victoria cantilever: If you were these Hawkeyes, would you sue the NCAA?

Monday, July 29, 2013

If you were these Hawkeyes, would you sue the NCAA?

Mark Weisman, Iowa running back and video game star

Earlier this month, six current NCAA football players were added as plaintiffs in former UCLA basketball player Ed O?Bannon?s class-action lawsuit against the NCAA, Electronic Arts (EA) Sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC).

The suit is scheduled to go to trial next year. If Judge Claudia Wilken certifies a class that includes current and former players, the focus of the case would shift from the use of former players? likenesses in video games and videos to the lucrative media rights deals between television networks, video game companies and the NCAA, conferences and schools.

On July 17, the NCAA announced it would not renew its licensing contract with EA for a college football video game, citing legal and business concerns. The contract expires in June 2014, making the recently released NCAA Football 14 would be the final game under that agreement.

No, this isn't a Phillip Nelson Gophers jersey. Of course not.

Two current University of Minnesota football players are plaintiffs. They are fifth-year seniors Victor Keise and Moses Alipate. Keise has played little. Alipate hasn?t played at all.

?I was on the Internet and their names popped up and I was like, ?What??? Minnesota running back Donnell Kirkwood said Thursday at Big Ten media days. ?We support them all the way with it, as long as it doesn?t interfere with the team and bring negative attention. As long as they show up to workouts every day and do their part, I think it?s all right.?

?When I signed my letter of intent, I knew I wasn?t going to be getting paid, so it never really crossed my mind,? Kirkwood said in the ESPN.com post linked in the previous paragraph. ?I started finding out about the revenue when I got to college. It?d be nice to have a little extra money in your pocket when times get rough at the end of the month, but I know we?re not NFL players and we shouldn?t get millions of dollars in college.?

If you were a current FBS player, would you consider joining O?Bannon, Keise and Alipate? Look at some of the Hawkeyes pictured here who have their names and images used in NCAA Football 14 without royalties to show for it:

Thanks to some good tweeps, I was alerted to the fact that it?s only numbers and likenesses in the game. You have to enter players? names yourselves. A former EA executive producer testified last December that game-avatars were linked to specific player-identifying numbers and biographical information to make the game realistic.

?We generally tried to make the players perform as their real life counterparts, short of their name and likeness,? Strauser testified.

(The images are from this YouTube video of an NCAA Football 14 game between Iowa and Northern Illinois, which the Hawkeyes won handily, 27-10. Nice game, Mark Weisman.)