O’Bannon vs. NCAA continues to carry on as NCAA President Mark Emmert took the stand to speak in the case. Emmert supports a plan to pay the five major sports conferences extra money to cover school costs. Emmert said that’s where the NCAA should draw the line before it becomes pay for play.
Emmert spoke on Thursday about where he stands in the trial and how far he is willing to bend for the major conferences.
"You've moved into realm where you're compensating student-athletes for something other than the legitimate cost of being a student," Emmert said about giving athletes even more money than the conferences are proposing. "You've now moved into pay for play.”
Emmert believes that the NCAA stands for amateurism and that amateurism is what has kept the NCAA functioning from it’s start in 1905.
"It's one of the most fundamental principles of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics," Emmert said. "They have always seen and assumed that intercollegiate athletics is about the notion that these are members of the student body. They're not hired employees conducting games for entertainment. They're not a random group of folks that just come together to play sports.”
UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and 19 other former players are fighting for their right to sell the rights to their names, images and likenesses (NILs) in broadcasts and video games.
Emmert still believes that college sports are the glue that holds the university and the community together and that paying players could somehow taint that purity.
[ESPN]
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