Former National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts, who led the union from 2014 to 2022, is strongly considering making a formal objection to the House v. NCAA settlement, a move that would place her in direct opposition to lead plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, her longtime friend and ally.
With the bar date for House v. NCAA objections set for Jan. 31, Roberts and other potential objectors have less than three weeks to act.
Despite having retired from her NBPA post two years ago, Roberts continues to be a highly influential figure in sports law and labor organizing, and her unique perspective could hold sway with U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken. (For what it’s worth, both are alumni of UC Berkeley School of Law, though they missed each other by a couple years.)
In a phone call with Sportico, Roberts says that she has been in recent discussions with another lawyer about signing her name to a filing laying out their opposition to the settlement, which received preliminary court approval in October. Roberts’ general contention is that too much of the deal—including its cap on athlete revenue-sharing—should be the product of collective bargaining and not settlement negotiations.
Roberts also questions whether the class representatives in the case adequately speak for the interests of the athletes who she argues have the most to gain (or lose) financially—football and basketball players.
The lead plaintiff, former Arizona State swimmer Grant House, recently told Yahoo Sports that he was not in favor of the settlement’s roster limitations and reportedly took umbrage at the hundreds of millions of dollars in fees the class counsel is petitioning for.
With all that in mind, Robert says she sought and received confirmation from the court last week that she could file an objection in the case as a non-party.
Roberts downplayed the impact her voice would ultimately have on the settlement’s final approval, saying that it would mean a lot more if her former organization and the other pro athlete labor groups took a stand.
“I don’t have any juice any more because I’m retired,” she said, “but I would like to think the professional associations … take a position with respect to settlement, because I think they should remain stalwarts in anything that threatens the rights [of athletes] to organize.”
In January, the players associations of the five biggest American pro sports leagues– the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS—issued a joint statement in regard to potential federal legislation affecting college athlete compensation. But to date, none of the unions have weighed in on the settlement, at least not in court. The NBPA and NFL Players Associations previously entered the House case to ask the court to seal “certain confidential business material” in the parties’ class certification filings.
Despite her demurral, word of Roberts potentially entering the House docket has buzzed around the college sports grapevine this past week. (A Sportico reporter initially heard about it from a source in the NIL collective space.)
Roberts acknowledged that raising an objection would place her in an uncomfortable position, directly opposing Kessler, the co-counsel for the House plaintiffs’ class, who had previously represented the NBPA during Roberts’ time there. (According to the association’s tax returns, Kessler’s firm, Winston & Strawn, was paid over $2.7 million during that period.)
“I have objections and I regret that I do because I have a great deal of regard for Jeffrey,” Roberts said.
Last April, Roberts and Kessler appeared alongside each other at a Washington, D.C., panel hosted by the Drake Group Education Fund, a college sports reform organization, in which Roberts recalled them both “vehemently” advocating for college athletes’ right to collectively bargain.
A month-and-a-half later, Kessler and his co-counsel, Steve Berman, submitted to Judge Wilken a proposed settlement agreement with the NCAA and college power conferences that would resolve not only House—otherwise known as the In re College Athlete NIL Litigation—but the Carter v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA class-action antitrust lawsuits, as well.
Since that time, a number of people have questioned whether this truly offers a fair or adequate resolution for college athletes, who have long been prohibited from earning money while competing. However, few of these dissenting voices can speak from the perspective of someone like Roberts, who has engaged in high-stakes negotiations on behalf of athletes.
“I am troubled by the breadth of it,” said Roberts. “There is a cap in that settlement that Stevie Wonder could see should have been bargained for by a union.”
“I am a litigator,” Roberts continued. “I understand why you resolve something and avoid the risk of litigation, and I can’t say that Jeffrey [Kessler] hasn’t made a deal that’s in the best interest of those students. I just don’t like the deal, and I’d like to think I wouldn’t have cut that deal.”
Then again, Roberts says she’s also mindful of (and concerned about) the possibility that a Republican-dominated Congress could give the NCAA its highly sought-after antitrust exemption and leave college athletes with less than what has been negotiated for them in House.
Still, as a former labor leader, she believes there is a better pathway to achieving maximal results.
“I think the industry for these students is at a crossroad and my fear is it is being decided with insufficient input from the students,” she said. “The only reason I haven’t been much more critical is I do know Kessler and haven’t been involved in this for the months and years and years that he has. This may be the best he can get, but I still don’t like it.”