College Athletes Can Unionize

The Game Room
81

aceplace, what do you consider the difference between the NFL and the NCAA that makes one group of players employees and another non-employees?

Both are for-profit ventures engaged in the same sports-based entertainment, after all.

And players in both seem to spend a similar amount of time and effort working on their football skills and knowledge.

Teams in both leagues are directed by a coach and his assistants.

What do you see as the key difference or differences between the two that causes you to consider one group of players to be employees but not the other?

82

While I agree with your broader point, the schools that operate within the NCAA’s rules are not for profit.

83

It’s the salaries that I see as the difference. Pros are employees and collective bargaining makes sense.

I much rather see the NCAA tighten restrictions on off season workouts and so called voluntary practices. The schools and their coaches have been pretty clever in finding ways around the off season rules and those loopholes need to be looked at. The NCAA can make changes that all schools must follow.

If the NCAA doesn’t step up and do something then some sort of collective bargaining for college players may be necessary. I agree the demands of a big school’s athletic program has gotten out of hand. They seem to forget that these kids should be there for an education and sports.

84

Are you being serious right now? That’s the most spectacularly circular argument I’ve ever seen.

85

But what is it about the actual real world situation and position of the college athlete that you feel differentiates the two? The fact that one is currently paid and the other is not is a result of that difference, not the cause of it.

86

Salaries are the most obvious difference between pro and college.

It’s also a philosophical difference in sports. Amateurs compete because they love their sport. They want to be the best at their sport. Competition determines who is the best. An athlete can see how their skills are progressing by competing.

Maybe its old fashioned and a cliche but I still value those ideals. It’s sad that huge tv money and alumni money has corrupted the big college programs. The push to win at all costs has put enormous pressures on student athletes and the coaches. Coaches know they have to win or get fired. They push these kids way too hard. There really isn’t an off season anymore.

I concede that some sort of player collective bargaining may be needed. Maybe it will take that to get any real reforms.

87

It is for the schools, since it means the athletics money that the “smaller” Division I schools get will now go to the “big time schools.” While football won’t go away from most of the schools that can’t afford to pay its players, it will drive them down to something along the lines of FCS (and an equivalent in men’s basketball as well).

What about the athletes in the other sports? Can’t they use a stipend as much as the football players?

Replace “football” with any other sport - is the statement any less true? Aren’t women’s tennis players “employees” in the same sense?

You mean the Ivy League that goes one step further and refuses to compete in the FCS football playoffs? (Strange that Harvard has no problem playing in the men’s basketball tournament, though.)

Tell any basketball “one and dones” that - that is, if you can find them, as the ones that aren’t still in the tournament have almost certainly dropped out of school by now. I wonder how many of them even bothered attending classes in their spring semester.

88

nm

89

Right now there isn’t that much differences in the expectations and pressures. The big college programs demand winning just like the pros. They both demand a lot of off season training. Win or else i the mantra.

I’m saying it shouldn’t be that way. But really can’t suggest any way to fix it. The competition to win drives everything. Arkansas just opened a new multimillion dollar facility with state of the art weight rooms, saunas etc. It’s supposed to help recruiting. All the other SEC schools are doing the same thing. It’s an endless circle.

I think there are some college coaches that at least try to focus on the kids. They make sure tutors are hired. The athletes have to attend a study hall. Maintain a certain GPA. Curfews are enforced at night. That kind of coach may be a dying breed. I just don’t know.

90

The question to ask is this: Do they lose their scholarship should they decide to switch their extracurricular activity from tennis to the school newspaper? Should the answer be yes, they are employees.

While Harvard undoubtedly gives admissions preference to good high school basketball players, Harvard scholarships are AFAIK never dependent on a student staying with the sport. For that reason, I think Harvard athletes are amateurs.

91

(bolding mine)

I don’t think you’ll find many people that disagree with that, frankly. I know I don’t.

