Sam Keller files lawsuit against EA sports and the NCAA

[RedDenver]

i dont understand all of the hostility about this lawsuit.

 

Because it's a stupid and trivial lawsuit that only further bogs our already over-burdened legal system.

 

I like Sam Keller. I think he's a great guy. He came here, played one season for our previous moron, I mean head coach and always stayed positive.

 

But this lawsuit is flat out ridiculous.

That is your opinion and you're entitled to it. I don't think it's ridiculous at all. I think it's ridiculous that so many other people profit from college athletes but not the athletes themselves. Why is it that the NCAA doesn't want college athletes to make money off of their product but are okay with a video gaming company doing it? IMO, if the athletes aren't making money from the selling of their jerseys and other things, then nobody should make money from those things.

[HuskerJen]

i dont understand all of the hostility about this lawsuit.

 

Because it's a stupid and trivial lawsuit that only further bogs our already over-burdened legal system.

 

I like Sam Keller. I think he's a great guy. He came here, played one season for our previous moron, I mean head coach and always stayed positive.

 

But this lawsuit is flat out ridiculous.

That is your opinion and you're entitled to it. I don't think it's ridiculous at all. I think it's ridiculous that so many other people profit from college athletes but not the athletes themselves. Why is it that the NCAA doesn't want college athletes to make money off of their product but are okay with a video gaming company doing it? IMO, if the athletes aren't making money from the selling of their jerseys and other things, then nobody should make money from those things.

 

You are completely missing the point point here: College athletes DO "profit" in the current system...it's called a FREE college education.

 

Holy crap, I would LOVE to have been on the receiving end of a FREE college education.

 

I'm currently enrolled at ITT Technical Institute and studying Health Information Technology, HIT. I am on course to graduate in March of '10. And guess what? I'll have over 40K of debt to repay for a two year associate's degree.

 

And, that's in addition to the BA in Journalism & Mass Communications that I've already attained from Dear Old Nebraska U.

 

So don't you dare try to make the "poor exploited athlete" argument because it fails on deaf ears here.

[IBleedHuskerRed]

Sam's suit is getting talk time on PTI.

The suit is class action and involves all college football players.

Good for Sam.

T_O_B

Agreed.

[huKSer]

i dont understand all of the hostility about this lawsuit.

 

Because it's a stupid and trivial lawsuit that only further bogs our already over-burdened legal system.

 

I like Sam Keller. I think he's a great guy. He came here, played one season for our previous moron, I mean head coach and always stayed positive.

 

But this lawsuit is flat out ridiculous.

That is your opinion and you're entitled to it. I don't think it's ridiculous at all. I think it's ridiculous that so many other people profit from college athletes but not the athletes themselves. Why is it that the NCAA doesn't want college athletes to make money off of their product but are okay with a video gaming company doing it? IMO, if the athletes aren't making money from the selling of their jerseys and other things, then nobody should make money from those things.

 

You are completely missing the point point here: College athletes DO "profit" in the current system...it's called a FREE college education.

 

Holy crap, I would LOVE to have been on the receiving end of a FREE college education.

 

I'm currently enrolled at ITT Technical Institute and studying Health Information Technology, HIT. I am on course to graduate in March of '10. And guess what? I'll have over 40K of debt to repay for a two year associate's degree.

 

And, that's in addition to the BA in Journalism & Mass Communications that I've already attained from Dear Old Nebraska U.

 

So don't you dare try to make the "poor exploited athlete" argument because it fails on deaf ears here.

So you are going to school to HIT ITT

 

And you're sig is . . . .

[huskertim]

It occurs to me that many of these kids are being recruited with the idea that they want to be on TV, they want to be starters, they want to be the center of attention. God forbide they should get exactl what they want because, obviouly it isn't enough. Look, if you don't like the game, take your ball and go home. Shall we start pressing assault charges on the linebackers next? A little foresight and personnal responsiblity for your own decisions might do these guys some good.

 

Don't jerk with my game Keller!!!!!!!!!

[RedDenver]

You are completely missing the point point here: College athletes DO "profit" in the current system...it's called a FREE college education.

 

Holy crap, I would LOVE to have been on the receiving end of a FREE college education.

 

I'm currently enrolled at ITT Technical Institute and studying Health Information Technology, HIT. I am on course to graduate in March of '10. And guess what? I'll have over 40K of debt to repay for a two year associate's degree.

 

And, that's in addition to the BA in Journalism & Mass Communications that I've already attained from Dear Old Nebraska U.

