The lawsuit changed college sports on television

A few years ago, Neinas turned 90. But his mind remains sharp and his passion remains deep, especially when the topic turns to his legal battle with the NCAA.

Legal battle with NCAA.

The case that changed everything.

Neinas’ most important contribution to college sports was not as commissioner of the conference, but as executive director of an organization called the College Football Association, or CFA, which was a now-defunct organization that lobbied for top college football schools.

In that role, Neinas spearheaded a lawsuit against the NCAA that went all the way to the Supreme Court — and marked a milestone anniversary Thursday.

The case of NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma just celebrated its 40th anniversary, which is as important now as it was on the day it was decided, June 27, 1984.

“It took me two, three years of my life,” Neinas said with a laugh. “Did you know that this case is cited in universities where they teach antitrust law as an example of the principle of reason?”

Although it is rarely mentioned in the context of college sports, it was the NCAA vs. Oklahoma game that created the modern landscape.

The Supreme Court ruled for a majority of the justices that the NCAA has no control over television contracts and that media rights belong to the universities, which can negotiate contracts directly with television stations.

Every major realignment move that has occurred since then, from Penn State joining the Big Ten in 1990 to last summer’s destruction of the Pac-12, can be traced to this case.

“The NCAA tried to be all things to all people,” he said. “They tried to treat Colorado College the same as Colorado, and Wabash the same as Notre Dame. It was ridiculous. The big schools weren’t well represented. They were the minority.”

Many of the problems underlying the current chaos are rooted in the same flawed governance structure (equal treatment of every school) that led the CFA to take the NCAA to court in the 1980s over media rights violations.

At the time, the NCAA negotiated television contracts, controlled each school’s appearance count on national and regional programs and decided how revenue would be shared.

Neinas’ favorite example of a “funny” situation: When No. 1 USC hosted No. 2 Oklahoma early in the 1981 season, the game was assigned regional coverage on ABC. The Trojans and Sooners received the same payout that day as unranked teams featured in regional broadcasts that day.

When the CFA tried to negotiate a separate deal with NBC to play 11 games on Saturday nights, the NCAA responded in a way only it could: by threatening to declare CFA schools ineligible.

Not just football teams – any sports team.

Outraged schools responded with an ownership claim against the NCAA. Neinas said that because CFA has no legal personality, at least one university is needed to act as a plaintiff. This role was filled by the regents of Oklahoma and Georgia.

The schools won in an Oklahoma district court, so the NCAA appealed to the Tenth Circuit.

The schools won again, so the NCAA appealed to the Supreme Court.

The school won again, and decisively. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the schools, not the NCAA, owned the media rights.

And so the era of modern college football was born – with all its money, chaos and contradictions.

Initially, CFA was responsible for negotiating media rights during the conference. Ultimately, the schools cut out the middleman and allowed their conference, through a rights grant, to negotiate television deals that grew to hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The chains’ cash hoards became a factor in the adjustment, the rise of the Big Ten and SEC, the transformation of the Big Eight into the Big 12, and the decline of the Pac-12.

Of course, this was not the intention of the CFA. The plaintiffs opposed the NCAA limiting the number of appearances and setting salary levels.

They were opposed to the NCAA’s trade restrictions.

“The case opened the door to college football,” Neinas said. “It was the best marketing tool for the sport ever.”

At the time, ESPN was five years old. Fox Sports didn’t exist. The national champions were selected by AP and UPI rankings.

Neinas couldn’t have predicted the role media rights would play in the evolution of sports – how TV money would propel UCLA and Rutgers into the Big Ten.

“Oh no,” he said, “I didn’t expect there would be so much money. But television can only sell sports.”