{"id":43527,"date":"2025-07-06T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/43527\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T14:07:08","slug":"ed-obannon-discussed-ncaa-changes-upcoming-cbb-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/43527\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed O&#8217;Bannon discussed NCAA changes, upcoming CBB game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot has changed over the last 16 years, especially in college sports. Ed O\u2019Bannon, the UCLA star who helped lead the Bruins men\u2019s college basketball team to its most recent national championship in 1995, helped spark a lot of that change with the O\u2019Bannon v. NCAA lawsuit. Recently, as a guest columnist for Sportico, O\u2019Bannon discussed how things have changed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/personalities\/athletes\/2025\/ed-obannon-ea-college-basketball-video-game-1234858884\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">In the article<\/a>,\u00a0O\u2019Bannon recalled the event that got the wheels rolling in what turned out to be O\u2019Bannon v. NCAA.<\/p>\n<p>In 2009, well after his playing days were over, he was at a friend\u2019s house. There, his friend\u2019s son was playing\u00a0March Madness. On the screen, O\u2019Bannon saw himself. The game had everything about O\u2019Bannon, with one notable exception.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe game noticeably didn\u2019t have my name, but it had everything else: Number 31. 6\u20198\u201d. 222 pounds. Power forward. Left-handed,\u201d he remembered. \u201cIt was very cool. Ironically, my friend mentioned how he paid $60 for the game. I had no idea that this likeness was created, because no one from EA Sports contacted me about it to ask for my approval or to use my NIL. And I definitely didn\u2019t receive a dime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Bannon then recalled the NCAA\u2019s history of fighting battles in the court, including O\u2019Bannon v. NCAA. He noted that the lawsuits were all unsuccessful for the NCAA and that the latest, House v. NCAA, likely would have been as well were it not for a settlement reached in June.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor decades, the NCAA spent many millions in court fighting against basic fairness and coming up with rules to treat athletes like we were second-class citizens,\u201d O\u2019Bannon said. \u201cIt was a losing strategy. The NCAA lost O\u2019Bannon v. NCAA. They lost NCAA v. Alston. They lost the War on NIL. They were going to lose House v. NCAA until they faced up to reality and cut a deal. I\u2019m glad the settlement will pay $2.8 billion to athletes who would have made video games and other NIL money but for NCAA rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Early in the article, recalled that because of his legal challenges, he was \u201cEA\u2019s enemy No. 1\u201d in 2009. Despite that, he noted that, while it\u2019s still a few years away, if EA reached out to him about being in its <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/gaming\/ea-sports-announces-return-cbb-video-game-franchise.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">upcoming college basketball game<\/a>, he\u2019d probably be on board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand EA\u2019s college basketball game won\u2019t be released until 2028,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the meantime, maybe EA will reach out to former players on classic teams and ask us to be in the game. I\u2019d be inclined to say yes. I know my grandkids would like me in it. And unlike before, where players\u2019 names were stripped right before the game was published, this time the game would say my name. Doing the right thing can be as easy as a layup. We\u2019re finally seeing that with college athletes\u2019 rights. Keep it up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot has changed over the last 16 years, especially in college sports. Ed O\u2019Bannon, the UCLA star&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,21428,10654,34027,34028,1317,1337,1338,34029,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-43527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-ea","tag-ea-sports","tag-ed-obannon","tag-house-v-ncaa","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-obannon-v-ncaa","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114806681939507980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43527","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=43527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}