Like Curt Flood and Oscar Robertson who paved the way for free agency in sports Ed O Bannon decided there was a principle at stake O Bannon gave the movement to reform college sports passion and purpose animated by righteous indignation Jeremy Schaap ESPN journalist and New York Times bestselling author In 2009 Ed O Bannon once a star for the 1995 NCAA Champion UCLA Bruins and a first round NBA draft pick thought he d made peace with the NCAA s exploitive system of amateurism College athletes generated huge profits yet training nearly full time forced to tailor coursework around sports often pawns in corrupt investigations they saw little from those riches other than revocable scholarships and miniscule chances of going pro Still that was all in O Bannon s past until he saw the video game NCAA Basketball 09 As avatars of their college selves their likenesses achievements and playing styles O Bannon and his teammates were still making money for the NCAA So when asked to fight the system for players past present and future and seeking no personal financial reward but rather the chance to make college sports fair he agreed to be the face of what became a landmark class action lawsuit Court Justice brings readers to the front lines of a critical battle in the long fight for players rights while also offering O Bannon s unique perspective on today s NCAA recruiting scandals From the basketball court to the court of law facing NCAA executives athletic directors and expert witnesses and finally to his innovative ideas for reform O Bannon breaks down history s most important victory yet against the inequitable model of multi billion dollar amateur sports Court Justice The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAAe book Like Curt Flood Ed O Bannon legal challenge of the NCAA changed the sports entertainment industry for the betterment of the players The book details the ethical legal and economic issues regarding the exploitation of athletes for billion dollar profits A must read for college sports fans He details what it is like to be a college athlete and dispels the concept of amateur athletics Court Justice The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA I was expecting it to be a detailed account of the case and everything that happened before and after It was a lot about his life and career which I didn t necessarily care for Court Justice The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA 2 stars feels low but it was OK is a pretty good description for this up close and personal entry in my growing library on the problems with intercollegiate athletics For those who don t follow these things O Bannon was a star basketball player for a national champion UCLA basketball team in the 1990s who years later saw his likeness in a video game the maker of which had not compensated him It turns out the Electronic Arts EA would have liked to compensate him and others whose likenesses were used but the NCAA inveighed upon it not to do so. O Bannon who seems like a great guy sued the NCAA on behalf of former players forswearing any possibility of personal financial gain and trying to establish a basic principle of fairness The book is well written and reads pretty quickly Indeed one of my issues is that it s a little superficial I don t mind the personal narrative aspect and indeed liked that about the book I am obviously a massive outlier being pretty deep into NCAA rules and all of the issues the book raises but I would have liked to see a much serious engagement with the tradeoffs. For student athletes yes I use the term unironically to be able to profit from their names images and likenesses NILs is fair and right Non athlete students can do so and I don t thing SAs should be treated less favorably than any other students This is especially important insofar as those with earning potential in this space are disproportionately black and disproportionately from relatively economically disadvantaged backgrounds But I worry about it and a fortiori about creating a full fledged market for players and I d like to try to explain why. It might help to tell it as O Bannon does from a personal perspective I am a faculty member I love being a college professor and I have zero interest in being in the professional sports business or working for an organization that is in that business I know the response that I effectively already am do or that the only reason I am not do not is because the system is rigged to allow for all of the benefits of such a system to flow to me and my ilk while maintaining a fiction that things are otherwise But all I can say is that if I were forced to choose between an inferior level of basketball that remained truly amateur or a higher level of basketball that involved professionalism I wouldn t hesitate to choose the former Again I am not interested in being involved with professional sports except as a fan I am in the education business. So for me that rules out paying players If they want to play professional ball they are free to do so If they want to come to college and play they do so knowing full well that they need to be students and that they won t be drawing a paycheck Scholarships are awesome for artists musicians whizkid mathematicians students from disadvantaged backgrounds and folks with athletic talents Come one come all. Now what s the problem with NIL What concerns me is that unsavory actors in the system would use the possibilities for NIL compensation to effectively just pay athletes to come and play for their favorite colleges The value of NIL is what the market can bear and the market would probably see deep pocketed alumni willing to pay for a fiction of NIL compensation when what s really happening is they are paying young men to play Sure we ll pay you a million a year to have your name on the billboard for our car dealership I worry that this will bring onto our campuses young people who are there for the money not for the education Again I am not interested and universities have zero obligation to be in such a business. I don t really know what the answer is The free market is good in all kinds of ways but it would produce this outcome that I don t support of kids coming to campus for the money and not really being students I want to bring students to campus while allowing them to pursue every extracurricular opportunity they can that is consistent with a commitment to coming to college to study and earn a degree If the Big Ballers and others want to go pro they can do so and I wish them well They can cash in on their NILs and get paid to play and not have to worry about going to class etc We universities get to work with students who really want to be students Win win. the Pac 12 and Big 10 schools to create our own stratum where we offer cost of attendance maybe allow some kind of regulated or deferred NIL while the SEC or Big 12 or others go pro as they might wish I think this might address EO B s 12 recommendations at the end of Court Justice which I ll address in referencing such an imaginary Pac 12 type stratum. 2 empower SAs to participate in rulemaking etc O Bannon is a little behind the times on this one as SAs already have 15 votes out of 80 since the 65 schools each have one vote in the Autonomy or Power 5 context which governs inter alia financial aid issues for the participating conferences In the Pac 12 we already involve SAs than in other conferences though admittedly they don t have a formal vote in the Pac 12 Council Neither do ADs or faculty athletics reps FARs or senior woman administrators SWAs by the way only member institutions have votes in that setting 3 make NCAA rules understandable Sure but good luck with that I think O Bannon s take on this is reasonable but utterly unrealistic The issues are complicated and it will remain nearly true that one needs a PhD in NCAA Studies to understand the rules p 220 Heh heh. 5 make amateurism rights the same across all sports Agree He also promotes the baseball model in re agents and the draft and again I agree Current work on transfer rules is likely to put these kinds of notion into action which is good. 6 guarantee health benefits for SAs The Pac 12 already does this for current SAs ER 7 1 d and for former SAs up to four years or age 26 for medical issues related to athletic participation ER 7 1 e In the P 5 group the former will be true extending out two years beyond participation as of August 1 2018 proposal 2017 104 creating bylaw 16. 7 guarantee freedom of expression for SAs A very interesting one I guess I agree but boy will it cause some interesting PR headaches Price we pay for working with young people whom we want to empower and make responsible which we do. 10 let college athletes major in sports Sounds crazy and would be very hard to gain approval for among vast majority of faculty but it s an idea that I am warming up to On this logic athletics is no different from art or music or dance Think about it. 11 develop better educational programs around coaching also bullying hazing domestic violence I think we are making great strides on the latter three though always to do Coaching agreed. 12 let college athletes vote on who becomes NCAA president Ha No Court Justice The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA Interesting and Entertaining ReadFor someone with little knowledge of college basketball or antitrust law I found this book surprisingly easy to read and very interesting It s a credit to the writers that they were able to explain complex issues in plain language I particularly liked the parts of the book that discussed the educational realities that confront college athletes in Division I schools I also think Ed O Bannon has a great story to tell Court Justice The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA.