“Everyone is waking up and realizing that change has to happen in some form,” said Meachum, who represented the College Football Players Association at a White House roundtable focused on security and medical care in college football. Other participants: former players Andrew Luck, Ryan Clark, Desmond Howard, Rod Gilmore and Keith Marshall and ESPN presenter Kevin Neghandi. Biden attended about 40 minutes of the hour-long discussion, joining two White House officials.
“You don’t want to be left behind in change,” Meachum continued. “So why don’t we go ahead and have conversations about these difficult topics now, rather than later, when it might be a little too late and things could get out of hand, you know?”
The White House meeting was another footnote right now for college sports, with a steady stream of hearings and lawsuits that could fundamentally change how the NCAA must operate.
Last Friday, Claudia Wilken, U.S. District Judge in Northern California, certified three classes of the Home vs. NCAA antitrust case, meaning thousands of athletes — including Power Five conference players in football, men’s and women’s basketball — could receive more than $4 billion in damages. The plaintiffs aim to prove that these players are entitled to back pay related to the use of their names, images and likenesses on television broadcasts.
Beyond the significant financial implications, a loss for the NCAA could overhaul payment rules around name, image and likeness, allowing schools and conferences to directly compensate athletes for their performances. A trial is scheduled for January 2025, although Wilken has considered moving it up.
This lawsuit, among others, shows why the NCAA has lobbied so hard for a federal exemption from antitrust laws, most recently trying to fit one into a congressional bill on NIL (10 hearings and recounts do had little success there). And it also shows why the NCAA is likely to step up its efforts to gain a foothold in the Home But each development gives less and less reason for plaintiffs to do so.
“The NCAA, if it had the means, would love to get a federal law providing an antitrust exemption that would basically eliminate the Home case and similar future cases,” said Mit Winter, a Kansas City-based college sports attorney for Kennyhertz Perry. “…And I think college sports leaders are starting to understand this number one point: They’re unlikely to get a federal law like this. And second: the longer they wait, the worse it gets for them, because the Home the case will move forward and it is the same judge Alston And O’Bannonso she is very likely to rule against the NCAA.
Therefore the Home This case could change college sports drastically. But for now, it’s far from the only one.
On Tuesday, the National Labor Relations Board held its first hearing on unfair labor charges against USC, the Pac-12 Conference and the NCAA. The NLRB’s Los Angeles office filed the complaint on behalf of the athletes, arguing that the school wrongly labeled them as “student-athletes” when they were treated as employees. A loss for the NCAA in this case would be a major step toward employee status for college athletes, a possibility that sparks varying opinions within the industry.
The hearings, which continued Thursday, could extend until the end of February. Administrative Judge Eleanor Laws has already denied motions from USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA to dismiss the charges. Testimony is expected to begin in Los Angeles next month.
Meanwhile, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team awaits the NLRB’s decision on whether it can hold union elections (another potential step toward employment status). In Pennsylvania, in Johnson v. NCAAa group of Division I athletes are seeking recognition as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires covered employees to be paid minimum wage and overtime (yet another potential step toward…you get the point ).
In that case, a three-judge panel is still deliberating whether U.S. District Judge John Padova used the proper standard when he denied the NCAA’s motion to dismiss in 2021. If a change happens, it will take time.
“I feel like NIL has come a long way and changed the landscape of college basketball,” said Romeo Myrthil, one of Dartmouth’s captains. told the Associated Press after a season-opening loss at Duke on Monday. “This could be a step that would change the situation even more, to allow students to earn what they are worth.”
According to Meachum, Wednesday’s discussion at the White House touched a bit on NIL and whether college athletes should be employees. But with only an hour to exchange ideas, the group focused primarily on safety and health issues in football, as well as how to approach revenue sharing, something Meachum said the table round had agreed to implement. From his hotel Wednesday evening, Meachum articulated his arguments – in favor of independent medical oversight and revenue sharing – on two sides of the issue. conference realignment: increasing television revenues and increasing travel demand from athletes in all sports. Starting next year, it will be common for teams to cross multiple time zones for conference games.
Asked by The Washington Post whether the White House plans to host current or former female athletes for similar conversations, an official said in a statement: “The challenges discussed during (Wednesday’s) visit impact all student-athletes and our team. We will continue to discuss these issues with all student-athletes.
Yes, the questions raised Wednesday in Washington, as well as the stakes in every current trial and every NLRB case, are far-reaching. Every decision will be too. And legal challenges against the NCAA are certainly not limited to the highest-profile cases. Earlier this month, twins Matthew and Ryan Bewley sued the NCAA, alleging it violated antitrust law — as well as the state of Illinois’ NIL rules — by denying their eligibility to play basketball. ball at Chicago State.
The NCAA, according to the lawsuit, deemed the twins ineligible because the compensation they received from the Overtime Elite basketball league as high school players exceeded “actual and necessary expenses.”
“If this federal court rules that Illinois law says zero compensation cannot affect eligibility, what that effectively means is that zero compensation given to high school athletes as a recruiting incentive to go to a certain school cannot affect their eligibility,” Winter said, noting that this is the first such case pitting the NCAA’s NIL rules against a state’s NIL regulations for high school players.
“One more to watch, and there will probably be more.”
