NCAA player likeness lawsuit steps closer to a close

It’s been years since we’ve seen an NCAA game and with every Madden release since, we’ve all mourned the loss of the franchise. Due to the murkiness in player compensations from EA and how the NCAA qualifies its athletes with amateur status, the whole thing lead to a massive lawsuit related to player likeness against Electronic Arts, the CLC and the NCAA itself. Last July a preliminary approval was attained to the tune of $60 million dollars and Thursday night additional documents were filed for the presiding judge, Claudia Wilken, to give final approval.

Over 16,000 athletes applied to receive compensation, a small fraction of the athletes that were actually eligible, but still a massive amount for suits of this nature with Kenneth Jue, the claims administrator, stating, "The claims rates for both settlements are very high compared with the range of claims rates we typically receive". It’s a fact that shouldn’t shock as even the most tangentially related to sports have an opinion on the case and its possible future ramifications, especially if this will lead the way to EA renewing the license and starting the franchise back up.

Assuming Judge Wilkens grants approval following the July 16th hearing, payments to athletes will be calculated based on several factors including the amount of claims filed, whether their jersey number appeared on an avatar in the game, which years they appeared in a game as well as several other qualifiers. While most athletes who are eligible will get receive anywhere $74-$230, with some earning upwards of a few thousand dollars.

The interesting thing about this lawsuit is it asked the question that would lead to a new game being a reality, how much is a player’s likeness worth? The franchise prior to the lawsuit was a money maker for EA, so if there is away around these issues, it seems likely they’ll do exactly that, if only to recoup the losses from this suit. Here’s hoping, at least.