Federal appeals court ruling supports NCAA’s stance in Ed O’Bannon case

A federal appeals court struck down a plan to pay college football and basketball players in a ruling that NCAA leaders believe supports their contention that the athletes are students and not professionals.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday that the NCAA’s use of college athletes’ names, images and likenesses in video games and TV broadcasts violated antitrust laws, but vacated a judge’s decision that would have allowed schools to make deferred cash payments to athletes of up to $5,000 per year.

“The difference between offering student-athletes education-related compensation and offering them cash sums untethered to educational expenses is not minor; it is a quantum leap,” Judge Jay Bybee wrote. “Once that line is crossed, we see no basis for returning to a rule of amateurism and no defined stopping point.”

NCAA President Mark Emmert said: “That was a very, very welcome decision from our point.”

The NCAA had appealed U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s 2014 decision in the so-called O’Bannon case to allow – but not require – players in the top division of college football and in Division I men’s basketball to be paid for use of their names, images and likenesses.

Wilken also ruled that those players should be compensated with the full cost of attendance. The NCAA in August began allowing its member schools to provide an athletic scholarship that covers the full cost of attending college.