Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Attorney that helped create NFL free agency backs athlete’s fight against NCAA

NCAA Men's Final Four - Practice

ATLANTA, GA - APRIL 05: Fans stand next to a giant NCAA logo outside of the stadium on the practice day prior to the NCAA Men’s Final Four at the Georgia Dome on April 5, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Getty Images

The push for change with the NCAA has never been as strong as it has this summer, with issues such as Ed O’Bannon’s lawsuit against the NCAA and the All Players United (APU) push that we saw last weekend in college football.

The latest development is that Jeffery Kessler, a powerful attorney and partner in Winston & Strawn LLP that helped bring free agency to the NFL, is now getting involved in the fight, according to a long and detailed look at the current power struggle in college athletics by Bloomberg.com.

Kessler’s decision to take on this fight is the latest step in what could end up being a revolution in collegiate athletics. With the NCAA currently staring down lawsuits regarding their use of athlete likenesses and how they have handled concussions in the past, Kessler could be the game-changer.

We’re a still a pretty long way from seeing change come to the NCAA, but with a grassroots effort to reorganize the power structure now backed by one of the most powerful law firms in sports, ‘when?’, rather than ‘if?’, is beginning to feel like the more relevant question when it comes to a change in the NCAA.

Follow @robdauster