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US: Judge rejects NCAA’s request for dismissal of ‘Kessler,’ Alston suits

By  |  August 7, 2016

A federal judge on Friday denied a request from the NCAA and a group of conferences that she dismiss two class-action lawsuits challenging the association’s compensation limits for athletes.

The NCAA and the conferences had argued that the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in the Ed O’Bannon antitrust case — which allowed a compensation cap to stand at athletes’ full cost of attending school — required that the cases be decided in their favor without further action.

In the O’Bannon case, US District Judge Claudia Wilken found that the NCAA’s compensation limits violated antitrust law and she created remedies including the prospect of allowing athletes to receive as much as $5,000 a year in deferred compensation. A three-judge appellate panel upheld the antitrust finding but overturned the remedy involving the prospect of deferred compensation, saying that “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” that would change college sports.

Full Content: USA Today

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