OT-ish-Proposed National College Players Association

[Shenandoah]

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...cats-football-players-trying-join-labor-union

They've been working with the United Steelworkers Union...
Thoughts?

 

[meyers7]

"The NCAA is a train wreck waiting to happen," said Tim Waters, the union's national political director as well as the NCPA's liaison within the union.

True, but I don't know getting unions involved is gonna help.

 

[Icebear]

Is it possible to unionize people who do not receive pay? Asking because I honestly don't know.

 

[meyers7]

Is it possible to unionize people who do not receive pay? Asking because I honestly don't know.

I think that or similar will be the NCAA position. In the article a spokesman (NCAA I think) says the student-athletes do not fit any definition of a worker who would be covered by NLRB. Somebody is gonna have to decide. This will probably take quite some time.

 

[UcMiami]

I say pay the players, screw the academic requirements, but make them pay for facilities, training staff, medical insurance, equipment, coaching, travel, food, housing, classes if they choose to attend, tutoring, etc. Put all the TV money, endorsement deals, and gate receipts into a big pool and dole it out to all the athletes in the conference for all sports by whatever formula you want. That should make the athletes happy - certainly not rich but happy. Might turn out that they actually end up out of pocket for the four years with no education and no degree, but ... Then the athletes at a school can decide if they want to splurge on paying for a good coach or go on the cheap. Of course players at Alabama might balk at paying 5.4M to Saban which works to about $60,ooo each 'scholarship' player would be coughing up out of their pockets. Add that to the training staff, facilities rental, equipment, housing, food, and travel and they better hope they are getting paid at least $200,000 each.
There really is a reason why most college athletic departments lose money.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Here's how it's going to play out. The super/power conferences will break away, perhaps not entirely from the NCAA, but definitely from the rest of the D-I schools. This is supposedly already on the agenda for the next NCAA member conference to begin preliminary discussion as reported by ESPN a few times over the past couple of months. This new segment of the top schools where football rules the roost will be allowed some autonomy (i.e. won't have to play by the same rules as schools in "lesser" conferences) which will include paying players. They've been slowly inching towards this for years now. Once that happens, then a union of some sort makes sense. No doubt about it, we're definitely heading towards a regime that will only further drive the wedge between the big money schools and everyone else.

 

[UcMiami]

Here's how it's going to play out. The super/power conferences will break away, perhaps not entirely from the NCAA, but definitely from the rest of the D-I schools. This is supposedly already on the agenda for the next NCAA member conference to begin preliminary discussion as reported by ESPN a few times over the past couple of months. This new segment of the top schools where football rules the roost will be allowed some autonomy (i.e. won't have to play by the same rules as schools in "lesser" conferences) which will include paying players. They've been slowly inching towards this for years now. Once that happens, then a union of some sort makes sense. No doubt about it, we're definitely heading towards a regime that will only further drive the wedge between the big money schools and everyone else.

And then the courts get involved and the question of why only men's team athletes are getting paid and the whole title IX question shows up again and once the dust settles all men's sports except football will disappear from certain schools so they have enough money to pay the equal number of women's scholarship players. For those schools who decide to go Men's Basketball, they can probably keep a few other men's sports as well since they only need to pay up to 15 basketball players.

Just a real gnarly path we are heading down, and the best solution is to break these sports away from the university for players that want to be paid. Ask the baseball minor league players how much they enjoy it, or the basketball developmental leagues, or the football semi-pro leagues. Not that much fun when you get to work at Walmart eight hour shifts just to be able to afford to try and make it as a pro. Most of them would take a 4 year scholarship deal in a heartbeat - free housing, free food, great facilities, medical, coaching.