EA Sports facing litigation from NCAA football players

look how dumb you are

EA deserves this for making football games a monopoly.

Yeah, I mean, why should people be compensated when people are making money off them.

The Madden suit is one thing, few people probably purchase the game to play with historic teams. However in NCAA the majority of people purchase the game to play with the current college teams.

You don't think the NFL players get compensated for appearing in Madden? Why should NCAA players be treated any differently when the ONLY thing thats different is that NCAA players names are not used.

This is a problem begging for an amicable solution for all.

Set up a situation where the kids get a cut, maybe $500 a piece, that's 120 or so D-1 Schools, 70 kids per school 8400 total student athletes would be $4.2 million payout of a total combined sales revenue of around $37.7 million (ps3 & xbox360 sales combined were around 550k @ $59 a pop) I think would be pretty fair aprox 10% of total revenue.

Us the players, well, we'd get the players names in the game without having to jump through hoops.

@Mez

Is 70 the number EA uses in their games? Each D1 school has 85 scholarships for football.

@Vidikron yeah, at least in NCAA 2009 that's what they make you cut your roster down to each season.

Just wanted to add that while Clarett showed his true colors, he is no different that a lot of college players. Put yourself in their shoes, a lot of these guys come from poor areas and don't see money. Then you get these big name boosters/agents giving them money and what not, how would you react. They enter a game that earns literally millions upon millions of their hard work and they see very little of it. The Reggie Bush's and Clarrett's are just the ones who get caught. The system is flawed.

Yes, Clarett is very different from a lot of college players. What the hell are you talking about? 99% of college players would not have reacted the way he did. He sued the NFL trying to get in early after college, and was later arrested with concealed weapons after a police chase. You do a disservice to collegiate athletes comparing them to that waste of space. How would I react? They earn millions upon millions and earn very little of it? Again, what the hell are you talking about? When players sign huge contracts they see a lot of that money, like Reggie Bush. When they sign crappy, incentive-laden contracts because they're high risk, like Clarett, and don't pan out at all because they're whack jobs, then they see very little of it.

I did say "he showed his true colors". My "no different then other players" was referring to taking money from boosters/agents.

As far as money goes, yes, you right. Every college player is a 1-10 first round pick in the NFL.

You do some research into how much these programs make:

Top College Football Revenues
Texas $60.9 million
Ohio State $60.8 million
Georgia $58.7 million
Michigan $50.4 million
Florida $48.2 million


Top College Football Profits
Georgia $44.1 million
Texas $42.5 million
Michigan $37.6 million
Florida $32.4 million
Ohio State $28.5 million


http://newsok.com/article/3166059

@J Snaz

Yeah, but your point is just as flawed. You make a wise crack about how every player is a lottery draft pick, but on your list that's 5 schools out of, what, 117 or so in D1? Most programs actually lose money, only the top few that manage to make it to a big bowl most years actually pull profits. The schools you listed are the equivalent of the draft lottery picks.

Good point about the list but still there are enough bowl games where money is had. There are roughly 34 bowl games with the LOWEST payout being 300,000. Most pay at least 500K+ 34 X2 = 68 teams getting some money. The BCS schools do well when you add in TV contracts, the fact that bowl money is split up evenly amongst the conference that wins.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2006-12-06-bowl-payouts_x.htm

Not every school ranks in money, but not every school is negative either.

Also, I believe bowl revenue is shared amongst the conference. That's one of the reasons Notre Dame refuses to join a conf.

@Vidikron and J Snaz,

It's worth pointing out that any decent college is an incredibly complex legal and financial entity. You can't really judge the profitability of any one program accurately without spending a crazy amount of time researching, and even then there will be certain very valuable bits of information withheld.

A huge financial benefit of even moderately successful sports programs comes from donations from alumni and boosters. These are usually made to endowments, which are separate legal entities from the college, and are not always required to make the same disclosures about their finances that the college would. But the endowments always use the sports programs, players and coaches as part of their marketing push. So anytime you try to say, oh, "X program makes Y money," you're already wrong. A big part of the revenue the school is earning is missing.

The same applies to merchandise. The department that handles merchandise is also often a separate legal entity from the sports program. So while they may pay the sports program royalties every year for certain names or likenesses, there are huge amounts of money made from crap sold because of a college's sports teams that never reaches the program. It just directly benefits the school, and stays off the sports programs books so that they can continue to claim they aren't profitable.

Depending on the legal structure of the school, radio and television contracts may also allow revenues to be split up between they multiple legal entities of the school, further obscuring the real financial benefit of sports programs.

I'm not making any judgments about any of this, I've just actually had to deal with trying to unravel the legal/financial morass of a couple of colleges and understand that nothing is ever what it appears in collegiate finances.

Yeah, that's that I thought, they CANT get paid.

Just because they can't be paid doesn't give EA the right to use their likenesses.

that's what i was thinking. if they get paid for this, then i would think it would force them to forfeit their amateur status thus prohibiting them from playing college sports anymore. maybe i'm wrong and they found some type of loophole but it seemed pretty cut and dry to me. get paid, you can't play.

Your right drumwiz, EA shouldn't be using their likeness but the whole premise of the litigation is negated because NCAA players are barred from receiving payment for anything related to Athletics.

i personally do not think they deserve anything.

they should be humble in that they are in a video game. if ea or any game company wanted to, they could just make generic stats and players. but what fun is in that?


just my .02

Yeah, all they get out of it is some recognition and 4 free years of college, maybe a stipend. I really feel for them...

i used to play football in college and while granted it was DIII, still about 8-10 hours a day was dedicated to football (lifting, practice, film, team meetings, study hall, etc.). i know how much we did and we didn't get anything for it (except a winning record and a bowl game appearance) since DIII is non-scholarship. i know how much more the DI players do but i feel they are compensated by scholarships since those scholarships are worth A LOT of money and the big stage they get to play on sets them up to make millions in the NFL (some players). the only players i feel are getting the shaft are the non-scholarship DI guys but they know what they are getting in to from the get go. so yea, at least at that level, overall, they are compensated adequately IMHO.

your right. pretty sure i remember doing that even at my DIII school. that is probably going to completely nullify his whole suit. he would probably sue the NCAA for allowing it to happen if he wants to sue somebody. otherwise, case closed.

This makes sense. I wasn't an athlete in college but from what you've said, it can probably be implied that the waiver gives the NCAA the right to use your likeness for anything they want. They essentially own your likeness so long as you are a college athlete. EA has a deal with the NCAA wherein the NCAA lets them use the athletes' likenesses, so the suit holds no water.

good eyes there mister cool metroid avatar.

I really suck at using this comment system...

I hardly think that Michigan's stadium costs it money each year, between sports, concert, and other events. And you think the bowl game's they go don't bring in the cash? Bigtime schools with bigtime players that are the impetus behind buying NCAA Football for most purchasers are not losing money on football.