 

So don't you dare try to make the "poor exploited athlete" argument because it fails on deaf ears here.

I feel quite free to "dare" it, and you are missing my point here. I'm not saying they are not getting benefits out of playing college football. But they DO NOT getting benefits by EA Sports using them in a video game. What you are describing more closely relates to arguments about whether the university should be allowed to make money from attendance, TV rights, etc. I'm not sure why you think paying your way through school has anything to do with the argument, but I'll go ahead and say that I also put myself through school using a combination of the GI Bill and loans. So we're both paying for school, and we don't agree on this issue.

[HUSKER 37]

i dont understand all of the hostility about this lawsuit.

 

Because it's a stupid and trivial lawsuit that only further bogs our already over-burdened legal system.

 

I like Sam Keller. I think he's a great guy. He came here, played one season for our previous moron, I mean head coach and always stayed positive.

 

But this lawsuit is flat out ridiculous.

That is your opinion and you're entitled to it. I don't think it's ridiculous at all. I think it's ridiculous that so many other people profit from college athletes but not the athletes themselves. Why is it that the NCAA doesn't want college athletes to make money off of their product but are okay with a video gaming company doing it? IMO, if the athletes aren't making money from the selling of their jerseys and other things, then nobody should make money from those things.

 

You are completely missing the point point here: College athletes DO "profit" in the current system...it's called a FREE college education.

 

Holy crap, I would LOVE to have been on the receiving end of a FREE college education.

...

 

So would ~40% the football team.

You do realize that we can only have 85 on scholarship at a time, right?

 

I wonder how many of us would be stupid, I mean...brave enough to start this thing up, knowing the ridicule it would garner with little or no bennefit likely?

[BigWillie]

 

Kind of like the whole Cody Glenn thing? Tickets? Stat. Rape?

Or like Solich and the cheerleader or was it a nurse?

I think you get what I’m saying.

 

I run into one of Keller’s former teammates and roommates while he was in Lincoln every now and again, maybe next time I see him I’ll ask him about it.

 

If you are friends with a former Keller's teammate or roommate, then there should be no reason to ask questions because you should already know.

 

Keller was one of the most hated teammates I can ever remember hearing of. And probably one of the worst things to ever happen to our program as well.

 

 

i dont understand all of the hostility about this lawsuit. was there such hatred of Jarvis Redwine back in 1981 when he sued the Omaha based company for the posters they were selling with his likeness on them? (look on LJS blogs for today)

 

dont hate Sam now for the sins of Callahan. All Sam did was go out and do what the head coach asked him to do. If I wasnt so damn lazy i would research all of the posts that were on here about how everyone thought that Sam was so much better than Ganz and he was the going to be the savior.

 

In my mind Sam came to NU, gave it his all, and will always be a Husker, but it came at a bad time in Husker history that i would now like to be able to forget.

 

dont hate the player, but hate on the decision makers at the time all you want. it is painfully obvious that the wrong decisions were made

 

Callahan had nothing to do with the problems Keller had. Callahan's biggest sin was seeing a uber-talented QB and his willingness to give him a second chance in CFB. Callahan got burned, heavily.

 

Every single drop of hate that Sam Keller gets is because of Sam Keller. No one else can be to blame. In fact, the guy comes nowhere close to getting the type of hatred he honestly deserves.

 

And no, Sam should never be remembered as a Husker. Ever. I would honest NEVER invite that kid back to the campus to be near any single kid on this campus where he could possibly have an influence on them.

 

 

You are completely missing the point point here: College athletes DO "profit" in the current system...it's called a FREE college education.

 

Holy crap, I would LOVE to have been on the receiving end of a FREE college education.

 

I'm currently enrolled at ITT Technical Institute and studying Health Information Technology, HIT. I am on course to graduate in March of '10. And guess what? I'll have over 40K of debt to repay for a two year associate's degree.

 

And, that's in addition to the BA in Journalism & Mass Communications that I've already attained from Dear Old Nebraska U.

 

So don't you dare try to make the "poor exploited athlete" argument because it fails on deaf ears here.

 

Question:

 

Would you accept a trade of a bicycle for a BMW?

 

That is basically what these kids are being asked to do.

 

Another question:

 

Would you work for a company, be the main focus of an multi-million dollar advertising campaign and receive no visual compensation for your efforts over a 4-5 year period?

 

I mean, it cracks me up every year that these kids go to these bowl games and some universities make tens of millions of dollars for those players going on TV to put on a fantastic game. Their reward? They usually get a gift bag of some sunglasses, a watch, maybe a gaming system or TV - if you are lucky.

