EA Sports Out Of College Football Business

((HT: ESPN))

It's in the game, and they're out of the game...
((HT: EA Sports))


And they have settled the lawsuit involving their usage of former NCAA player jersey numbers, heights, weights, skin tones, hair colors and home states listed in their in-game bios without their permission and without paying the ex-college players as they sold the video game on the open market- for quite some time.

And we're talking somewhere between 200-300,000 ex players that were used in the game...

Co-lead counsel Steve Berman said in a statement:

"When we filed the case, we felt very strongly that EA's appropriation of student-athletes' images for a for-profit venture was wrong, both in a legal sense and from a more fundamental moral perspective. These guys were busting their butts on the field or the court trying to excel at athletics, oftentimes to help win or maintain scholarships so they could get an education.

"Students agreed that by being student-athletes that they could not exploit their personal commercial value, an agreement they lived up to. The same cannot be said about the NCAA or its partner Electronic Arts."

Darren Rovell discusses...


EA Sports and their licensing partner, CLC, will not admit any wrongdoing and now the NCAA is going it alone in the class-action suit with Sam Keller and Ed O'Bannon as plaintiffs.

The NCAA isn't ready to cave on that end just yet as EA will now go it without their college football game...

Now It's The NCAA's Turn On Concussions... Have Fun...

Three ex-NCAA football players, two of whom played at the University of Tennessee only two years ago, have filed suit against the NCAA didn't educate them about concussions risk and didn't do enough to prevent, diagnose and treat brain injuries.

Chris Walker and Ben Martin from UT-K along with Dan Ahern, who played for North Carolina State from 1972-76, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Here's a feature on Walker from UTSports


And one on Martin...
((HT: knoxnews))


The lawsuit was filed by Washington-based attorney Michael Hausfeld, who is also the lead attorney in the Ed O'Bannon case against the NCAA.

((Commence spooky music...))

"The NCAA has not taken the necessary steps to protect these former players even though the medical tools to assist them have been available for some time," Hausfeld said in a statement. "It is not too late now for the NCAA to offer important education and needed medical testing to these former players."

Walker and Martin now claim to suffer headaches from the repeated head trauma and Ahern says he can't concentrate, his memory is not what it once was, he has ringing in his ears, and he can't sleep because of his injuries. He also claims to have been forced into retirement at age 50 and disability six years ago because of all this.

Conventional wisdom has the NCAA in a lot of trouble if Hausfeld gets to run with the concussion suit as much as he has run with the O'Bannon suit...

This does not look good at all...

College Football Power Schools Bail Out on EA Sports CFB Game

((ht: collegefootballtalk.com))

Hmmm....

Coincidence? Or not?

It appears the Big 10, Pac 12 and SEC have all told EA Sports "Thanks, but no thanks" when it comes to having their teams represented in EA Sports game: NCAA Football.

The move comes on the heels of the NCAA distancing themselves too.

The SEC was first to announce this, saying: “Neither the SEC, its member universities, nor the NCAA have ever licensed the right to use the name or likeness of any student to EA Sports.”

The other conferences followed suit shortly thereafter.

We find this utterly fascinating in light of the Ed O'Bannon class action suit against the NCAA for royalty payments for just such an arrangement.

We should also remind you of the NCAA bailing out of the college player jersey selling business just last week after being ridiculed on the Internet. The reason for that is very much the same as in this instance.

You can read last weeks story for background RIGHT HERE

If we were in Las Vegas and betting on the motivation for such a decision by the "Big Name" schools, we'd justify it like this:

(1) The NCAA and power conferences are petrified they are going to lose the O'Bannon suit and will be liable for a small fortune. Because of that fear, they are distancing themselves from as many things bearing the likeness of College Athletes they possibly can.

(2) All the above conferences are going to be part of the "Mega-Division" we fully expect to be announced at the NCAA meetings in January. If this happens and the NCAA wins the O'Bannon case, rest assured they will cut a large--no, an extra large deal with EA Sports to license their teams and players. But only the "Power Schools".

So there's your food for thought. Nothing snarky here, just the reality of the situation. We fully believe the NCAA and the Power Schools (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC) are positioning themselves for the inevitable shift. They will go on their own, make a gazillion dollars in TV money from ESPN and from merchandising on their own.

Folks, if you thought "Galactic Realignment" over the past two years was crazy, well, hold on to your shorts, when this College Football season ends, that's going to look like a blip on the radar....