For 15 days of trial testimony and in hundreds of pages of legal briefs, Ed O'Bannon and his lawyers have tiptoed ever so gently in their discussions of what would happen if they were victorious in their battle with the NCAA.

U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken will decide the O'Bannon-NCAA trial. Hillary Jones-Mixon

If federal Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland rules in their favor, they say, it would "allow players and former players to profit modestly off their own names, images and likenesses [NIL]." A victory in court would result in a "modest equal payment to players" or a trust fund that would be paid when their eligibility ends.

Looking at the same possibilities, the NCAA and its lawyers see disaster. Using the terms of current TV contracts and calculations from world-class economists, they say that a football player in the SEC would collect $325,000 over five years and a basketball player in the Pac-12 could collect $1.2 million in a typical career.

One of the NCAA's most impressive witnesses, Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports, testified that "if we paid the players substantial sums, all will be lost." Other NCAA witnesses predicted that schools would leave the FBS and would abandon Division I basketball before they would pay their players. NCAA president Mark Emmert was serious when he said that a win for the players would mean "there would be no more national championships."

Within the next several days, Judge Wilken will decide whether the nation's antitrust laws require the NCAA to eliminate its ban on cash payments to football players and men's basketball players for use of their NIL in merchandise and in television broadcasts.

What will her decision be?

The judge has heard detailed testimony about billions of dollars in television contracts for football and men's basketball. Witnesses explained to her that there is no cap on coaches' salaries and that Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is paid $9 million per season. Others told her that pay for players is capped at zero. She was incredulous when she realized that coaches are paid for apparel and shoe contracts and that South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier, for example, collects between $600,000 and $750,000 from Under Armour each season. Among the hundreds of exhibits used in the trial, she has a list of $5 billion in palatial athletic facilities that NCAA member schools have built in the past five years, including a $37 million dorm at Ohio State that one critic said could "qualify as a Four Seasons hotel."

It is hard to imagine that Judge Wilken, in her decision, is going to leave intercollegiate sports in the same condition as they were when O'Bannon and his lawyers filed the lawsuit in 2009.

If she rules that college athletes must be paid for use of their NIL in merchandise and for their play in televised games, it would the single most transforming event in college sports in decades. The ruling would come in the form of an injunction, a court order that would bar the NCAA from prohibiting payments to college athletes. But it is important to add that the injunction that she may soon issue is a step in a process that could go on for years. If the players prevail, the NCAA will request a "stay" on the injunction, a procedure that would delay the effect of the court order until the NCAA can complete an appeal of her ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, a process that will take at least two years. After the higher court rules, the losing side may wish to apply for review in the U.S. Supreme Court, another lengthy process.

If Judge Wilken rules that the NCAA will be allowed to continue its ban on athletes' profiting from the NIL, the players and their attorneys have vowed to seek to reverse the ruling in the same protracted appeals process.

While the losing side pursues what appears to be an inevitable and time-consuming appeal, other potentially transforming events will continue to develop. As Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten and one of the most respected leaders in intercollegiate athletics, told ESPN.com, "We would continue to pursue reform and restructuring of the NCAA, we would defend our principles in other litigation, and we would be watching the Congress for its actions."

The reform effort includes an attempt by the Big Five conferences to obtain greater autonomy from the NCAA and the power to establish their own rules. The litigation includes another antitrust case known as the Kessler case now pending before Judge Wilken that seeks salaries for players. The Congressional action includes bills pending in both the House of Representatives and the Senate that seek reform of the NCAA on player welfare, due process in rules enforcement, and compensation for players.

In addition to the developments Delany listed, the NLRB is expected to decide whether Northwestern football players are employees of the university who are entitled to form their own union.

" If there is an injunction, a stay will give us time to do what we need to do and to change the narrative from litigation and compensation to the collegiate model and academics. " -- Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany

"If there is an injunction," Delany said, "a stay will give us time to do what we need to do and to change the narrative from litigation and compensation to the collegiate model and academics."

Delany's narrative is likely to start when Wilken issues her decision. Based on a review of the testimony and many of the more important exhibits presented at the O'Bannon trial, it appears probable that Wilken will tell the NCAA that it must allow athletes to use their NIL for their personal profit. It is less likely that she will give the players what they want on live television broadcasts of their games, but it is well within the realm of possibility.

The players, led by attorney Michael Hausfeld and their star expert witness, Stanford economist Roger Noll, managed to satisfy the challenging requirements of America's antitrust laws. The laws and the patois of antitrust litigation can be challenging, but the purpose of antitrust laws is to protect the rights of consumers and businesses to a free and open market where they can buy or sell things at fair prices.

If an enterprise like the NCAA uses its total control of the market to set prices at levels that gouge others in the market, then the victims of the confiscatory prices can use antitrust litigation to set things right.

Although the NCAA fought the players on all issues, large and small, the organization also managed to make it easier for the players to prove their case. To qualify for relief under antitrust laws, the players must prove a series of things that can be difficult. Their task was simplified by the NCAA's most important witness, NYU economist Daniel Rubinfeld, who stated in his authoritative textbook, "Microeconomics," that "The NCAA restricts competition in a number of ways. To reduce bargaining power by student athletes, the NCAA creates and enforces rules regarding eligibility and terms of compensation."

The economist's statement in his textbook may not have been game, set and match for O'Bannon and his lawyers, but it gave them a commanding lead in the courtroom contest. All that remained for the players to prove was that the ban on pay for athletes injured them in the market for college sports and related merchandise and that there was a less restrictive alternative that would work for both the NCAA and the players.

In the world of NIL, the players met those requirements with ease. O'Bannon told Judge Wilken how he discovered himself in an Electronic Arts game while watching a friend's son play Xbox. Like O'Bannon in his days at UCLA, the avatar in the EA game was 6-foot-9, 230 pounds, bald, wore No. 31, was left-handed, and had a dark complexion. Two other former college stars, WR Tyrone Prothro of Alabama and LB Chase Garnham of Vanderbilt, offered similar testimony about their avatars in video games.