After O’Bannon: Potential Effects on College Recruitment »

All of us sports lovers have seen the movies with college recruitment themes in the storyline. These movies highlight the drama, excitement, and limits imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) surrounding the recruitment of players to colleges and universities. (For a list of recruitment-themed movies, visit Jon Talty, The 10 Best sports movies with recruiting story lines, AL.com, July 31, 2014.) Some of the most memorable movies are Necessary Roughness (1991) and Blue Chips (1994). In Blue Chips, despite the coach’s distaste for illegal recruitment, he contacts a “friend of the program” who buys one player a Lexus, another receives $30,000.00 in a gym bag, and yet another player’s mother gets a new home and a job. Similarly, in Necessary Roughness the smaller school gets stuck with the bottom-of-the-barrel players and the larger school receives nice uniforms, a plush bus, and personal tutors. Recently, this excitement and drama came to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California with the decision on Edward O’Bannon, et al., v. National Collegiate Athletic Association; Electronic Arts Inc.; and Collegiate Licensing Company. - Read more...