Unions coming to College Football

[dabrockster]

Northwestern Football players have gotten approval from the National Labors Board (Chicago District) that they are a union and in fact paid employees of the university.

What impact will this have on the game of football? Will all football players sign up for this new union. Will it gain strength and begin to be paid a larger salary? Will this be the death of College football (As we see it today)?


This will be interesting to watch..

http://espn.go.com/college-football/...n-bid-unionize

[Green Monstah]

It seems to me that the NCAA can simply enact a rule that any player who unionizes as a paid employee is not an elible student-athlete, and this issue dissipates.

[I.J. Reilly]

It seems to me that the NCAA can simply enact a rule that any player who unionizes as a paid employee is not an elible student-athlete, and this issue dissipates.

As a lawyer, you know that the last part of your sentence is untrue. Some lawyers are about to earn some top-dollar fees here.

[SeattleUte]

The university presidents will be only too glad to say to hell with the whole DI enterprise if it gets to be more trouble and costly than it's worth. The players who aren't bound for the NFL (the lion's share of them) are kidding themselves if they think the universities need them more than they need the universities.

[Green Monstah]

As a lawyer, you know that the last part of your sentence is untrue. Some lawyers are about to earn some top-dollar fees here.

Fair enough. I highly doubt student-athletes will be paying top-dollar for legal representation here. They may get the benefit of some excellent pro bono services, though.

[wapiti]

The university presidents will be only too glad to say to hell with the whole DI enterprise if it gets to be more trouble and costly than it's worth. The players who aren't bound for the NFL (the lion's share of them) are kidding themselves if they think the universities need them more than they need the universities.

This is particularly true of the private universities affected by this ruling.

[wapiti]

Fair enough. I highly doubt student-athletes will be paying top-dollar for legal representation here. They may get the benefit of some excellent pro bono services, though.

United Steelworkers is behind it. I'm sure there are other major unions chomping at the bit to jump on board. This isn't costing the athletes a dime.

[Moliere]

I know little about this whole thing but can't help to feel this really will kill college athletics as we know it. It seems that once you call a student-athlete an employee, there would then be no barriers to compensating the athlete. The NCAA can no longer say that colleges can't compensate these guys, which then will really turn college athletics in favor of the bigger, more wealthy institutions. Maybe some universities will embrace the change and basically create an upper tier of athletics where athletes are paid on top of their scholarships, or possibly most universities will drop their athletics to club-level (or semi-pro) teams that are loosely affiliated with the university. In either case, the level of competition will suffer and the parity will also suffer.

[Surfah]

Last year only 23 universities made money. 16 of those received subsidies. I don't understand where the money to pay student athletes decent wages and benefits is going to come from. I'm not sure how you spread the money around either. Do football players make more than the swim team? Does the starting QB make more money than the guy running the scout offense in practice? What about the players who don't dress on Saturdays? What happens with athletes who get hurt and can't perform? Are we adding workers comp benefits now? If each athlete is considered an employee of the school, don't they then have to deal with each state's own collective bargaining agreements? How do you keep one school from not offering better wages? If this is money on top of scholarships, are scholarships now taxable?

I think when push comes to shove, I think SU is right, that several schools will be more than happy to drop athletics.

[snowcat]

The university presidents will be only too glad to say to hell with the whole DI enterprise if it gets to be more trouble and costly than it's worth. The players who aren't bound for the NFL (the lion's share of them) are kidding themselves if they think the universities need them more than they need the universities.

I think you nailed it.

[Green Monstah]

United Steelworkers is behind it. I'm sure there are other major unions chomping at the bit to jump on board. This isn't costing the athletes a dime.

Interesting. Anyone have experience with this stuff? I am having trouble seeing how the unions benefit? Dues from student athletes? Demonstration that they're the BSD in the labor world? The skeptic in me thinks that this is merely a ploy and that if push comes to shove, they're not going to bat for the student athletes.

[beefytee]

How effective is the NLB? Having no knowledge of the situation, I would guess once this reaches the real courts, it will all be overturned. I guess it depends on how much the courts respect the NLB.

[Green Monstah]

How effective is the NLB? Having no knowledge of the situation, I would guess once this reaches the real courts, it will all be overturned. I guess it depends on how much the courts respect the NLB.

As I understand it, there's an appeals process within the NLRB, but that it can eventually make its way to the federal appeals process. I heard on the radio that this case will be heard before a very union-friendly appeals board, but that was from ESPN's Lester Munson, who is a criminal defense attorney by trade (I think), so this is a little out of his league.

[byu71]

Let the schools that can afford it go off and form their new super duper conference. The rest of us can get back to College FB.

We can have the Pro's, the super duper conference (minor league) and college football.

By the way how does Title IX get affected? Surely President Obama and the democrats will weigh in on fairness and equality.

[Joe Public]

I know little about this whole thing but can't help to feel this really will kill college athletics as we know it. It seems that once you call a student-athlete an employee, there would then be no barriers to compensating the athlete. The NCAA can no longer say that colleges can't compensate these guys, which then will really turn college athletics in favor of the bigger, more wealthy institutions. Maybe some universities will embrace the change and basically create an upper tier of athletics where athletes are paid on top of their scholarships, or possibly most universities will drop their athletics to club-level (or semi-pro) teams that are loosely affiliated with the university. In either case, the level of competition will suffer and the parity will also suffer.

The Cougars have byu71 backing them, so I guess we're good!