Second shelf life for video?
NCAA study group could be impetus
NCAA study could reprise EA Sports game
For many college sports fans, the NCAA’s new committee studying the issue of athlete name, image and likeness boils down to one question: When is EA Sports’ “NCAA Football” coming back?
EA Sports, the video game maker, declined this week to address the possibility of its game returning. But the product was popular, ranking behind the “FIFA” soccer and “NFL Madden” games among its titles, according to Michael Pachter, who tracks the entertainment industry as Wedbush Securities’ managing director for equity research.
Among myriad, complex issues the panel might face, the issue of whether to let athletes be compensated for the use of their names, images and likenesses (NILs) in video games might be pretty straightforward. It’s market-based, it’s been done in the past (albeit under a court-approved settlement of lawsuits) and, besides benefiting the athletes and the schools financially, it also could help schools in the less tangible area of promoting fan interest.
EA Sports once published NCAA football and men’s basketball games. The last basketball game debuted in November 2009, and it was discontinued largely for sales reasons.
The football game lasted through a version that was launched in 2013. It was halted not long after the NCAA decided
in July 2013 not to renew its licensing deal with EA Sports. The association cited “the current business climate and costs of litigation” that included name-image-and-likeness lawsuits featuring former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller. When the NCAA got out, so did some Power Five conferences.
That still left EA Sports room to work with schools and other conferences, but it announced in September 2013 that because of “business and legal issues” it would not develop another edition.
During the trial of the O’Bannon case in June 2014, EA Sports executive Joel Linzner testified that the “NCAA Football” game had been doing about $80 million a year in revenue on the sale of roughly 2 million units.
Now, read what NCAA President Mark Emmert said to a group of sports editors in New York about 10 days before the association unveiled the committee: “We’re at a place right now where I strongly believe that we need to be more proactive in looking at and exploring what could or couldn’t occur” regarding athletes’ names, images and likenesses.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that antitrust law compels the NCAA rule book to allow schools, if they so choose, to provide athletes with scholarships that cover all of their costs of attending college. But it has said the law “does not require more.” That is, the NCAA’s membership does not have to change its rules to let schools offer what the court termed “cash sums untethered to educational expenses.”
Emmert asked rhetorically: “What does it look like to allow greater flexibility around name, image and likeness and still have this not be pay for play — that these are students playing other students? What does it look like to do that in a space that tries to promote as much fairness across teams?”
There already is a basic blueprint for how to manage the payment of athletes for the use of their NILs in video games.
Leonard Aragon is a lawyer who helped represent the plaintiffs in the Keller case, which — along with the portion of the O’Bannon case concerning video games — targeted the NCAA, EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Co. for misuse of athletes’ NILs. He also was deeply involved in overseeing the distribution of $60 million in settlements.
Aragon told USA TODAY last week that players who appeared in the games in a similar fashion were compensated the same, regardless of who they were. He noted that if the NCAA allowed players to be compensated for the use of their NILs in video games, there could be a complication if “superstar players” wanted to opt out and try to set their own terms.
And if the NCAA is concerned about connecting video game payments to education, Aragon suggested, they could be conditioned on academic requirements. (Indeed, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, in a ruling that has been appealed to the 9th Circuit, has said the NCAA’s rules cannot “limit compensation or benefits related to education.”)
This might turn out to benefit football players only. But if there’s a market for a men’s and/or women’s basketball game or for a game in another sport, someone will find it. EA Sports’ Linzner testified during the O’Bannon trial, the football game was “a significant enough business that” EA “would be very interested in re-entering that market with the rights of the universities and conferences as well as the athletes.”
EA Sports spokesman John Reseburg said this week: “We don’t have any added comments to Joel’s comments a few years ago.”
Aragon said: “I’d love to see the game come back. The (players) loved it. Colleges have video game leagues now. If it came back, I would go buy stock in EA. Seriously.”