'Last Chance U' Stars Sue Netflix For $30 Million

Several stars from the original "Last Chance U" seasons are going after Netflix ... TMZ Sports has learned the former footballers are suing the streaming giant for millions following claims they got screwed over and defamed.

Multiple players from the 2015 and 2016 East Mississippi Community College football teams, including Ronald Ollie and John Franklin III, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles this week ... about a decade or so after they gained national notoriety from multiple episodes of "Last Chance U."

The documentary followed the athletes as they navigated through the rigors of EMCC seasons ... and according to the lawsuit, obtained by TMZ Sports, Netflix and a host of other defendants, including the National Junior College Athletic Association and EMCC, netted some big profits after it all aired.

But Ollie, Franklin III and four other plaintiffs -- Cary Sidney Reavis II, DeAndre Johnson, Tim Bonner and Isaiah Wright -- say they "received no compensation for their contributions" to the show.

The former football players allege they were pestered into signing basic contracts for the project ... and also claim they were hit with ultimatums that they would be barred from practices and games if they did not put pen to paper. Furthermore, they state in the docs they weren't allowed to consult with attorneys before agreeing to anything -- and were, too, not made aware of the proper market value of their name, image and likeness.

To make matters worse, a few of the plaintiffs also say they were wrongly portrayed in a villainous manner on the show -- which Ollie stated in the docs eventually affected his employment in the NFL.

"Make no mistake," attorneys for the athletes wrote in the suit, "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."