 

Look at UT - two years ago they pulled $46 million in just pure profit from just the football program. That money could be spent any way the program saw fit.

 

So lets play by your rules of the game just for a minute ..

 

85 scholarship players

 

$28k per year tuition (even though this is out of state costs, although most Texas players are instate)

 

85*$28k = $2.38 million

 

So basically, $2.38 million > $46 million ?

 

And really, you could likely knock 4/5 of that $2.38 million of that off considering that the vast majority of Texas players are in-state. And with in-state tuition being about $8,500 per year then you can figure that up on your own.

 

Lets face it, these kids are treated like prostitutes for the most part in how they are compensated for what they have to do. You don't want to play CFB at a large university? That's fine with these coaches. You lose out on a potential career and they move on to someone else. These kids have no choice but to go these colleges, accept little or nothing in return, make millions for colleges, then hope they can profit in the future.

 

With that said, I am still not in favor of paying these kids. Even attempting to do that would have a system that would get so severely abused that it would be pathetic and nothing more than a pain in the rear.

 

However, to act like the cost of an education is > to the millions these players pump into the university every single years is laughable.

[Husker_x]

If you are friends with a former Keller's teammate or roommate, then there should be no reason to ask questions because you should already know.

 

Keller was one of the most hated teammates I can ever remember hearing of. And probably one of the worst things to ever happen to our program as well.

 

I'd never heard that. What, pray tell, would be the reason for that level of animosity?

[caveman99]

I found this article and it brought up a couple of points I hadn't thought of, namely if the NCAA loses they could be in violation of their #1 rule of non-compensation for players. What are your thoughts?

 

Fanhouse Blog: EA, NCAA Lawsuit Could Be Huge

EA, NCAA Lawsuit Could Be Huge

Posted May 12, 2009 4:00PM By Clay Travis (RSS feed)

 

On May 5, 2009 former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that EA Sports and the NCAA unlawfully used player images in their NCAA football and basketball video games. The lawsuit (read it here) received quite a bit of initial attention, but no one pointed out the most fascinating angle of the case, the NCAA is being accused of violating their own rules of amateurism, selling the rights to the players that they're supposed to protect.

 

Yep, the NCAA, baronial ruler of the collegiate landscape, investigator of impropriety from sea to shining sea, protector of amateur athletics, may be in need of investigation themselves. Oh, the delicious irony. What's at stake in Sam Keller's lawsuit? Only every game and every record featuring NCAA athletes in football and basketball over the past decade. Thankfully, this lawsuit falls right in my legal expertise; I'm a lawyer with a decent knowledge of NCAA regulations and a great knowledge of NCAA video games. As I read this lawsuit, I began to realize that it's much bigger than a video game, the lawsuit makes a really bold statement, it accuses the NCAA of violating their own rules of amateurism.

 

That's a huge story that no one is talking about.

 

Here's the crux of the matter in four sentences: The NCAA prohibits players from being paid anything for their participation in collegiate athletics. Yet if the NCAA appropriated player likenesses on these video games then they must pay something of value to the players whose images they appropriated. Only then they'll be paying players for their participation in collegiate athletics. Yep, the NCAA will be violating NCAA rules on amateurism.

 

Let's unpack that further.

 

First, take a step back and explain what these video games do for people who don't play them. The NCAA video games seek to replicate the college game in as vivid of a fashion as they possibly can. As anyone who has ever played the game can testify, the reason you buy them is so you can play with your team and the players on your team. The player names are not used, but top players are identified by height, weight, jersey number, visible appearance -- skin color for example -- and, most importantly, talent. Fast and shifty running backs are fast and shifty, strong-armed quarterbacks can complete laser passes, dominant wide receivers are impossible to cover with only one defensive back. You get the picture. So does every college football player when they gather in their dorm rooms and at team facilities to play against each other. In fact, the games are so accurate that EA even designs training programs for college athletes to use for perfecting their own offense and to prepare for opponents.

 

The only fig-leaf for the protection of player amateurism is that the NCAA video games don't use the actual player names. But, as you can see, we all know who those players are. It's why we buy the games. Last week I wrote about how ludicrous sellings college jerseys is. Namely, that the universities and their sponsors make so much money off the players by not putting their names on the back. The NCAA collects the money for licensing the rights to the teams and the players, but the players get nothing. So they remain amateurs.

 

This is a false and hypocritical system that coincidentally benefits the NCAA.

