(Photo: Courtesy Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP)
It's been a decade since Sam Keller took on the NCAA, Electronic Arts and Collegiate Licensing Company.
Keller's class action lawsuit, filed in 2009, and two others were successful, resulting in a $60-million settlement for some 25,000 college athletes who appeared in EA Sports video games from 2003-14.
Distribution checks reportedly ranged from $1,600 to $15,000 for named plaintiffs such as Keller, who put his money aside for his now 9-year-old daughter.
In a sense, former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Keller, former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon and former Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart — as lead plaintiffs in the lawsuits — were the pioneers of the Fair Pay for Play movement that is forcing the NCAA into substantive change on athletes' name, image, likeness (NIL) rights.