Ed O’Bannon: Crusader or Greedy Bastard?

Damn, looking back at the 1995 NBA Draft class makes me feel old.  Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and Joe Smith were drafted that year, and they’re all still hanging around.

Then there are the ‘95 Draft guys who never played a minute in the Association (Constantin Popa), some who barely played in the league (Loren Meyer), some who carved out solid careers and have since retired (Eric Snow), one who donated a kidney to his sister (Greg Ostertag in 2002) and one who had ten children with eight women and couldn’t keep up with the child support (Jason Caffey).

"Nah, the brakes on this Camry are FINE."

Put Ed O’Bannon in the “barely played in the league” category.  After leading UCLA to a national title in 1995, O’Bannon was tabbed as the 9th overall pick by the Nets.  He lasted all of two seasons and is now selling Toyotas in Nevada.

After all these years, O’Bannon is back in America’s sporting consciousness thanks to a class-action lawsuit he’s filed against the NCAA.  He’s arguing that the NCAA doesn’t have the right to continuously profit off of a student athlete’s likeness once that athlete has stopped playing.

It all started when O’Bannon saw a virtual likeness of himself on a video game a few years back. Any gamer knows that college sports games don’t refer to athletes by name, but everything else (the player’s number, skin color and throwing/shooting hand) is a match.

For instance, if you crank up EA’s NCAA 10 college football video game and select ‘85 Auburn, you’ll find a very, very good running back wearing the number 34…he’s just not referred to as Bo Jackson in the game.

O’Bannon is saying that if a virtual power forward on the ‘95 UCLA team wearing number 31 looks like him and plays like him, then it is him, and he should in turn be compensated for it.

The ramifications of O’Bannon’s suit will impact much more than virtual representations of college athletes who have long since used up their eligibility.  Should Kordell Stewart have been paid every time his hail mary in the Big House was shown in the last 15 years?

This will have a huge financial impact on college sports if the NCAA and its member institutions have to shell out cash to every backup lineman who’s ever been depicted in an EA game.  Also, the financial side of the house in college sports would suddenly become much more transparent should O’Bannon win his suit.

On one hand, I think the guy has a good point, he’s saying that somebody’s getting paid off his likeness and he deserves a cut.  It’s no different than Fergie wanting a cut every time some radio station plays one of her crapfest songs.

On the flip side, I wonder if O’Bannon would even give a damn about all this if he was still running up and down an NBA court trying to guard Lamar Odom.  Also, the fact that O’Bannon has been counseled through this by that sleazebag Sonny Vaccaro makes me wonder if he’s really all that interested in helping out his fellow athletes or just looking for a quick exit out of the car business.

I’d like to know more about O’Bannon’s perception of all this.  Does he think that the NCAA and its member institutions are realizing insane riches through the practices he’s suing over?

Personally, I don’t believe there are a bunch of fat cats raking in the dough every time a college sports highlight from the distant past is played.  I don’t think money derived from a virtual O’Bannon goes to pay for a new set of Titleists for UCLA’s president, I think it’s much more likely that the money helps UCLA’s women’s gymnastics team rent a decent van for the drive down to the meet in San Diego.

All I have to say is that if O’Bannon wins this suit and it negatively impacts the college sports I love, then there’s a car dealership in Nevada that I’m gonna go all Kenny Powers on.