http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/sec-players-set-to-collect-video-game-cash/

"The landmark Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA case is getting close to materializing for thousands of current and former SEC players.

The case, which earmarked about $60 million in settlement funds for players whose likeness appeared in a video game between May 2003 and September 2014, is in its final stages as claims administrator Kenneth Jue sorts through paperwork and logistics.

In a rare, but increasingly frequent, show of flexibility, the NCAA will allow current players to waive the rulebook if they’re eligible for payment under the ruling.

The amount each player will receive varies depending on a number of factors, including whether their image and jersey number were part of a video game, and for how many years. But many players will receive restitution in the $1,000 to $2,000 range, according to a USA Today report.

The loose framework for the settlement calls for the NCAA to pay out $20 million and EA Sports to pay out $40 million. Of course, this hard-fought legal battle will cost the players: the group’s lawyers are seeking combined fees and expenses “not to exceed” $22 million, or more than one-third of the total pie, according to USA Today.

This doesn’t represent life-changing money, but it’s nice to see young-to-youngish current and former SEC football players getting a well-deserved cut of the video game profits.

To me, whether a player deserves a piece of the athletic revenue produced by the football team is a cloudy, complex question. Sure, Johnny Manziel made Texas A&M a lot of money. But the Aggies’ football team also made Johnny Football. The team and individual brands are symbiotic and interchangeable to an extent.

In a video game, though, you’re depicting a player’s likeness in order to make money. Would it be as exciting to play a game as the 2008 Florida Gators if the Florida quarterback was a generic player rather than a clear No. 15? That individualism suggests a much more direct correlation between flipping a player’s image for a profit.

Athletes had until Thursday to make a claim, and 16,200 did so. Now comes the process of sorting through which of those claims are valid, and contending with a few legal challenges as to the fairness of the process. But football players are close to getting paid."

I wonder why EA has to pay anything, let alone more than the NCAA. Didn't they just purchase the rights to use the likenesses of the players from the NCAA? Why would it be their responsibility to check again with each player individually?

To me it looks like the person who sold stuff he didn't own should bear the main burden for this.

Good for them. And add a poll option for "I hate the NCAA and EA," please.

It's a two sided coin. Yes, their being on the game made EA and the NCAA more money, but then do you also pay other atheltes in other sports that don't make any money off video game (just for the sake of being fair)?

Then you have people arguing they are getting scholerships to go to school so they shouldn't make money. I don't know how I feel fully.

If I understand you correctly, and you're asking if students who play NCAA badminton should be compensated as well, I believe the answer is clearly "no." Not because of fairness, but because the reason this suit was successful was due to the NCAA and EA making money off the athletes' likenesses without permission.

If EA makes college sports games with generic players, the athletes here would have no cause of action to speak of. Since the only sports where athletes' likenesses are being used for commercial gain is limited, it makes sense for only those athletes to receive compensation. If and when NCAA Track And Field becomes a thing, for example, those athletes should also receive royalties, but not before then.

The scholarship angle is also fruitless, in my opinion. The scholarships often come with huge strings attached, strings which can impact and have impacted scholastic performance due to prioritizing the sport over the academics. Moreover, athletic scholarships come with gross restrictions that do not attach to other scholarships. For example, I received several academic scholarships, some directly from the school. When I used my academic training to make money for myself while attending college, no one batted an eye. But if I had an athletic scholarship instead, and used my athletic fame to make money while attending college, it's suddenly a huge deal. This is inconsistent, unnecessary, unfair, and clearly exploitive.

In truth, the restrictions on NCAA athletes exist solely because the colleges don't want to have them classified as "employees" - notwithstanding that they routinely meet the legal definition - so that the NCAA does not have to offer them compensation. Some college sports are huge business, dwarfing the NHL, MLS, and NBA. It's absurd to say that the same system that awards a football coach with multi-million dollar annual salary shouldn't offer the athletes more than a scholarship which often does not cover the entirety of their tuition.

Sorry, getting a bit off topic here. Suffice it to say, I don't think the issue is that grey.

I just think you'll hear an uproar from other sport's players that don't get compensated because their sport isn't popular enough to have video games about it. Not that the argument is valid, but I still think it's going to be chaotic. And schools do make a lot off football, yes, but they are forced to take losses on pretty much every other sport other than basketball so shouldn't they have the right to make more money that will allow other people to play less lucrative sports with scholarships?

Other sports' players don't really have any right to complain though: whether the athletes' income comes from revenue sharing or publicity rights, the compensation is received from profits which are actually derived. This would be like an MLS player demanding that the MLB share a portion of its profits for the MLS player's salary.  This argument doesn't hold moral or legal weight. As long as every sports offers a similar set of rights, the uneven distribution is a problem for the player who picks fencing over football, not the college.

As for the second question, I would point out that even revenue sharing plans will leave plenty of profits for the universities: as the O'Bannon decision points out, colleges somehow find enough leftover revenue from college sports to make a football or basketball coach the highest paid public employee in 40 of 50 states, and to construct half-billion dollar+ athletic facilities. If Alabama can pay Saban $7 million per year - plus bonuses - it can afford to make a $5,000 annual trust fund for its football players. It can also negotiate revenue sharing plans with its athletes that are equitable for all sides. And letting popular athletes make money from their own fame via endorsements etc. - like it allows its coaches to do - costs the colleges nothing at all.