Electronic Arts, the maker of popular college sports-themed video games, will pay current and former college athletes $40 million in damages as part of a deal to settle multiple lawsuits against it, the NCAA, and the Collegiate Licensing Company.
The lawsuits, brought by multiple former college athletes, make similar allegations that the NCAA, EA Sports, and the CLC violated antitrust law by conspiring to profit off the names, images, and likenesses of college athletes without compensating them. EA and the CLC announced in September that they had decided to reach a settlement with the plaintiffs after a federal judge ruled that the cases could proceed as a class action.
The terms of the settlement, announced late Friday, will pay as many as 100,000 current and former athletes up to $4,000 for use of their images and likenesses in EA Sports video games like its NCAA Football and March Madness series, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Solomon. The majority of the funds – after legal fees – will go toward plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit brought by former Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller. Other funds will go toward plaintiffs in a case brought by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon; the remainder will go to plaintiffs in cases brought by former Rutgers football player Ryan Hart and former West Virginia running back Shawne Alston.
The named plaintiffs, including Keller, Hart, and O’Bannon, will receive payments ranging from $2,500 to $15,000. Any player who has appeared in an EA Sports video game is eligible for payment under the settlement. Assuming federal judge Claudia Wilken approves the settlement, payments will depend on the number of total claims and the years spent on collegiate rosters, Solomon reported:
The full cbssports.com article is at: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/24577543/current-ncaa-players-could-benefit-from-video-game-settlement.