Final Four Athletes 2014: Class Action Lawsuit Filed On Eve Of March Madness

About a year ago, we wrote about a class-action challenge to the exploitative NCAA rule requiring college athletes to essentially turn over the rights to their names and likenesses to the NCAA during their prime college playing years.
This year, on the eve of March Madness, another proposed class-action case was filed in federal court in New Jersey. The Plaintiffs essentially claim that the NCAA and its five major conferences are acting in collusion to stop top tier college basketball and football players from earning more money than their respective scholarship amounts.

See: https://www.thenation.com/blog/178986/lawsuit-could-end-indentured-servitude- ncaa#
Although, the new case makes a strong challenge to the collusive activity under the Clayton and Sherman Acts, the U.S. Supreme Court precedent of NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), will be a substantial obstacle for the plaintiffs to overcome. In the OU case, a majority held that the NCAA has substantial discretion to set rules to maintain the pre-professional status of college athletes and the “revered tradition of amateurism.”

There are several other legal obstacles the Plaintiffs will have to surmount, including the parity provisions of Title IX and the Plaintiffs’ exclusive focus on the sports of basketball and football, but, at minimum, it is another positive sign that the war against NCAA exploitation is far from over.