Fun times: back in court with O’Bannon

The NCAA has a lot on its plate today.

The Ed O’Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA reaches another milestone Tuesday, when the sides engage in oral argument before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

It’s part of a busy day on the court — and in the courts — for the NCAA. The association will be starting its Division I men’s basketball tournament in Dayton, Ohio, and participating in oral argument in the appeal of another significant legal case: The state of New Jersey’s bid to legalize sports betting there.

There’s probably a metaphor in there about the current state of collegiate athletics, but I don’t have the energy to fish it out.

That being said, there’s bound to be a little something today that’ll give the 9th Circuit panel hearing the NCAA’s appeal a chuckle.

In disagreeing with Wilken’s ruling that would allow some payments for players, the NCAA wrote, “The court’s alternative would blur the line between amateur college sports and their professional counterparts and thereby deprive athletes of a genuine choice between the two endeavors.”

“That sentence bears re-reading,” lawyers for the Shawne Alston cost-of-attendance plaintiffs wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief. “In (the NCAA’s) view, it is the athletes that are going to be harmed because of the district court’s ruling. That contention likely does not pass the laugh-test, let alone provide a bulwark against antitrust liability.”

College athletes, of course, could “refuse the ‘minor’ payment at issue should they find it unpalatable (as unlikely as that may be),” the Alston plaintiffs wrote. Why college athletes, if given a choice, would turn down money is a head scratcher…

That must be why the NCAA wants the NBA to raise its age limit to 20, to give kids a genuine-r choice.

I’m guessing this is something about which Stacey Osburn has no comment.

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UPDATE:  Since this was mentioned in the comments, feel free to watch.