There may very well be a Laches argument; I don't know the specifics of the case. Like I said previously, this is a developing theory of recovery that has only really taken off in the last decade or so.
You're right about the question of why is money owed. The questions are: Do the players have a property right in their image? If so, are they entitled to be compensated for the use of their image? If they are entitled to be compensated, what is the compensation?
Enter the age old response of them getting money in the form of a full ride.
Doing a little research, there are 289 Full ride scholarships at UNL, thats amongst all sports, men and womens. (side note, http://www.berecruited.com/resource...-qput-me-in-coachq/ncaa-scholarship-allotment I never realized womens sports, of the same sports as mens, gets in some cases double the scholarships, I never knew that). So according to http://espn.go.com/ncaa/revenue/_/type/expenses in 2008 our expenses for those scholarships was approx $8,166,000. Im sure its safe to say that number has gone up, and probably by quite a bit, but using 2008 data, the cost per full ride comes out to be roughly $28,256 per year. So over a 4 year period thats over $113,000. And they are free to choose what ever field they wish. Thats not counting meal plans. And the football players can eat at the training table, or even in the players lounge get a sandwhich, fruit, cereal bars, gatorade etc till they are blue in the face. While I see and get why players want some compensation, and I think they should in come capacity, this is a sob story about money. And frankly its sad.
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