Jury orders NFL union to pay $28.1M to retirees SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—A federal jury on Monday ordered the NFL Players Association to pay $28.1 million to retired players after finding the union failed to properly market their images.
The figure includes $21 million in punitive damages, just short of the $21.9 million award the players’ lawyer had asked of the jury to reflect roughly 10 percent of the union’s net worth at the start of the year.
A union lawyer had urged the jury to award a far lesser amount so as not to damage the union’s ability to represent its members.
Hall of Fame cornerback Herb Adderley filed the lawsuit last year on behalf of 2,056 retired players who contend the union failed to actively pursue marketing deals on their behalf with video games, trading cards and others sports products.
Adderley, 69, played cornerback for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys and appeared in four of the first six Super Bowls.
Lawyers representing Adderley and the retired players told the jury during the nearly three-week trial that the union actively sought to cut them out of licensing deals so active players could receive bigger royalty payments. As proof, the retirees pointed to a 2001 letter from an NFLPA executive telling Electronic Arts Inc. executives to scramble the images of retired players in the company’s popular “Madden NFL” video game, otherwise the company would have to pay them.
EA’s Madden game contains 143 “vintage” teams populated with no-name players that closely resemble Adderley and other retirees yet only active players received a cut of the EA deal, which surpassed $35 million for 2008.
On Monday, the retirees’ lawyer, Ronald Katz, urged the jury to punish the union with a large award to “change their conduct.”
Katz said longtime union chief Gene Upshaw and his deputy “betrayed the trust of their members” by neglecting the retired players, who pay $50 a year to keep their union membership. Upshaw died of cancer in August.
