The NCAA has filed a flurry of motions in federal courts, seeking rulings that could delay the start of the landmark antitrust lawsuit brought by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and others.
The latest filings target both the judge assigned to the case and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on issues that are at the center of the trial, now scheduled to begin June 9 in federal court in Oakland, Calif. Among them is a request for U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to reconsider an earlier ruling that the NCAA cannot use the defense that money from big revenue sports like football and basketball is used to fund smaller sports and women’s sports.
Other filings ask for the 9th Circuit to give the NCAA permission to appeal the class action certification decision earlier by Wilken, and for any litigation over the video game portion of the case to be either severed or for the trial to be postponed until a reputed $40 million settlement reached last year between the plaintiffs and EA Sports and others is finalized.