Court halts pay for NCAA student athletes

A federal appeals court is calling timeout on a plan to pay college football and basketball players.

Colleges will be temporarily prohibited from paying student athletes under a stay issued Friday by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals until it finishes reviewing the case.

“Without expressing a view as to either party’s likelihood of success on the merits, the court grants a stay of the district court’s injunction in this case, dated August 8, 2014, to preserve the status quo until this court’s mandate has issued,” the court wrote.

{mosads}College athletes have long been barred from accepting money for playing sports while they’re still in school, but a group of current and former student athletes is making a push to change that.

The student athletes argue they should be paid for the use of their names or likenesses in video games and television broadcasts. But the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) says paying the athletes would take their focus away from academic pursuits.

The student athletes won a favorable ruling last summer when a U.S. district court ruled the NCAA could no longer block schools from paying their football and basketball players. That decision was set to go into effect Saturday, which could have had a big impact on the recruiting process that begins in August.

The NCAA is appealing the decision.

The stay will temporarily prevent schools from making big offers to football and basketball recruits, as happens in professional sports.

The lower court ruled the NCAA could cap the amount schools pay as long as the limit left room for schools to pay for the students’ attendance.

Separately, the National Labor Relations Board is weighing a case that will determine whether student athletes can organize unions.