In a hypothetical class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, the counsel of two previous University of Colorado sportsmen, Alex Fontenot and Mya Hollingshed, submitted a notice to the court on Monday, outlining their possible objections to a pending multibillion-dollar settlement in the House v. NCAA event.
The plaintiffs ‘ attorneys in Fontenot v. NCAA, who are battling to prevent the House settlement from snagging their case, asserted in a Colorado federal court that they would “scrutinize the exact terms of any proposed settlement that has an impact on their own and proposed class users’ says” and that “one or more of the named defendants ]in House will opt out” of its settlement to join the Fontenot v. NCAA case and” seek better and better terms for sports

That claim appeared to be a thinly veiled assault on the House legal group, which was led by renowned competitive attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman, and was received as such. The cases Carter v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA, which both challenge school performer payment restrictions, are direct lawyers, and they would both likely be resolved as part of the House arrangement. Kessler did n’t take lightly to the notion that he was selling college athletes short in a broad-ranging telephone interview on Wednesday.
Kessler remarked,” Steve Berman and I have been fighting for the rights of college athletes for well over a decade. ” We have negotiated numerous class actions. Over the past 30 plus years, I have negotiated virtually every settlement in the NFL and NBA for players. I negotiated the women’s ]soccer ] national team settlement for equal pay. As opposed to attorneys who have no prior experience in doing this and have so far done nothing but file an action for two former athletes, I would like to think Steve and I know what we are doing.
Fontenot’s attorney, St. Louis- based Garrett Broshuis, is a former college athlete at Missouri, who previously represented minor league baseball players in a class- action suit over their wages and hours, which ended in a$ 185 million settlement.
When reached by phone Wednesday, Broshuis declined to comment.
Kessler, for his part, said he would personally be “very, very pleased” if the House settlement is completed and approved, saying it would lay the groundwork for a new college sports system that is” fair and transformative for the athletes”.
On paper, it would arguably be the crowning achievement of Kessler’s much- lauded legal career: The$ 2.8 billion damages figure, alone, is the largest he has negotiated over his career. Moreover, Kessler sought to highlight the settlement’s injunctive relief, which would allow schools to share 20 % of their revenue with athletes, providing current and future athletes with what he estimates could be more than$ 20 billion in new compensation.
Kessler stated that he would follow up the decision that the defendants” should not be subject to antitrust liability for complying with the settlement” and would” join the NCAA” in asserting this position to whatever powers that be, including members of Congress, in the event that U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken granted it.

Would he ever take the place of a college athlete in a pending antitrust case? Kessler claims he has no plans to file a new action despite the settlement’s prohibition against representing athletes in matters that are not directly related to the settlement.
The public revelation of the advanced settlement discussions almost eight months before House was scheduled to go on trial appeared to have vanished last month when both ESPN and Yahoo reported that the parties were close to reaching a deal after secret meetings had taken place in Dallas, where the College Football Playoff meetings were taking place.
Kessler, however, says the actual settlement process was” the opposite of abrupt”, with the sides having been in private discussions for over a year.
” They had been conducted entirely in confidence, as they should be, so the public did n’t know anything about them”, Kessler said. The NCAA, conferences, and schools “decided whether or not they wanted to go forward for a long time while the discussions stalled.”
Both parties have been unusually open about the status and outlines of the negotiations in recent weeks, as Sportico’s Michael McCann noted earlier this week. Kessler himself acknowledges how uncommon it is for him to speak with reporters before the ink on the settlement documents has dried.
He said,” Ideally, you could plead a settlement completely in confidence and nothing would be revealed until you filed court papers.” Kernsler claimed that his decision to make a public appearance was a result of leaks made by the defendants.
” There are 60- plus schools that the NCAA and conferences have to consult with, and those schools are not great at respecting confidentiality”, Kessler said. ” I am not accusing anyone, but it is pretty clear all this information is coming out from various schools, athletics directors —so it has been very unusual”.