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The Modern Pay For Play Model: Laws That Protect Student-Athletes' Fundamental Right To Commercialze Their Names, Images, And Likeness, Paul A. Schwabe Jr.

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In O’Bannon v. NCAA, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California entered a permanent injunction against the National Collegiate Athletic Association enjoining the collegiate sports governing body from enforcing limits on student-athlete compensation derived from the use of their name, images, and likenesses rights. The court concluded that NCAA rules unreasonably restrained trade in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, however, neither the court nor the NCAA laid out a framework for lawfully implementing these new economic rights to student-athletes. Since that ruling, only one state’s legislature, California, has attempted to pass legislation to prevent the …