It has been a few months since we updated on the O'Bannon
antitrust case, where federal judge Claudia Wilken ruled last
summer that the NCAA's amateurism rules violated federal
antitrust laws. (You can read our previous articles
here,
here,
here, and
here.) But this week, as the rest of the country filled out
their brackets and geared up for the start of the NCAA tournament,
the NCAA was getting ready for another battle – in the Ninth
Circuit. On Tuesday, the appeals court heard oral argument from
both the NCAA and plaintiffs' counsel, as the parties debated
the lower court's decision, which allowed limited compensation
for the use of athletes' name, image, and likenesses.
Central to the parties' argument was the interpretation of
NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of
Oklahoma, a 1984 case regarding football television
rights. While the NCAA lost that case, one statement in that case
has become central to the NCAA's current "amateurism"
defense: "To
