An important step toward fairness

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilkins didn't dramatically change the big money game that is major college athletics. But she did strike an important first blow for fairness.

Wilkins ruled earlier this month that the NCAA cannot bar its member schools from paying a stipend to its athletes, above and beyond their scholarships. Small, $5,000 annual payments would come from mountains of money generated by licensing athletes' names, likeness and images for use in places such as popular video games.

It's true that Wilkins' ruling still allows the NCAA to establish a cap on such payments, which universities could keep in trusts until athletes graduate or leave. And her ruling does not allow athletes to sign endorsement deals. We appreciate her effort to strike a balance between the NCAA's lockdown on payments and an unfettered free market where the only the biggest, wealthiest schools could compete.

But what's most important about her ruling is that it rebuts the NCAA's rationale that even while universities, sports networks, apparel manufacturers and countless other businesses rake in billions of dollars from big-time sports, the athletes on the field or court must remain uncompensated amateurs.

The NCAA is appealing the ruling. If it stands, the association and its members face a complicated task in creating the structures necessary to carry out the court's marching orders. Big decisions loom as to which athletes and programs would be eligible for payments. That's going to be a difficult process.

The NCAA could have addressed this issue head-on years ago. Instead, it decided to dig in and defend a system that became harder and harder to defend. Fundamental fairness dictates that players whose names adorn pricey jerseys and whose electronic images drive the massive popularity of sports video games should receive at least a slice of the money they help generate.

Some of us are sports fans, too. We love the pomp and traditions of college football and other intercollegiate sports. But the tradition of media empires being built with the help of unpaid labor isn't one of them.

We think what's good about football, basketball and other sports can continue in a new era of greater fairness for student-athletes. Wilkins' ruling gives the NCAA an opportunity to reinvent and revamp for the better. Instead of appealing, the NCAA and its leadership should get to work. Change is coming.

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