to wash their “intimate areas.”

In sum, it’s never a bad idea to reserve judgment on a lawsuit that appears in the news or on TV, even one alleging discrimination. In fact, suits alleging workplace discrimination often already have safeguards in place against frivolous litigation, like the EEOC’s Right-To-Sue-Letter. But even absent an EEOC investigation, plaintiffs should be afforded a blank slate. Few things in this country are as ubiquitously opposed as prejudice and discrimination. Those who decide to sacrifice time, money, and privacy to personally combat these evils in a public court should be heard with an open mind.

____

Andrew Blancato (@BigDogBlancato) holds a J.D. from New York Law School, and is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. When he’s not writing, he is either clerking at a trial court in Connecticut, or obsessing over Boston sports.

Featured image courtesy of [BuffaloProCheer via Wikipedia]

Andrew Blancato

The post Rethinking Discrimination Suits in Light of Buffalo Jills, Donald Sterling appeared first on Law Street.

Springtime in America is marked by a wonderful tradition shared by all, regardless of one’s age, gender, or socioeconomic status. I’m not talking about love or cherry blossoms — I’m talking about the NCAA college basketball tournament. If you are a sports fan or happen to work in an office, you have probably paid at least five dollars to enter a pool and pick the winners of the sixty-eight team, single-elimination competition. If you’ve ever been to Las Vegas in March, you’ve witnessed first-hand the popularity of gambling on college basketball.  March Madness is the third most popular time to travel to Sin City, behind New Years and Super Bowl weekend. But apart from office pools and Vegas trips, it may be difficult to legally bet on the college basketball tournament.

Since 1931, Nevada has sold itself to the rest of the nation as the premier destination for sports gambling, largely with the help of federal law enforcement. In 1961, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy spearheaded an effort to crack down on organized crime in America and got Congress to pass the Federal Wire Act, which penalized most interstate sports gambling.  In 1992, a broadly supported law entitled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) banned intrastate sports betting in jurisdictions apart from Oregon, Montana, Delaware, and of course, Nevada. And in 2011, the Department of Justice released a public memorandum reiterating that online sports betting is within the scope of the Federal Wire Act and will be prosecuted. U.S. law has clearly disfavored sports betting outside of Nevada, but that may soon change.

Enter New Jersey. The Garden State has seen better days, and its officials believe the road back to those better days is paved with the revenue generated through legalized sports gambling.  This effort was kickstarted in 2009 when New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak filed a lawsuit in New Jersey federal court claiming that the PASPA unconstitutionally discriminates against states by allowing some to engage in legal gambling while blocking all others. The suit was dismissed in district court, and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit also ruled against New Jersey.  But New Jersey appealed its decision to the Supreme Court, and there are two reasons why the state has renewed hope for a favorable decision in Washington.

1. The Supreme Court’s recent jurisprudence: New Jersey’s appeal argues that the PASPA violates the equal sovereignty of New Jersey, a principle that basically says the federal government cannot discriminate among states. This principle was traditionally only evoked with regard to land and water rights, but it was recently cited by Chief Justice Roberts in Shelby County vs. Holder, the decision that struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. If the Supreme Court hears New Jersey’s case, it’s a safe bet that the briefs will cite that decision.

2. Times have changed: In addition to New Jersey, elected officials from Iowa, Missouri, and Rhode Island have either discussed or drafted joint resolutions requesting that Congress to repeal PASPA. Additionally, Nevada’s largest gambling ambassadors are more worried about gambling competition from the internet than from the East Coast and Midwest. The time may be most ripe for sports books to return, especially since our New Jersey gambling dearth will soon enlarge. How else would red-blooded Americans fill that vacuous space? With family time? Don’t bet on it.

Andrew Blancato

The post March Madness Outbreak May Not Be Quarantined to Vegas Much Longer appeared first on Law Street.

Right of publicity, the newer and increasingly more significant area of intellectual property law, has something stimulating for us this week. Former college athletes have alleged that the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) conspired to keep them from capitalizing off of their images, names, and likenesses. The NCAA attempted to dismiss these antitrust claims, covering the use of the athletes’ overall likenesses in video games and television. However, the four-year-old suit was denied dismissal in a California district court on October 25.

So what are the arguments here? Well, the NCAA subscribes to the traditional school of thought that college athletes are amateurs and as such aren’t entitled to compensation for the use of their images, which I think is completely ludicrous. Ed O’ Brannon, the UCLA basketball forward who brought the suit, contends that amateurism doesn’t justify the notion that student-athletes have no rights to commercial gain from the use of their own images. This as an obvious assertion. Honestly, as I’m reading through all of the NCAA’s contentions on this matter, all I’m hearing is ‘you can’t eat the apple you picked because you’re too young to appreciate it.‘

Among the conspiracy allegations is a claim that the NCAA conspired with Electronic Arts (EA), the well-known video game production company, to bar student-athletes from being monetarily rewarded for the use of their likenesses. EA has agreed to settle the claims against it and pay athletes $40 million.  As they should. After all, it’s the players who put in the hours during practice to create an image that generates income in the first place.

But here’s the thing, the Supreme Court has already upheld the proposition that college athletes shouldn’t be paid for the use of their images, names, and likenesses in order to “preserve the quality and character of college sports.” Well, compensating athletes while in college could beget a subculture of pompous attitudes and ostentatious presence on the court. Oh wait – that’s already happening. But a decline in quality and character of the sports? I’d like to see the facts, counsel.

Hear me out. The amount of money that colleges bring in for winning championships — or even just being invited to one — is ridiculously absurd. Not to mention money produced from ticket sales and paraphernalia.  Consumers pay to watch college athletes who subject themselves to injury and exhaustion for the betterment of their colleges‘ reputations. So how are they not laboring? Oh wait, they are.  Many colleges give athletes scholarships for tuition in exchange for a commitment for a player to join their team. Not to mention that they aren’t recruited as students – they’re recruited as athletes. Is the NCAA saying that they’ll pay for the labor but not allow for all the fruits of such labor? Why should compensating an athlete for the use of his likeness, formed from his goodwill, suddenly deviate from the proposed “quality and character of college sports?”

I understand that the NCAA wants all of the players to operate as a team, and not to be concerned that one student-athlete is “bringing home” more than another. However, players are already competing against each other to be spotlighted! It’s the nature of being a competitive athlete. Compensating them for using an image they’ve worked so hard to create for themselves wouldn’t change that.

Gena.

—

Featured image courtesy of [Acid Pix via Flickr]

Gena Thomas

Gena Thomas, a recent graduate of Howard University School of Law, was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys watching scary movies and acquiring calories from chocolates of all sorts. Contact Gena at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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