Amateurism ain’t cheap.

You can bet Stacey Osburn has no comment about this:

A federal magistrate judge late Monday ordered the NCAA to pay nearly $46 million to Ed O’Bannon’s lawyers in attorney fees and legal costs for their court victory. The NCAA had been seeking the costs to be heavily reduced to approximately $8.5 million.

US Magistrate Judge Nathanel Cousins awarded the O’Bannon lawyers $44.4 million in attorney fees, a reduction of almost $1.2 million from what they requested. The NCAA was also ordered to pay $1.5 million in costs and expenses, down $3.7 million from what the plaintiffs sought.

Good thing it’s got March Madness to pay for it.

This observation by Cousins has to sting.

“This win against a behemoth of an institution like the NCAA could significantly change American college sports; in particular, the way the NCAA treats its student-athletes.”

And this is when you know your arguments aren’t persuasive.

Another argument the NCAA made in trying to reduce the legal fees was that O’Bannon’s lawyers were overstaffed. Cousins said the NCAA’s claims are “undercut by their own staffing decisions. For example, while it cries foul over plaintiffs’ counsels’ alleged overattendance at trial, the NCAA had close to a dozen attorneys, not to mention paralegals, assistants, and technical staff members, representing its interests at the trial.”

So go ahead and put Cousins on the list of people who are just wrong, wrong, wrong about amateurism.  Pretty soon we’ll be able to add the Ninth Circuit to that, when it denies the NCAA’s appeal.  It’ll be interesting to see where things go after that.  Maybe we should ask Stacey if she’s heard anything.