Dewey Burke Receives Check From Ed O’Bannon Case

When Dewey Burke played basketball at UNC, he never considered the legal implications of playing as himself in the NCAA Basketball video game series.

“Back then we just thought it was cool,” he said. “It was fun to play NCAA 2005 and play as yourself. I don’t know if funny is the right word but it was such a cool think, I guess.”

Fast forward 10 years, and Burke is receiving a check for $171.72 from the NCAA and EA Sports, the creators of the game.

He is one of thousands of former college athletes, who are receiving checks after former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon sued because the game used his likeness without compensation or his consent.

Burke on Ed O’Bannon, paying college athletes and Tyler Hansbrough’s Guitar Hero prowess

After seeing a tweet about the case, Burke texted some of his former teammates to see if any were planning on joining the class-action lawsuit. At the time he said all of them either had already joined or were planning to.

“We might put our name in there for this if they’re going to send us a check,” he said. “Jokingly saying that we could spend it on a dinner together. It wasn’t something we took overly seriously.”

The NCAA and EA Sports made a basketball and football version of the game, which has since ceased.

The two organizations have agreed to a settlement totaling $60 million. Former players were assigned points based on how long they played and what game they appeared in. These points correlated to dollar amounts, with the highest possible payout being $3,563.88.

“The whole thing is kind of silly,” Burke said. “The only person that wins in these cases are the attorneys, which was true in this case. The last I read, of the $60 million between EA Sports and the NCAA that they had to pay out, a third of it went to attorneys and the remaining balance was split by some 25,000 athletes.”

But the settlement is a victory for those pushing for compensation for student-athletes, something the NCAA does not allow outside of scholarship money.

Burke said he doesn’t think the schools should pay their athletes, but the students should be able to participate in the free market and get compensated for jersey sales or endorsements.

“There would be a market to put a Tyler Hansbrough or a Ty Lawson in a commercial for a restaurant or a car dealership or a retail store,” he said. “It doesn’t seem American, quite frankly, to not allow that to take place.”

And while the NCAA and student athletes continue to battle over the right to be paid, Burke and his teammates prepare for the dinner they promised themselves.

“Tyler, Bobby (Frasor), Deon (Thompson), Marcus (Ginyard), Danny (Green) those guys, we’ll all get together hopefully this summer,” he said. “One of the guys is getting married so hopefully it’ll happen then.”