Kentucky Sports Radio

Should Pat be getting paid for this?

From the boring-but-important files comes this story from Pete Thamel at the New York Times.  I’m sure many of you know that Ed O’Bannon (of circa ‘95 UCLA Bruins fame) recently brought a lawsuit against the NCAA for their continued use of likenesses of former and current players that makes them about $4 billion a year.  These likenesses come in the way of video games, promotional videos and apparel.  O’Bannon says he filed the lawsuit not for money, but rather to protect athletes rights from the NCAA.

Why I bring this up is that yesterday a judge in San Francisco rejected a motion for dismissal by the NCAA.  Now I’m not the lawyer around here, but I believe that is good news for O’Bannon’s suit.  The significance of this is great.  Now the licensing contracts signed by the NCAA can be viewed, and who knows what kinds of goodies will turn up?  One thing is for sure- this just got a whole lot more interesting.  Now, the only problem I have with this is that it means Chrisitan Laettner could be making money every time we’re forced to see “the shot” in March Madness previews.  Talk about salt in a wound.