O'Bannon & NCAA Reform

Yesterday, Michael McCann and I, along with Robert Raiola, Alan Milstein and Daniel Wallach, led a roundtable discussion for the Boston Bar Association on the Donald Sterling controversy. The panel was well attended and, by all accounts, quite successful. Afterwards, most of us then headed out to a late lunch in Boston to catch up on life.

As often happens with the conversations of sports lawyers, our attention turned to the O'Bannon case. Always prescient, McCann stated that he expected Judge Wilken to issue her ruling at approximately 6:45 pm est  just before the weekend. He hoped it wouldn't happen, lamenting the likely long night of writing and analysis he'd be required to provide Sports Illustrated (alas, the rigors of being THE sports law expert for that media outlet.)

We now know McCann was correct--in a ruling siding, primarily for O'Bannon, Judge Wilken ruled that the NCAA's could no longer use "amateurism" as the single defense to all restrictions placed on college athletes. You can read McCann's insight in a piece titled "What Ed O'Bannon's Victory over the NCAA Means Going Forward" here.

Another article worth your time is from noted columnist Joe Nocera of the New York Times who posted this piece titled "This is Reform? The NCAA's Feeble Reform Impulse." And, to be clear, any writing that discusses Andy Schwarz's concept of Team Reform v Team Market analysis is a good read. For Schwarz's full article titled "How Not to Reform the NCAA" go here.