The chances that the United States Supreme Court would ever agree to hear the O’Bannon case were always low.
O’Bannon — named for the lead plaintiff, the former U.C.L.A. basketball star Ed O’Bannon — was the lawsuit brought in 2009 and tried in 2014 that offered the first serious legal challenge to the N.C.A.A.’s amateurism rules. The year after it was tried, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit made a ruling that left neither side happy.
On one hand, the appeals court panel agreed with Judge Claudia Wilken of the Federal District Court that “the N.