{"id":263901,"date":"2025-09-29T13:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T13:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/263901\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T13:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T13:32:10","slug":"michigan-football-players-50m-unpaid-nil-case-against-ncaa-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/263901\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Football Players $50M Unpaid NIL Case Against NCAA Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA federal judge in Michigan has dismissed an antitrust<\/a> lawsuit brought by four former Michigan football players\u2014Denard Robinson, Braylon Edwards, Michael Martin and Shawn Crable\u2014who contend they\u2019re owed more than $50 million from the NCAA, Big Ten<\/a> and Big Ten Network over continued use of their NIL<\/a> from their college days.<\/p>\n

\n\tU.S. District Judge Terrence G. Berg\u2019s Sept. 26 ruling comes on the heels of judges in North Carolina, New York and Ohio\u00a0dismissing similar lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0brought by, among others, former NC State forward Thurl Bailey, former Kansas guard Mario Chalmers and former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe basic problem with these cases is that the former players waited too long to sue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAntitrust claims have a statute of limitations of four years, and these players haven\u2019t played in college for decades. The math is straightforward. While judges can toll statutes of limitations, in effect suspending the statute to allow litigation, none in the\u00a0Bailey,\u00a0Chalmers,\u00a0Pryor\u00a0and\u00a0Robinson\u00a0cases found sufficient reason to do so.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobinson, Edwards, Martin and Crable played for the Wolverines between 2001 and 2012. They insist the NCAA and its member institutions, along with the Big Ten and Big Ten Network,\u00a0violated antitrust laws<\/a>. These defendants allegedly joined hands through NCAA rules to prevent the players from signing NIL deals. The Michigan players stress their NCAA eligibility hinged on signing a student-athlete statement that denied them the chance to sign NIL deals and granted the NCAA and its members control of their publicity rights.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe players, who can appeal Berg\u2019s order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, seek for their case to become a class action on behalf of college athletes who played prior to June 15, 2016, and whose NIL has been used in videos and other materials without their consent. That date was selected is the start date for the\u00a0House\u00a0settlement, with some NCAA athletes who played after that date eligible for\u00a0House\u00a0settlement payments.<\/p>\n

\n\tBerg noted that the act depicted by the Michigan players as causing them legal harm \u201coccurred at the latest in 2012,\u201d the last year one of them played for the Wolverines. This act was the NCAA requirement the players relinquished control over their publicity rights as a condition of eligibility.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the four players argue they were harmed after 2012, including by appearing in Michigan highlights and videos, that use, Berg explained, is \u201cnot a new and independent act that restarts the statute of limitation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLikewise, although the players say they \u201ccontinue to feel the adverse effects\u201d of giving up their publicity rights, the judge wrote that any damage from these alleged effects would go to potential monetary damages\u2014not the creation of a new, allegedly illegal act.<\/p>\n

\n\tBerg also wasn\u2019t swayed by the players\u2019 demand that he toll the four-year statute of limitations. The players argued they were \u201cbarely at the age of maturity\u201d when they first signed away their publicity rights as freshmen. They also accused the defendants of maintaining \u201ca culture of secrecy and misinformation regarding the commercial use of student-athletes\u2019 NIL.\u201d This \u201cculture\u201d allegedly \u201cobstructed\u201d Robinson, Edwards, Martin and Crable from being able to \u201cto assert their legal rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThese arguments didn\u2019t move the needle, in Berg\u2019s view.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe four players failed to \u201cspecifically allege\u201d that the NCAA, Big Ten and Big Ten Network \u201cengaged in fraudulent concealment or otherwise secreted or concealed\u201d how they\u2019d use the players\u2019 NIL.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot only was there no conspiracy to hide, Berg explained, but the players admit they signed NCAA forms detailing how their publicity rights could be used. Berg therefore concluded the players acknowledge \u201cNIL rules were well-known to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe failure of the former players in the\u00a0Bailey,\u00a0Chalmers,\u00a0Pryor\u00a0and now\u00a0Robinson\u00a0cases before four different judges suggests both this type of claim is legally unpersuasive and that the NCAA\u2019s defenses are effective. It will take reversals by appellate courts to demonstrate otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge in Michigan has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit brought by four former Michigan football players\u2014Denard Robinson,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":263902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[3227,3257,1318,7800,1317,1315,38193,1316,24249,62,67,132,11285,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-263901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-antitrust","9":"tag-big-ten","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-michigan-wolverines","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaa-legal-issues","15":"tag-ncaafootball","16":"tag-nil","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-university-of-michigan","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115287840807038302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}