INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA announced Monday that it will pay $20 million to former football and basketball players who had their images and likenesses used in video games, hoping the settlement will help keep amateurism rules intact for college sports.

Hours before the O'Bannon trial began in California challenging the NCAA's the authority to restrict or prohibit payments to athletes, the largest governing body in college sports said it had settled another potentially damaging lawsuit scheduled to go to trial next March. Sam Keller, the former quarterback at Arizona State and Nebraska, filed the class-action suit in May 2009 and contended the NCAA unfairly deprived college players of revenue.

"I think they're going to be pleased that they were the catalyst to being the first (college) athletes to be paid for their performance for the first time in history," Steve Berman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press shortly after the deal was announced.