For the past six years, antitrust legal giants Beth Wilkinson and Jeffrey Kessler have been locked in a high-profile courtroom battle over whether the NCAA and its member institutions have lived up to the requirements of the Sherman Act.
Wilkinson’s firm, Wilkinson Stekloff, served as lead trial counsel for the association in Alston v. NCAA, the Supreme Court case over education-related benefits for Division I football and basketball players. The firm later represented the NCAA in the consolidated House litigation that settled last year, clearing the way for schools to directly pay players. Kessler, meanwhile, served as co-lead counsel for the athletes in both those cases.
Now the two longtime courtroom rivals are teaming up for the first time in their careers to defend Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition bid of Warner Bros. Discovery, which faces antitrust challenges from the Writers Guild of America and a coalition of 12 state attorneys general, led by California AG Rob Bonta.
Last week, Wilkinson formally joined Paramount’s defense team, which until now has been helmed by Kessler. According to the New York Times, Wilkinson will spearhead the company’s defense against the states’ litigation.
“I have always had great respect for Beth as an adversary, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to be on her side this time,” Kessler told Sportico in a text message. Wilkinson declined to comment.
Wilkinson’s arrival coincided with Paramount’s decision to halt the planned merger next year, to allow it time for the antitrust litigation to play out. The Times reported that Kessler advocated for the delay, believing it would ultimately resolve the dispute more quickly than pushing ahead through a cumbersome pretrial process.
Also joining the defense is Wilkinson Stekloff partner Rakesh Kilaru, who currently serves as the NCAA’s lead attorney overseeing the implementation of the House settlement and previously presented college sports’ governing body in Chalmers v. NCAA.
The arrangement creates an unusual dynamic. Kilaru and Kessler are now working together to defend one client while simultaneously opposing each other in ongoing litigation over the House settlement.
The latest dispute in House centers on whether the College Sports Commission has the authority to review NIL agreements involving multimedia rights companies. A special master recently ruled in favor of the NCAA and power conferences, concluding the House settlement does not exempt MMR companies from the definition of “associated entities or individuals” subject to CSC oversight.
Kessler and House class co-counsel Steve Berman have since petitioned Judge Claudia Wilken in U.S. district court to reverse the special master’s order and force the CSC to cease investigating NIL deals between athletes, MMRs and third-party brands “absent a specific reason to do so.”
Meanwhile, the Paramount merger has potentially significant implications for college sports. Paramount subsidiary CBS has broadcast the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for decades, while Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT, TBS and TruTV also carry tournament games under the NCAA’s media rights package. Some opponents of the merger have argued that the deal will effectively consolidate all of March Madness under one corporate umbrella and ultimately harm competition for college sports rights.
In advocating for college athletes’ right to compensation, Kessler has consistently cited the billions of dollars generated through NCAA broadcast rights agreements, arguing that the financial scale of those deals reflects the substantial market value athletes contribute to the intercollegiate sports industry.