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The NCAA continues to rack up wins in court against former athletes who are seeking to be paid but not covered by the House v. NCAA settlement.
On Thursday, 12 members of North Carolina State’s 1983 championship team, known as the “Cardiac Pack,” had a case against the NCAA dismissed in state court that accused the NCAA of excessively profiting off their NIL from rebroadcasted footage, according to court documents.
“Plaintiffs’ own allegations in the [complaint] make clear that the original unlawful act giving rise to their injuries was the NCAA’s act of forcing them to sign [a statement authorizing the use of their name, image and likeness] prior to the beginning of the 1983 NCAA basketball season,” Judge Mark Davis said in his decision. “Accordingly, because Plaintiffs’ injuries as alleged … derive from an act taken (or shortly before) the 1983 season, the statute of limitations applicable to each of their claims expired decades ago.”
The case is the latest in a series of similar cases to be dismissed, including former Kansas standout Mario Chalmers and Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor. Just like in those cases, the judge ruled that the statute of limitations expired years ago and added the players lacked any legal right to control the game footage under state law.
The players originally sued the NCAA in June 2024, while a wave of similar cases were being filed. The lawsuit demanded a jury trial and sought a still-to-be-determined amount of compensatory damages greater than $25,000.
“The court definitively examined and dismissed the claims, not only as untimely, but also finding that there is no enforceable right of publicity in game broadcasts and that federal Copyright law would preempt any such right if there was one,” the NCAA said in a statement. “We are hopeful that several copycat cases will be similarly treated by other courts.”
NC State’s 1983 title team is among March Madness’s greatest Cinderella stories. It was a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament and had to win the ACC tournament to secure its bid to the Big Dance, which took only 52 teams at the time. The Wolfpack won the title over Houston—which had future Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon on its roster—on Lorenzo Charles’s memorable buzzer-beating dunk that sent coach Jim Valvano running around the court looking for someone to hug. Both clips of Charles’s dunk and Valvano’s reaction have been played repeatedly over the years during NCAA tournament broadcasts.
“We are proud of these Cardiac Pack players who stood up in the national fight for justice against a system that colludes to exploit young and often vulnerable student athletes,” lawyer Stacy Miller, who represented the former NC State players, said in a statement to WRAL.
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