NCAA Class Action Lawsuit Moves Forward

In response to the plaintiffs’ motion to set a status conference, the NCAA told a California federal judge that they have not been withholding documents in the multidistrict litigation over alleged antitrust violations. The NCAA conferences said the student-athlete Class that filed the memorandum made assertions that were “flatly inaccurate.”

The NCAA conferences also claimed that the Class of student athletes failed to patiently wait and use the meet-and-confer process that has been set in place to negotiate a resolution to the discovery dispute and instead filed an unauthorized memorandum as part of their motion for a status conference.

The Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences involved in the litigation assert that they have been fully compliant in the discovery process. The conferences maintained that the media contracts requested by the Class must be looked at by other parties to the contract before they can be released for confidentiality purposes.

“Plaintiffs’ assertion that conference defendants are ‘stonewalling’ plaintiffs in an effort to ‘run out the clock’ on discovery is flatly inaccurate,” the conferences responded. “The email exchange plaintiffs include with their administrative motion contradicts plaintiffs’ assertion that conference defendants are ‘stonewalling’ plaintiffs, and instead reflects that conference defendants have continued to engage plaintiffs in the meet-and-confer process and to negotiate in good faith toward a potential resolution.”

The student athletes initially filed the NCAA antitrust class action in March 2014 in an effort to lift the compensation caps on what they were being paid. The athletes included current Division 1 football and basketball athletes in the five “Power Conferences.”

Similar class lawsuits alleging that the NCAA colluded with conferences to keep student athletes from receiving full scholarships were then consolidated into an MDL in California federal court. The lawsuits in the MDL alleged that student athletes should be able to receive compensation higher than grant-in-aid, which is not enough financial compensation to cover the full costs of attending college.

Earlier this month, the Class of student athletes requested the assistance of the judge overseeing the MDL to intervene in the discovery process, alleging that several defendants neglected to produce key financial documents and contracts relating to media and scholarship. The athletes stated that the failure to produce the documents has been wasting time in an attempt to “run out the clock” on producing these documents before the July 15 discovery deadline.

In response, the NCAA conferences said that time is not an issue and that the court is well aware of the extensive discovery that is required in the case. They also said that the court did not indicate it would be unwilling to extend the discovery deadline.

“They omit many important facts regarding the timing of discovery and the procedural status of this case,” the NCAA conferences responded. “All of the defendants have been diligently collecting, reviewing and producing, in the aggregate, many millions of pages of documents during the past several months. That process will continue in the months to come.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Steve W. Berman and Ashley Bede of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP; Bruce L. Simon, Aaron M. Sheanin and Benjamin E. Shiftan of Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP; Jeffrey L. Kessler, David G. Feher, David L. Greenspan, Timothy M. Nevius, Joseph A. Litman, Sean D. Meenan and Jeanifer E. Parsigian of Winston & Strawn LLP; and Elizabeth C. Pritzker, Jonathan K. Levine, Bethany L. Caracuzzo and Shiho Yamamoto of Pritzker Levine LLP.

The NCAA Student Athlete Scholarship MDL is In re: National Collegiate Athletic Association Athletic Grant-in-Aid Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 4:14-md-02541, and Martin Jenkins, et al. v. NCAA, et al., Case No. 4:14-cv-02758, both in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Feb. 3, 2017, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and 11 conferences agreed to pay $208.7 million to resolve multidistrict litigation alleging an antitrust conspiracy to cap the scholarships of student athletes.