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Group Will Represent Financial Interests of Ex-Athletes

By

May 30, 2014

As a key antitrust lawsuit over college athletes' rights to a share of the revenue generated off their commercial “likenesses” nears trial, an organization has emerged to represent the financial interests of former athletes who would share the wealth. The Former College Athletes Association, as the newly formed group calls itself, has on its board the mediator Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw distribution of funds to victims of the September 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, the former sports apparel executive Sonny Vaccaro, and Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association. The new organization has been working with a group that aims to ensure that performing artists are compensated for use of their intellectual property, and is poised to represent the interests of former athletes if courts ultimately force the NCAA to distribute to players the television and other revenue that now flows almost entirely to colleges.

Doug Lederman

Doug Lederman is editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed. He helps lead the news organization's editorial operations, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. Doug speaks widely about higher education, including on C-Span and National Public Radio and at meetings and on campuses around the country, and his work has appeared in The New York Times and USA Today, among other publications. Doug was managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education from 1999 to 2003. Before that, Doug had worked at The Chronicle since 1986 in a variety of roles, first as an athletics reporter and editor. He has won three National Awards for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association, including one in 2009 for a series of Inside Higher Ed articles he co-wrote on college rankings. He began his career as a news clerk at The New York Times. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated in 1984 from Princeton University. Doug lives with his wife, Kate Scharff, in Bethesda, Md.