- Members of North Carolina State University's 1983 men's basketball national championship team have dropped television networks from the list of defendants in a lawsuit against the NCAA.
- The players filed a voluntary dismissal Friday of complaints against CBS Broadcasting, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, and Turner Sports Interactive.
- The lawsuit argues that the NCAA has profited illegally from the players' names, images, and likenesses for four decades.
Members of North Carolina State University’s national championship-winning 1983 men’s basketball team have dropped television networks from their lawsuit against the NCAA. The former players had targeted TV networks that air NCAA tournament games in an August court filing.
The players filed a voluntary dismissal Friday of complaints against CBS Broadcasting, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, and Turner Sports Interactive. The court filing did not explain the decision.
The suit accuses the NCAA of profiting off of the names, images, and likenesses of the “Cardiac Park” for more than four decades.
The original complaint also named the Collegiate Licensing Company. The players dropped that company as a defendant in June.
In an amended complaint in August that named the TV networks, the list of plaintiffs grew by two: Ernie Myers and Martha Lou Mobley, sister and administrator of the estate of former NCSU player Quinton Leonard III. They join plaintiffs Thurl Bailey, Alvin Battle, Walt Densmore, Tommy DiNardo, Terry Gannon, George McClain, Cozell McQueen, Walter Procter, Harold Thompson, and Mike Warren.
That group of 12 plaintiffs does not include former players Sidney Lowe, Derek Whittenburg, and Lorenzo Charles. Charles, who made the winning basket in the Wolfpack’s upset of Houston, died in 2011.
“The NCAA and its members, affiliates, and named and unnamed co-conspirators have illegally agreed to exploit student-athletes by using the NCAA’s monopoly power to force student-athletes to give up their legal right of publicity and control of their name, image, and likeness; asserting a perpetual license of student-athletes’ NIL rights; and appropriating those rights for decades, long after the athletes have completed their collegiate careers,” according to the amended complaint.
“The NCAA exploits its considerable resources through a network of co-conspirators, including CBS, TNT Sports, and other licensees, affiliates, and participants in the NCAA’s various programs and merchandising efforts,” the NCSU players argued. “These outlets produce significant income. The NCAA brings in roughly $1 billion each year, the bulk of it from ‘March Madness,’ the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship. Media contracts for March Madness, held by CBS Sports and TNT Sports at least through to 2032, are worth nearly $20 billion.”
State Business Court Judge Mark Davis is overseeing he lawsuit.
“For more than 40 years, the NCAA and its co-conspirators have systematically and intentionally misappropriated the Cardiac Pack’s publicity rights including their names, images, and likenesses associated with that game and that play, reaping scores of millions of dollars from the Cardiac Pack’s legendary victory,” wrote lawyers from three Raleigh-based firms representing the players in the original complaint.
“The NCAA has used the images and videos of the members of Cardiac Pack to advertise its March Madness tournament, as well as for other commercial purposes, without the players’ consent and while paying them nothing,” the complaint continued.
The lawsuit points to the 2021 US Supreme Court ruling in NCAA v. Alston that the athletic association enjoys “monopsony,” or buyer-side monopoly power, in the “market for student-athlete services.”
“The NCAA has for decades leveraged its monopoly power to exploit student-athletes from the moment they enter college until long after they end their collegiate careers,” the players’ lawyers wrote. “It has conspired with conferences, colleges, licensing companies, and apparel companies to fix the price of student-athlete labor near zero and make student-athletes unwitting and uncompensated lifetime pitchmen for the NCAA.”
The former players accuse the NCAA of “unreasonable restraint of trade,” “illegal monopolization,” “unfair and deceptive trade practice,” “unjust enrichment,” and “tortious misappropriation of publicity rights.”
“Plaintiffs now seek reasonable compensation for the appropriation of their names, images, and likenesses by the NCAA and its partners and co-conspirators,” according to the complaint. “Furthermore, since the NCAA’s illegal conduct continues to this day — notwithstanding the clear notice of the unlawfulness of its behavior provided by Alston and an increasing number of cases throughout the country — it needs to be stopped by way of a permanent injunction.”
“But for the illegal, unethical, and unscrupulous conduct of the NCAA and its co-conspirators, … Plaintiffs would have been paid substantial sums for the use of their names, images, and likenesses in the NCAA’s advertisements and other promotional efforts,” the lawsuit argued. “Therefore, substantial funds that the NCAA has received — and continues to receive to this day — through the misappropriation of Plaintiffs’ names, images, and likenesses belong to Plaintiffs.”