If you’re wondering how the O’Bannon defense could come off sounding so dumb throughout the trial, let South Carolina President Harris Pastides explains it to you:
Wednesday, Pastides and Muir did a great job explaining why college and college athletics are good, but they failed to explain why athletes would be harmed by gaining the ability to market their name, image and likeness rights — which is all that really matters in terms of the case. Asked what might happen if players gained such rights, Pastides said this: “It would render athletes who don’t receive these rewards as second-class citizens. It would make them feel worse about themselves.”
Makes you wonder how Pastides feels about Steve Spurrier making millions more than he does. Them hurted fee-fees are a bitch, ‘ya know.
Besides being sensitive to student-athletes’ feelings, Pastides also demonstrated some short-term memory issues on the stand. If the players wind up getting a cut from the revenue pie, he warned that something would have to give, because there just wasn’t any more money in the system.
Mah goodness, whatever shall they do, Miz Scarlett? And to think it was only about a month ago Pastides and his SEC brethren were receiving the Word of Gawd from Mike Slive himself about all that new SEC Network money that would be rolling in soon! Heavens to Betsy, do you think that just slipped ol’ Harris’ mind?
Pastides, remember, is a college president. He’s one of the guys driving this train.
Get The Picture 
The collapse of the colluding cartel is comedic.
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The scary thing is I don’t think a collapse is coming. They will put a product on tv, collect their earnings and not care one whit whether we like it or not.
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Anyone almost get the feeling they don’t really care if it collapses?
University administrators know full well by now that the academic mission is a joke; the Ivies are giant hedge funds and state institutions are grant- and federal-loan-gobbling behemoths. What matters is maintaining the appearance of an academic mission while the back office shakes down students/parents, limits free speech so that everyone gets processed smoothly through the machine, and cuts academic departments to replace them with more administrators.
These guys don’t care if they have to throw a bone to athletes in order to keep making $20-100 million more per year. They just need a judge to force them to do it.
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“Anyone almost get the feeling they don’t really care if it collapses?”
Emmert certainly cares. That’s what CEO’s do. For trial prep yesterday he was busy watching film for testimony tips
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Question about the case: are the plaintiffs suing to get a cut of the $$$ from the ncaa’s marketing, or just the right to market themselves independently of the NCAA? The reporting on this case always seems to get deep into the weeds and the relevant issues are not very clear.
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The latter.
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Then it seems to me that 95% of the testimony in this trial is irrelevant. Most of the commentary on this blog and elsewhere centers on the schools paying the players and the associated costs, but that is not the issue here. Someone needs to unconfuse me on this.
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Just to clear up my point: TG2 selling jerseys with his picture and profiting from that does not cost UGA one dime. So how is all of this discussion about increased costs to schools and paying players relevant?
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Sure it does. It would keep UGA from profiting from the sale of as many TG2 jerseys and pictures in the bookstore (it may not be all that much, but still). UGA owns all the rights to that stuff now and TG2 either has no right to any of it because they make him sign it away for no compensation every year, or the NCAA will declare him ineligible for trying to assert his right to do it. See Green, A.J.
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I dont deny it would cut into the schools’ revenue some, but it is still not a direct payment from the school to the player. So its no t a direct “cost” as some are framing the issue.
The NCAA/schools should be able to retain the rights to market the player’s likeness, but they should not be exclusive. IMO the players should be able to market independently if they wish.
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Right now the schools/NCAA own the marketing rights. Think TV. The NCAA is saying that fans want to see the school not the player, and anyway that it’s all covered by the value of a scholarship.
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I’m starting to wonder if these administrators really might cut the non-revenue sports for the sake of preserving their own cushy pay. I used to not think so but they are so out of touch……
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Yeah I’d bet they will cut nonrevenue sports so they can tell us how evil the O’Bannon verdict is.
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Instead of ponying up for Title IX they cut non revenue men’s athletics to fund it. The guy from Stanford explaining that paying athletes would dry up some of the womans non revenue sports and they couldn’t bare to see any athlete not get a chance to play their sport, seemed hollow in light of that.
