When we last left off in this crazy saga, a settlement had been agreed upon between the parties representing Ed O'Bannon and Sam Keller with video game giant, EA Sports. The settlement removed EA Sports from litigation involving the use of likenesses in different forms, but primarily the NCAA Football franchise. This left O'Bannon and Keller, along with their legal teams, to pursue the NCAA on their own.
Now, just when things couldn't get any stranger, the NCAA has decided to sue EA Sports.
Crazy? Possibly, but let's look at what the suit details.
The NCAA believes that EA Sports breached a contractual obligation between the two entities by not having a sufficient coverage in liability insurance and that EA should basically have to cover any and all future judgments levied against them. Yes, this includes the current suit that is still on the table. Building upon that, the NCAA also believes that EA Sports, and this is where it crosses into crazy town, truly believes that EA Sports should be at total blame for the likenesses issue, even though the two companies worked directly together to make sure that player models were close without using the names.
There are words to describe this, though I cannot use many of them in this update.
Essentially, the NCAA is doing this to basically block the settlement between the plaintiffs of O'Bannon and Keller with EA Sports.
Let your mind wrap around this and try to come up with a logical explanation, because we sure as heck can't. We will continue to update this story as more comes out and, believe us, this is only getting started.
