NCAA president Mark Emmert has fought tirelessly to preserve college sports' amateur model and now he will do so in court Thursday.

Emmert confirmed Tuesday that he will testify Thursday in the court case for Ed O'Bannon's class-action lawsuit against the NCAA. Emmert previously said he would be appearance as a witness, but did not confirm when until now.

According to USA Today, the NCAA president appeared briefly at a reception at the Collegiate Commissioners Association's meeting in Laguna Niguel, Calif. He confirmed his testimony Thursday after the event.

O'Bannon and a group of 19 other plaintiffs requested ahead of the trial that U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken require Emmert to appear as a witness. She denied the request, but NCAA lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz outlined the basis for Emmert's appearance with Wilken, if he were to make one.

"We would agree that even if I don't question Dr. Emmert about a certain subject matter when he testifies in our case, that they are free to go beyond the subject matter because that's their examination in the case," Pomerantz said at a pre-trial conference.

Wilken replied, "That goes without saying."

Last week the case kicked off in court five years after O'Bannon initially filed a lawsuit for not being properly compensated while playing basketball at UCLA. If he wins, the NCAA could be hit with an injunction requiring them to compensate student-athletes in some way.

Roger Noll, a Stanford professor emeritus in economics, testified for a total of 11 hours in court O'Bannon's lead economic expert witness. Tuesday, USA Today reported, the NCAA will call James Heckman, a University of Chicago professor and Nobel Prize winner for economics, to respond to Noll's testimony.

Wednesday, O'Bannon's legal team will call Joel Linzner to the stand. Linzner is the executive vice president for business and legal affairs for Electronic Arts, the video game maker who was originally named in the lawsuit. EA and Collegitate Licensing Company (CLC) settled out previously for $40 million, leaving the NCAA alone.

USA Today reported the witness list indicates Linzner's testimony will explain the business relationship between the NCAA, EA and CLC.

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