College athletes could receive thousands in NCAA video game settlements

Some college football and men's basketball players are set to receive some big payouts as a result of the use of their names, images, and likenesses in NCAA-branded video games.

Affected athletes could receive as much as $6,700 according to legal filings submitted to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken on Thursday, USA Today Sports' Steve Berkowitz reports. Wilken must give her final approval on the combined settlements of claims against the NCAA, Electronic Arts (EA), and Collegiate Licensing Company, a top collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm. A hearing is set for July 16.

According to USA Today's report, the judge gave her preliminary approval on the settlements last July, which will apply to athletes listed on any team's roster in games published or distributed from May 2003 through September 2014. Athletes still enrolled in college are eligible to receive money from the settlements without any affect to their NCAA eligibility.

Athletes had until Thursday to submit a claim for compensation and the legal filings showed that almost 16,200 met that deadline. According to a filing, the majority of the potential claimants attended school between 2002 and 2012, but some date back to the 1930s.

If the settlements receive final approval, any athlete with a valid claim will receive a minimum of $74.

According to the filings, an athlete who appeared on the roster of a game for one year and is not otherwise identifiable in the game would receive $129 in the EA settlement. However, the filings state, a player who appeared in one game in one year between 2003 and 2005 would receive roughly $230 from EA and/or $130 from the NCAA settlement.

Those figures increase for every year the player's image and likeness appeared in a game, to a maximum amount of about $2,440 from the NCAA settlement and about $4,260 from EA, according to documents.

Payouts will be based on a number of factors, including:

• The validated claims rates
• Whether a player's name appeared on a team roster
• Whether a player's assigned jersey number appeared on a virtual avatar in the game
• Whether a player's photo appeared in the game
• The year(s) the player's avatar and/or photograph was used in the game
• The number of years the player appeared on a roster, in the game as an avatar and/or his photo was used.

Legal fees will also play a factor into the payouts, as well as the almost $200,000 that would be set aside as awards for plaintiffs named in the suit.