The NCAA attempts to pin the blame on EA for the collegiate licensing lawsuit.
The long-running legal battles between college athletes and various licensees came to a partial close a few months back. EA and the Collegiate Licensing Company reached an agreement with a group of student athletes regarding the use of their likeness, while the NCAA stood its ground. But eventually it gave in and everyone gathered for a group hug. Just kidding! Instead, the NCAA is throwing a flag on the field and suing both EA and the CLC and attempting to stop the settlement from taking place.
According to the lawsuit filing, the NCAA claims that EA didn’t have liability insurance sufficient to handle “pending third-party claims, including for attorneys’ fees that the NCAA has already incurred in defending against those claims.” Such technicality would be a violation of its contract. Thus, it’s suing the CLC for not insuring that EA met this contractual obligation before completing the deal.
As a result, the NCAA is proposing that the settlement should be halted and EA required to cover the NCAA for any future video game related liability. Meanwhile, the CLC says that it’s simply “caught in the middle of a dispute between NCAA and EA which should not involve us.”
For those just tuning in, our story starts years ago when a group of college athletes decided they wanted in on all the money organizations like the NCAA made off their exploits. One thing lead to another and eventually EA announced that it was putting future iterations of NCAA Football on hold until things could be sorted out. I have a feeling “just when you thought it was over…” will become the catchphrase of this whole debacle.
Source: USA Today
