IU study says gamers recognize college athlete representations

From IDS Reports

A new Indiana University study found that video gamers not only recognize college athletes’ likenesses in video games, but also that some erroneously believe the collegiate athletes endorse the games for appropriate compensation.

This misconception sparked a lawsuit challenging the use of college athletes’ likenesses in video games.

The lawsuit, Ed O’Bannon v. the NCAA, accuses the NCAA of unlawfully using college athletes’ likenesses in video games created by EA Sports — also a defendant in the lawsuit.

Galen Clavio, assistant professor in the IU School of Public Health, said in a press release Wednesday that games using college athletes’ likenesses have generated hundreds of millions of dollars, but the athletes portrayed see none of the revenue because regulations forbid the compensation of college athletes beyond scholarships.

Clavio worked alongside Patrick Walsh, fellow assistant professor in IU’s School of Public Health, to study the issue.

“The results paint a picture of a college football video game experience which exists as a virtual mirror image of the ‘real’ college football world, containing not only the officially licensed and easily recognizable marks and logos of the NCAA and its members, but also the recognizable, but unlicensed, likenesses of college football players,” Clavio and Walsh wrote in “Digital Representations in College Sports Video Games,” published in the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics.

Clavio surveyed 422 students from four small, medium and large NCAA-member universities to find out what other gamers thought of the issue.

The lawsuit filed against EA Sports and the NCAA could become a class action suit, to be determined in June at a class certification hearing.

The NCAA maintains that, under current amateurism regulations, student athletes may not receive compensation for the use of their likenesses in commercial activities of the association.

EA Sports argued it does not use athletes’ likenesses in video games — athletes in the games, for example, are nameless.

Clavio said in a press release that he enjoys playing sports video games in addition to researching them and said that attributes assigned to video game athletes make it fairly easy to identify particular athletes.

He added he found it troubling that the NCAA and EA Sports deny their use of athletes’ likenesses when it seemed obvious that the two conglomerates were.

“It’s disingenuous for the NCAA to say, ‘We’re not using college athletes’ likenesses,’ but then to make millions of dollars from these likenesses,” he said.

— Amanda Jacobson