 

Lots of attention has been focused on Sam Keller for filing this lawsuit. People have ridiculed his college career, even opined that the court filing will be intercepted on the way to the courthouse. But what all that mockery has missed is that Keller is just the tip of the player iceberg, the named plaintiff in a potential class-action lawsuit. How many players is that? Well, if this class-action suit is certified, Keller is seeking to include every player on every EA game that has had their image, number, and likeness used. Most media accounts have solely focused on the football game, but what's at stake here is every major NCAA athlete for the past decade or so in football and basketball.

 

So what happens, if Keller et. al. are right and the NCAA is appropriating the player likenesses to make more money than they otherwise would? Then the NCAA has violated their own rules of amateurism. Think the NCAA and their lawyers aren't extremely nervous about this suit? Think again.

 

Their legal options are limited. They'll fight the class-action certification and attempt to get the lawsuit dismissed via summary judgment. It's my legal opinion that they'll fail in both arguments. Typically, if the class-action lawsuit is certified and the lawsuit isn't dismissed, parties enter into a protracted litigation that takes years. But here's the deal, do the NCAA and EA really want to go through discovery when it can potentially reveal how much they conspired to create this game? Generally when they fear what might come out through discovery, settlement becomes the goal.

 

Only, say the NCAA and EA decide to pay out $20 million (this number is hypothetical, any sum would suffice) to settle this lawsuit. There are at least 10,000 or so players (85 scholarships multiplied by 119 top division schools) on every NCAA football game, at least 4,000 on every NCAA basketball game. Figure that your average player is being reproduced on four different games over the course of his career. EA's NCAA Football series, for example, began in 1998. So you're talking about 11 years worth of players being eligible for the class-action settlement in football alone. (Basketball is more complicated because there were competing games from different companies. But if I'd filed this class-action, I'd amend my complaint to include Take-Two Interactive and other companies that have signed licensing deals with the NCAA for basketball games.)

 

But, as we've stated, the NCAA forbids the use of player images for commercial gain. So current players would have a settlement from the NCAA that they couldn't accept if they wanted to remain eligible under NCAA rules.

 

Even if the payments went to the players after they graduated, they'd be retroactively rewarded for their play. That, too, is still illegal, because they're being paid for something they did while playing the collegiate sport. What's the end result? If the NCAA follows their procedures, the entire NCAA record book for the past 11 years would have to be wiped clean because every player featured on the video games accepted improper benefits.

 

You want to go even further down the rabbit hole? How about the NCAA being forced to investigate the NCAA for violating NCAA rules? How delicious would college coaches find this? Fans? Everyone who has ever thought that the NCAA rules on amateurism didn't make a lick of sense?

 

So I don't think the NCAA and EA can settle and I don't think this case will get dismissed. Meaning gird up for an interesting ride on the class-action express. After all the outrage provoked by their policies over the years, wouldn't it be the ultimate dose of irony if being greedy over a video game upset the NCAA apple cart? If the NCAA itself became the most egregious violator of NCAA amateurism rules?

 

That's why this case matters. A ton. Even if no one is yet taking note.

[caveman99]

bump, my post didn't register again.....

[BigWillie]

If you are friends with a former Keller's teammate or roommate, then there should be no reason to ask questions because you should already know.

 

Keller was one of the most hated teammates I can ever remember hearing of. And probably one of the worst things to ever happen to our program as well.

 

I'd never heard that. What, pray tell, would be the reason for that level of animosity?

 

Keller never cared an ounce about football. His head was focused on so many other very wrong things that he could never reach his potential.

 

I know people think Keller got the job promised to him, but I've said it a buncha times and I'll say it again, Keller flat out beat Ganz simply because he was better. Unfortunately, Keller alienated damm near every player (minus a couple) in that locker room and they basically gave half hearted effort with him at QB. No one respected him and no one wanted to play for him.

[nillie welson]

See, the irony here is that Keller is suing the NCAA for using his "likeness" without his permission. Well, I played NCAA '08 (thats the year with Keller I think) with the Huskers for many many many virtual seasons, and my response is this:

 

"Sam, whomever the QB was that year couldn't have been made in your likeness because the QB was actually good, and was able to throw the ball to more receivers than just the closest check down receiver."

 

Oh, and deal with the fact that you have to work for a living instead of living the "Dream" by stopping your search for a free handout.

 

And finally, as a huge fan of the NCAA Football series.....you better not mess this franchise up.

 

GO JOE GANZ..........better on and off the field.

[tattooedhusker]

Pay for my college, and you can use my likeness anytime you damn well feel like it.

[Micheal]

Pay for my college, and you can use my likeness anytime you damn well feel like it.