Six former stars of the hit Netflix docuseries ‘Last Chance U’ are suing the streaming company for $30 million, it has been reported.
The show, which ran from 2016-20, chronicled junior college football teams and their players as they tried to advance their careers. Some college football players will start their careers at JUCOs if they are academically ineligible for a D1 school, or if they haven’t received a lot of recruiting attention.
And roughly 10 years after they rose to fame, six players from the East Mississippi Community College football team have filed a lawsuit against Netflix, alleging they were not compensated for their participation in the show, TMZ reported.
The list of players includes Carry Sidney Reavis II, DeAndre Johnson, Tim Bonner Isaiah Wright and – two of the most famous athletes from the show – Ronald Ollie and John Franklin III.
Ollie signed a contract with the Raiders in 2019 but was cut during training camp, while Franklin went on to play for Florida State, Auburn and FAU before appearing in one game for the Buccaneers in the NFL.
Now, he Ollie and their other four EMCC teammates from 2015-16 have alleged in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this week that they ‘received no compensation for their contributions’ to ‘Last Chance U.’
‘Last Chance U’ chronicled the lives of college football players at junior colleges
John Franklin III, who went on to play for Auburn and in the NFL, is part of the lawsuit
The group, according to the paperwork, says they were pressured into signing what TMZ calls ‘basic contracts’ for the show, and claim they were not allowed to speak with attorneys before inking the deals.
The players have also alleged that they were threatened with being banned from practices and games if they did not sign the deals.
‘Make no mistake,’ attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, ‘each of the defendants have been unjustly enriched by intruding upon the private lives of the plaintiffs, taking unfair advantage of them through defendants’ superior bargaining power, manipulating many of plaintiffs’ characters, along with other means for their own financial gain while sacrificing any decent reputation plaintiffs had.’
Furthermore, several of the plaintiffs – including Ollie – have also accused the show of defamation, and said their portrayal as villains on the show harmed their future job prospects in football.
Franklin most recently played for the Edmonton Elks of the Canadian Football League, and suited up in the USFL before that.
Ollie also signed with the Elks in 2022.
