OT: First NIL now Unions on campus ??

[Cornell Lt]

Labor agency: Union allowed in college football

College football players and some other athletes in revenue-producing sports at private universities are employees of their schools, the National Labor Relations Board's top lawyer said in a memo Wednesday that would allow those players to unionize and...

www.espn.com

 

[Centerstream]

Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes.

 

[MSGRET]

Good-bye to college sports. I can see it now if the unions try to get more money for the athletes, the Universities will counter act with the cost of the scholarship. Next I guess the NLRB will come out and add the state run universities.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

As noted, it is mostly a warning shot in what has been a long debate. It references only private Universities because the organization in question has nothing to do with public schools. There is no immediate effect of the opinion.

That said, as an analyst in the article pointed out, it is a warning that the model at some point may have to change. I don't think it is a stretch to recognize that some, certainly not all, athletes in the major revenue generating sports (we all know which 2 sports those are) are not really, really "students". There have been some women's basketball examples, the academic advisor at RU (this was easily 15 years ago) told the fan club the story of why we didn't get a certain anticipated star player and why someone else did. Short summary - as he said, she really wasn't qualified for college. He told Vivian there was no way. At the other school (he called them) they "made an exception". Although she was a star, she didn't last 4 years. FWIW.

 

[oldude]

The warning shot occurred in 2015 when the NLRB ruled against the petition to unionize by 76 Northwestern football players which was supported by the United Steelworkers. The NLRB did not rule on the merits of the case, but simply determined that the players were not governed by national labor laws. During the process there was a lot of pushback by the school against the organizing efforts by the players.

Back in 2015, the effort by Northwestern football players to organize was not necessarily about getting paid. The main issue was the responsibility of colleges to continue to pay for the health care expenses for severely injured players after their eligibility was completed. While some schools do pick up these costs, there is no requirement that they do so.

While the situation was somewhat different, this was the crux of the problem with Sedona Prince at TX. In her case, she incurred a severe injury prior to enrolling at TX, and then sought care from specialists not affiliated with the University when she and her family felt that TX was not providing adequate care.

Fast forward to 2021. NIL makes the question murkier. The NLRB has effectively let all schools know that they will be looking very closely at how they respond to any organizing efforts by players.

 

[Ozimoto]

I guess one of my English professors at WVU in the 1980's was prescient. He saw this trend of compensation for players of some form or other coming as college athletics was fully engaged in it's transition to a "business" with the growth of televised sports broadcasting as an income source.

We had quite the discussion about it in one of our class sections. He felt that universities should hire "professional" teams for the revenue producing sports and refer to them as a "team in residence" since the student athletes involved in those sports were going to be prioritizing sports over academics anyway. Sure beat discussing Thomas Hardy's novel "Jude the Obscure."

 

[fan4eva]

Good-bye to college sports. I can see it now if the unions try to get more money for the athletes, the Universities will counter act with the cost of the scholarship. Next I guess the NLRB will come out and add the state run universities.

why was it all good when colleges made millions off of the athletes from their likeness to jerseys and TV money and no one complained but now it's an issue the scholarships they gave were repaid in one year with TV money alone if In was a athlete I'd say pay me the money and I'll pay my own tuition...this is what happens when you put money in sports pretty soon everyone wants their share

 

[Bama fan]

I guess one of my English professors at WVU in the 1980's was prescient. He saw this trend of compensation for players of some form or other coming as college athletics was fully engaged in it's transition to a "business" with the growth of televised sports broadcasting as an income source.

We had quite the discussion about it in one of our class sections. He felt that universities should hire "professional" teams for the revenue producing sports and refer to them as a "team in residence" since the student athletes involved in those sports were going to be prioritizing sports over academics anyway. Sure beat discussing Thomas Hardy's novel "Jude the Obscure."

Jude the Obscure was a novel as prescient as your professor; with its focus on institutions, religious rigidity, and class conscious morality it was ahead of its time in many ways. Thomas Hardy was a talented writer, but as he wrote for serial publications that paid by the chapter his novels are often too wordy for many modern readers. He was also a poet. I prefer Tess or Far From the Madding Crowd to Jude, but they all have merit. I spent much of my schooling and reading on writers, poets , and thinkers; but all my working career on engineering and maintenance and industrial manufacturing. A dichotomy I have yet to fully fathom!

 

[D J B]

Well, this was inevitable.

Once you build a trough, the hogs will show up to stick their snout in it.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Europe does perfectly well, thank you very much, with a system in which young teenagers are recruited for pro teams in basketball and soccer. They're paid to play, they get excellent training, and a path to Big Bucks. Many of those athletes are stars in America...

Not a problem. They deserve to be paid.