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In a potentially game-changing moment for college athletics, the Chicago district of the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Wednesday that Northwestern football players qualify as employees and can unionize.
NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr cited the players’ time commitment to their sport and that their scholarships were tied directly to their performance as reasons for granting them union rights.
If UNC can stall long enough, the NCAA will be dead before they’re forced to take down some banners.
I guess we shouldn’t get too worked up about this just yet since this was a ruling out of the Chicago-based branch of the NLRB. As I understand it, Northwestern is appealing to the main board in Washington, DC. Of course, given that the Washington board seems to be more concerned with promoting unionization than with striking a balanced approach between labor and management, maybe we should be concerned.
Personally, I have thought that a standard stipend for “incidentals” should have been in place for some time now. These kids do spend an extraordinary amount of time either in class (except for UNX) or directly involved in their sport. A stipend could alleviate some of the temptation to seek “other income” and by being standardized it prevents a bidding war between schools.
As for compensation, generally-speaking, these kids are BEING compensated. The ones on a “full ride” are getting tuition, books, lodging and meals in exchange for their “services”. Even at a relatively-inexpensive, state-supported school like NC State, that’s worth somewhere north of $30K a year (in-state fee levels). In addition, they are afforded the opportunity to receive high-level coaching to prepare them for a professional career (if they’ve got the talent) and a nationally-televised showcase for those talents. What’s the price-tag for those two things?
I do understand that the universities reap millions in revenues from the games, apparel, etc. And, maybe, there should be some sort of standard apportionment for the players out of that. However, I do not see that the unionization of college football is going to be anything but BAD – period. This is especially true considering that this ruling from the NLRB does NOT apply to state-sponsored schools (by law.) So, what will we end up with? Traditional “amateur” sports at state schools and professional sports at the private schools? Will schools in right-to-work states avoid unionization altogether? Will all the “profit” generated by football and basketball be plowed right back into compensation for the players thus reducing the funding for all the “olympic sports”, women’s sports, and the like? How will the schools meet their “Title 9” obligations if they are forced to turn their only two revenue-producing sports into, essentially, professional sports?
Quite honestly, if this were to become pervasive, I would rather see colleges and universities cease athletic scholarships altogether and let it go back to being truly student-athletes like the Ivy League. Oh, the quality of play would drop off, but at least we could stop pretending that those kids who obviously have no business in college (due to scholastic aptitude or lack thereof) are “gentlemen and scholars.”
OK. That’s my two-cents worth for now.
Go Wolfpack!
Schools such as Duke, Stanford,Cal,Vanderbilt,Rice, possibly Notre Dame,and ironically NW, would eventually adopt the Ivy model, IMO.
Ya know, if they would just bump the laundry allowance, and give these guys their summers back…this isn’t even a topic.
Just thinking about the cost explosion over 2.5 decades. My four years out of state at N.C. State ran about 20 grand total. Now in-state it’s $30K a year. Wow.
Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Zedong
… perhaps the NLRB ruling in Chicago might be better understood if Peter Ohr is viewed as somewhat analogous to old Pierre Beauregard down in Charleston, South Carolina back in April of 1861…
Methinks that if the truth were known… both men’s underlying “purposes” were for all practical purposes…. identical. In any case, both men most certainly knew their ‘actions’ would be a ‘beginning’ and not an ‘end’.
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Skitchwolf – great post. Bill, spot on too. Any chance we can kick CHI out of the Union? Maybe a bonus prize for taking Detroit and NY. NY, future site of the ACC tourney. Uggggh. Home of the bed bugs, rat restaurants, bad weather, illiterate youth,and overpriced services. But hey, they have more of my tax dollars than my home state.
Monday night, as the Connecticut Huskies won their first championship title under the direction of coach Kevin Ollie, criticism of the U-Conn. program was still swirling. The Huskies’ star guard, Shabazz Napier, told reporters that sometimes he goes to bed “starving” because he can’t afford food. Napier was named most outstanding player after leading his team to the national title.
Anyone who supports that the NCAA start sharing profits with players is essentially calling for higher taxes on themselves.
NC State is a very poor school compared to the majority in BCS. We are poor both academically (tiny endowment) and athletically (very tiny endowment and tiny budget). We live paycheck to paycheck much more so than than the UNC, Dukes, UVAs, Clemson, Florida States of the world. We have no savings (endowment).
If we have to start paying 85 football players a couple grand a year…well guess where that will come from? A money tree? Or perhaps higher ticket prices…concession food…more WPC dues…
Since this “tax” will not be progressive, but rather flat, it will hurt the poorer schools in higher proportion. Like NC State.
Anyone who supports paying players is essentially supporting something that 1) harms our school in a relative sense (we can least afford) and 2) harms our athletic patrons who will have to make up the difference.
So if you want to widen the competitive gulf between NC State and the rest of the field, by all means, support the proposition to pay players.
Not taking sides on the debate, yet, but I do think we need to know what the arguments are. Feasibility, to me, comes later. If there are legal grounds, then they ought to be explored.
The NCAA is deservedly under fire, but as long as they maintain 501(3)c status, and the institutions they represent do the same, I see the lot of these lawsuits getting squashed. It doesn’t matter how big the share of the pie is, as long as it’s being divided up in line with 501(3)c. There will be no paying of players, no unionization of players, etc. To allow this is not only bad for college athletics, it would require retooling of the tax code, and it’s not happening.
While public perception of the NCAA is clearly shifting, the NCAA still has the upperhand. The system is broken but unionization and paying players isn’t the answer.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver is so intent on keeping basketball players in college for another year that he said the NBA might consider subsidizing athletes to make them feel better about staying.
“Rather than focusing on a salary and thinking of them as employees, I would go to their basic necessities,” Silver said. “I think if [Connecticut Huskies guard] Shabazz Napier is saying he is going hungry, my God, it seems hard to believe, but there should be ample food for the players.”
“It does, in my mind, need to be a three-way conversation,” Silver said. “You heard college administrators at press conferences around the [NCAA] tournament say that it’s the NBA’s problem or the union is putting up resistance. It’s a more complex problem than that.”
Calipari’s ideas for NCAA reform in his new book:
• Players should receive a stipend between $3,000 to $5,000;
• The NCAA should cover eligible players’ insurance premiums;
• Athletes should be able to accept loans up to $50,000 against future earnings;
• If a coach leaves an institution, players should be able to transfer from that program without having to sit out a season;
• Athletes should be allowed one round-trip flight home every year.
“I believe the tide is turning. The NCAA will soon have to reform itself or it will not remain the dominant force in college athletics,” the WSJ quoted Calipari from the book.
The WSJ reported that Calipari writes that he wants the NCAA to relinquish some of its power — to conferences, to schools and/or to a new entity that has the power to subpoena. He writes that there is just too much on the NCAA’s plate to oversee, and he uses players’ meal allotments as an example.
I’m a firm believer in just letting the kids get paid in the free market. The schools don’t need to be paying the kids. Just let the kids earn a living off of their “celebrity” status. They should be able to sell their image/likeness to whomever wants to pay for it. It’s their’s after all. If a privite investor wants to give a kid a “job” for the summer then so be it. We all know stuff like this happens anyway so let’s just make it legal under NCAA bylaws.
Plus, if the Uni’s can afford it then give a small living stipend to the players across all teams equally out of a % of the revenue the dept takes in. If the dept loses money then no stipend. It’s like a bonus system in a private workplace. Sure it won’t be fair across the board but the system’s not fair now. Socialism doesn’t work in the free market so why should we expect it to work in the NCAA market.
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