A fourth case, Fontenot v. NCAA, expanded this week with new named plaintiffs and a more direct warning that a House settlement should n’t function as a labor agreement as attorneys prepare to submit their long-form settlement for preliminary court approval of the House.
On Tuesday, Fontenot prosecutors filed an amended issue adding four different brands to the circumstance message: Mya Hollingshed, Sarah Fuller, Deontay Anderson and Tucker Clark. Alex Fontenot, a former University of Colorado running up, is the classic claimant.
Fuller, a former top player at Vanderbilt, kicked an extra-point winner in a game versus Tennessee to become the first woman to index in a Power 5 sports game and make history in college basketball in 2020. At the 2021 presidential opening, she afterwards introduced Vice President Kamala Harris via a videotape.
Hollingshed, who played college baseball at Colorado, was the No. 8 get in the 2022 WNBA Draft, and is set to reflect Puerto Rico in the Paris Olympics. In 2022, she earned All-Pac-12 honours while leading the Buffalos to their first NCAA Tournament charge in almost generation.
Anderson and Clark both played golf at Colorado and Notre Dame, while Clark is a former football player at Ole Miss and Houston and a recent UFL player.
The competitive case raises questions about the NCAA’s Bylaw 12, which forbids players from receiving direct compensation for their athletic activities. Fontenot specifically targets the new billions of dollars in tv revenue.
In May, U. S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney ruled against consolidating Fontenot with another situation, Carter v. NCAA. The case is being litigated in a different authority, Colorado, even though the cases raise close allegations under antitrust law, such as that NCAA member schools, which are competing businesses, conspired to defraud athletes of payment they would make in a less constrained market. Although House’s lawyers anticipate Fontenot’s inclusion in the lawsuit, the matter is still pending at this time.
In their amended problem, Fontenot’s lawyers refine their argument as to why their event may continue despite the potential House settlement.
The most recent filing states that “even if that negotiation is approved, it may just usher in a new, deliberately small cap that may result in far below the revenue sharing that a competitive market would generate.” It is acknowledged that amateurism is not necessary, but it also “replaces one illegal price fix for another”.
Put differently, the amended complaint reflects the limitation of the settlement concept. A settlement would shield its terms from antitrust scrutiny because it is not a collective bargaining agreement. College athletes, outside of Dartmouth men’s basketball players, are not yet recognized as employees and thus cannot unionize and negotiate a labor agreement.
Fontenot, the amended complaint charges, would offer a more equitable and robust remedy for the players. By challenging Bylaw 12 and other rules that were specifically invoked in House, the case claims to pursue the “full amount of compensation that these athletes truly deserve.”
In a truly open market, the complaint stated that” and it therefore takes aim at the full cut of television and other revenues that the athletes would receive.”
The filing serves as a reminder that the NCAA ca n’t stop other antitrust lawsuits, including an expanded Fontenot, despite the NCAA’s hopes that the House settlement will resolve its legal issues.