Do public figures own their image?

In a recent New York Times article the author discusses image rights for public figures, and the limits of free speech in creative works like videogames. Electronic Arts is a popular name in the videogame industry, but recently they have been the target of an image rights lawsuit regarding their NCAA football and basketball games. As the NCAA amateurism rules don't allow college athletes to endorse products, Electronic Arts still produces the games with players who resemble real life counterparts, they simply do not use their names. One such player, Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona state, is filing a class action lawsuit, claiming that Electronic Arts illegally profited using the images of college players within the game. He argues that the company did not effectively transform the images enough for it to qualify as free speech, or as a creative work. Electronic Arts claims the videogame as a whole, does qualify as a creative work. What are your thoughts on this? do you think that this situation is the same as using peoples images when publicized on facebook? Do you think that this is an acceptable reason for companies to make sports games which resemble the teams they're based on? How would you feel if characters in videogames no longer resembled their real life counterparts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/sports/16videogame.html?_r=1&ref=technology