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Was thinking the other day that if students get paid to play the schools might stop giving football/basketball scholarships. Think what getting rid of 96 scholarships would have on title ix requirements.
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Except the scholarship costs them nothing…it would be an empty seat in class. I don’t see the schools cutting out scholarships at all. They could cut back on coaching salaries and they could make the teams take a bus to Missouri …..wouldn’t that be a wonderful legacy from conference expansion.
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Bluto, Morris Albert reference or The Offspring?
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The really interesting part to me is that wealthy people with lots to lose are generally a little more prepared than these guys who seem to have not put a lot of thought into why the status quo should be protected.
At some point just because becomes a pretty thin reason.
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President Harris Pastides smiles and waves
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Lol…sounds like commentary by Jon Stewart
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More echoes from the academic elite…”players’ rights and second class citizens”.
Once you go down that road, well you can padlock the gates to the college and univeristy stadiums. In essence the univeristy presidents and their athletic assets are mute, not needed. Some individual[s] will form their own teams outside of the NCAA.
Plus who owns the “G” trademark. Belongs to UGA. Those players and athletes who came before the current roster where do they sit in this. They helped build that trademark to a degree. Nothing keeps a business from possibly infringing on that but it should not be “officially licensed” UGA products.
Do the athletes become employees or non-employee re their deemed compensation. How does it fit in the AFCA? Do you report an amount on a W-2 or F1099. Once they put their name along with a University logo and trademark are they required to apply for their own.
They get meal money, scholarship, first class insturction in the classroom and athletic field, books, other needed item. All of this is “bundled to them”. They do not even have to incure much time or effort to acquire.
Some cash stipend ok for ancillary use. Amount applies across the board to all athletes on a roster and enrolled and good academic standing.
Once you start marketing an individual name then you walk it out and into another business category. Ask the owner of the Washingto DC NFL team. Does Harry Reid and the Federal government get to decide the value of a trademake you have on your balance sheeet and P&L. When and where does the NCAA and Federal government decide the licensing, value, and life of that intangible.
Universities and the NCAA had better look at this look and hard before they roll out speeches from a bund of academic geeks.
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“Does Harry Reid and the Federal government get to decide the value of a trademark you have on your balance sheet and P&L.”
Auditors predict the Federal government will leave that sheet to Dirty Harry because he’s got time for it between range wars and choking someone whenever he feels like it
“After FBI agents interrupted the transaction, as prearranged, Reid lost his temper and began choking Gordon, saying ‘You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!’ Gordon was convicted in 1979 and sentenced to six months in prison. In 1981, Reid’s wife found a bomb attached to the family station wagon; Reid suspected it was placed by Gordon.”
(wiki why can’t we all get along)
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I would rather believe the NCAA legal team knows their case is so bad that they have just decided to let it play out and let the witnesses say whatever they want instead of believing they are equally incompetent. They get paid the same either way.
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Pastides forgot one way to free up money: Cut the salaries of the coaches. Or even administrators.
Problem solved! Spurrier may have to drive last year’s Camaro, but hey. We all have to make sacrifices.
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That is true, but some schools have the resources to keep the salaries and absorb any additional costs as a result of this case. The question becomes what do the schools a level below that do. They can cut salaries as you discuss, but that could lead them to be less competitive in the market place in their cash cow enterprise. Another way to go would be to keep the salaries (keep up with the Jones’) and cut non-revenue sports in order to balance the books (unless you are UT or Maryland, which burned the books years ago).
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Yeah cut more mens teams.
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Why just men’s? There are plenty of non-revenue sports to have a go at. Just follow the Maryland example.
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In fairness, Spurrier’s said he’d willingly give up some of his salary to pay players.
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Yea, I believe I read Spurrier already donates close to a million each year to the school’s scholarship fund.
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Problem solved, then. Can I bill anyone for my insight? ☺
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Just playin. $1 million total during his tenure as coach.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/03/21/steve-spurrier-has-donated-1-million-back-to-south-carolina/
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