The big (college) basketball game is on the horizon, and the playoff fight is officially on. Our own University of Houston Cougars are in the 2025 NCAA basketball tournament as a top seed, for the third time in a row! The tournament is one of the NCAA’s biggest successes, with the event bringing in $1.29 billion in 2023. As we celebrate this great achievement for the organization and its athletes, it seems worthwhile to remember the organization’s missteps toward its athletes as well.
The NCAA basketball tournament, and all the brackets involved, would not be possible without the players. But for the longest time, while fans paid for tickets and merchandise (player number cleverly in lieu of name), the players themselves were not allowed to make money from these sales. Compensation was restricted to academic scholarships. These scholarships do not cover the full cost of attending university and the NCAA does not require schools to offer four-year scholarships either. Student-athletes sometimes went to bed hungry because they didn’t have enough food.
“...There were plenty of times where throughout the month I didn’t have enough for food. Our stadium had like 107,000 seats; 107,000 people buying a ticket to come watch us play. It’s tough just like knowing that, being aware of that. We had just won and I had a good game, 100 yards or whatever. You go outside and there’s hundreds of kids waiting for you. You’re signing autographs, taking pictures, whatever. Then I walk back, and reality sets in. I go to my dorm room, open my fridge, and there’s nothing in my fridge. Hold up, man. What just happened? Why don’t I have anything to show for what I just did?”
The tension between students’ financial struggles and the massive revenue they generated eventually boiled over. In 2009, former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon filed a lawsuit against the NCAA over the use of players’ likenesses without their legal consent. This case would later be combined with the lawsuit filed by former Arizona State and Nebraska football player, Sam Keller. Keller’s case was against the NCAA, Electronic Arts (EA), and the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) over the use of student athletes' likenesses in EA’s college football video games.
“The NCAA and EA had gotten around the likeness issues before by not using player names and claiming the players were chosen randomly. However, almost all the players in the game had similarities to their real-life counterparts, and it turned out that EA had actually hidden the real player names in the game, and the NCAA knew about it.”
The plaintiffs in the Keller case later settled with EA and the CLC, but the NCAA did not settle. The NCAA hoped to keep the two lawsuits together, but District Judge Claudia Wilkin had the trials go on separately. The Keller case eventually ended in a $20 million settlement in 2014. The O’Bannon case continued, with the focus now on television. The suit alleged the NCAA was illegally profiting off students’ likenesses in television broadcasts, without the players having transferred their broadcast rights. The plaintiffs wanted athletes to have a portion of television revenue.
The NCAA’s arguments for its scholarship compensation model had always centered on “amateurism.” Essentially, if a college athlete is getting paid, they are not an amateur. This traditional argument did not pass muster, and the district court ruled in O’Bannon’s favor in 2014. It found the NCAA’s amateurism standard violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Despite this ruling, later affirmed by the Ninth Circuit, the NCAA continued to prevent student-athletes from profiting from their NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness).
“I don’t think amateurism is going to be a useful word here.”
NCAA v. Alston is the case that followed, and it went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A group of current and former student-athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and Division 1 conferences in 2014. The plaintiffs argued that existing NCAA rules restricting the amount of compensation players can receive, violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Judge Wilkins also presided over this case and ruled in favor of Alston in 2018, finding that the NCAA's restrictions exceeded what was required to restrict some non-cash educational benefits. The Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling in 2020, and the NCAA then petitioned the Supreme Court.
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court was unanimous in ruling for Alston, finding that the NCAA restrictions on education benefits violated antitrust laws. This landmark victory for college athletes opened the door to new opportunities for students, as well as new challenges for the NCAA to implement them. Five years later, college athletes continue to wow audiences during the NCAA basketball championship. As fans, we can only be glad their efforts are being compensated.
And as Houston fans are concerned, go Coogs!