As part of its settlement to get out of the O’Bannon lawsuit, EA Sports announced it will discontinue its incredibly popular college football franchise. However, a lawyer representing players in the case told Polygon that ending the series was never his or his colleagues’ intent.
Lawyers didn’t intend for EA to stop making college football franchise
Attorneys representing players in the O’Bannon case just wanted the video game company’s money.
“We would’ve been happy to have the game go forward. It was never our intent to not have this game [continue],” said Leonard Aragon, partner at the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and co-lead counsel for the players, in a phone interview with Polygon this week.
EA and the Collegiate Licensing Company settled their part of the O’Bannon case last week, agreeing to pay out $40 million to thousands of players involved. There could be as many as 300,000 former and current players represented, which would average out to roughly $133 per individual -- before attorney fees and taxes, of course. Although, it’s not certain if current players would be allowed to accept settlement money under NCAA rules.
The NCAA is the only defendant left in the lawsuit, and since it is now mostly about TV money, the college athletics’ governing body likely isn’t about to give in anytime soon. If the case is ruled as a class-action suit, the NCAA could stand to lose billions of dollars in damages.
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