NCAA Doesn’t Employ—or Have to Pay—Athletes, Court Rules

A former linebacker for the University of Southern California wasn’t an employee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association or the PAC-12 Conference and isn’t owed payment for his work on the football field, a federal appeals court panel ruled Aug. 12.

Lamar Dawson sued the NCAA and the PAC-12 (formerly the Pacific Coast Conference) in 2016, claiming they owed Division I football players payment as employees. The Aug. 12 opinion, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, affirmed a San Francisco district court’s 2017 dismissal of the case.

“Dawson cannot demonstrate that the NCAA or the ...