News Archive

Dean Gary R. Roberts offered his perspective on the case O’Bannon v. NCAA for a story on ESPN.com, published on the website June 20. The case has the potential to award players in marquee football and basketball programs a share of the revenue from media contracts and commercial product contracts that utilize their likenesses.

O’Bannon has its roots in the 1984 United States Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Board of Regents, the antitrust suit brought by member schools that objected to NCAA control of television broadcast contracts. The NCAA lost that control, and the annual growth in Division I-A college athletic departments has boomed ever since.

“If the 1984 case was settled differently, we wouldn't have these issues," Dean Roberts said in the story. "The NCAA wanted to limit commercialization of college basketball and football to one game a week, and one network. If that lid had been kept on, we wouldn't have the unleashed commercialization we see today.”

Dean Roberts is a recognized sports law expert. He will attend the 2014 Olympic Winter Games as part of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS); he was named to the CAS in Spring 2012. He has published several articles and book chapters on antitrust, labor, and other issues in the sports industry, and has co-authored the leading casebook on sports law. He is the law school’s Gerald L. Bepko Professor of Law.