According to our friends at ESPN, a federal judge in Northern California has ruled that the NCAA can’t prevent college athletes from selling the rights to their names. Judge Claudia Wilken, in a landmark 99-page decision, has ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and 19 other former student-athletes who sued the NCAA in federal court, claiming the NCAA conspired with universities and athletic conferences to block college athletes from getting a share of the revenues generated from the use of their images in television broadcasts and video games. In addition, the judge issued an injunction that allows some college athletes to have monies generated by the sale of television rights put into a trust fund on their behalf. Our good friend and former colleague Marc Edelman has done extensive research in this area (check out his SSRN homepage here and his Twitter feed here), so we can’t wait to hear his take on the recent ruling in the O’Bannon case in the days and weeks ahead. Addendum #1: According to Kevin Trahan, Judge Wilken’s “landmark” ruling may not be as bad for the NCAA at it appears. Addendum #2: In any case, the NCAA has announced that it will appeal Judge Wilken’s ruling.

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