But what this decision is saying is that the whole idea of the noble student-athlete is a fiction. It always has been. It’s just that the benefits for so many kids and families were so great, that the system was tolerable. But that meant it was by necessity preying on those least able to assert their rights under the law. And eventually, it was impossible not to notice the amount of money changing hands, with none of it going to the athletes who made it all possible. It has just taken this long for things to finally reach a point where someone with some kind of standing was able to make a good documented presentation that exposed the truth behind the fiction: college athletes are exploited employees of a huge for-profit industry, denied any kinds of worker’s rights and absenting their employers from any duties or obligations.

ETA: If you’re not sure that college athletics has been this way all along, watch One on One.

92

OK, so, the players want to be paid. Fine. Here you go, here’s your internship payment: $7.50 an hour. Oh, and out of that we’re going to take your room and board, tuition, food, etc. You want to be paid? Welcome to the life of a college student.

A free education, whether you take advantage of it or not, is its own reward, and as low/semi-skilled labor you get what everybody other student school employee gets. Works for me.

93

That’s inane. How about, “here’s a share of the 30 million dollars you generated for Alabama this year”.

If you believe $7.50 an hour is what they’re worth, let’s see how close that idiotic number is to what the free market will actually dictate.

94

Did you miss the part about the athletes at Northwestern not being stupid people?

Did you miss the part about them wanting to start a union in order to avoid continued substandard compensation for their skills and efforts?

Did you miss the part about the education not being free? (Are you one of those people who wants UHC because it will be “free”? :dubious:)

Did you miss the part about how much time these people spend developing skills and knowledge in their sports? They are in no way “low/semi-skilled labor”, not by any metric or definition.

95

College sports is a very complicated issue and something I need to think more about.

96

Because many of them are doing work, and generating value for the university. If I had my druthers, I would just change 3 rules:

  1. Require that an athletic scholarship last for at least 15 years granting free tuition, room and board at any school within the university granting the scholarship without any requirement to play beyond the first year. This way, al athletes will have an extended opportunity to pursue their education before and after their playing career.

  2. Establish free healthcare for the duration of the player’s career plus 5 years.

  3. Allow athletes to be paid any amount for any job so long as the money doesn’t come from the school’s funds. Also, it is required that it is disclosed who is paying, and what the amount is. I know this will result in star basketball players being paid $5k to mow some guy’s lawn, but I don’t see why that is necessarily a bad thing. If some idiot boaster wants to pay athletes (as they already do routinely), they should be able to do so. Better it be them than having the university subsidize this nonsense with general funds. I think this will also be good as the transparency will essentially create a market for players who are valuable, while not requiring all athletes to be paid at the expense of the students there to get an education.

97

I’ve not read this entire thread, but here is a novel solution.

The big problem is there is too much money (yeah, that’s a problem)

The bigwigs at the top of the power pole of these large universities don’t know what to do with it. The NCAA won’t let you give it to the players. The AD won’t let you take it out of the Athletic Department. There is only so much you can spend on stadiums (stadia?), weight rooms, parking lots, etc… Still there is a boatload left over.

The solution, have the NCAA make a rule no AD can make more than the POTUS (including bonus, incentive, etc…). . Nobody reporting to the AD can make more than 87% of the AD’s salary (including bonus, incentive, etc…). Nobody else in the program can make more than 50% of the AD. Coach Nick Sabin has a problem with that? He can go pro (btdtgtts).

Players get full health insurance paid by the University. If they play professionally, they forfeit any claims for injuries from collegiate play (the pros assume this liability when they sign the player), otherwise, the university covers all players for injuries sustained while playing for 10 years after they no longer are associated with the university.

Players do not have to go to classes during the season or training season. They are all paid an equal stipend. Scholarships to cover the cost of tuition, books, room and board, to be available for 10 years after eligibility if the athlete wishes to take them up on the offer. All athletes get 1 year scholarship for every season played (or red-shirted). If the school wants to "do it like the old days, where the athletes were students, they can, but that puts them in a different division, with like institutions. In the student-athlete division, rules are much like they are today, but the institution must maintain 90% or better graduation rate of student-athletes or they no longer can stay in the division.

Of course, things have gone too far, too many people are making too much money. But, it would make college athletics interesting, again, instead of looking like, well, a bunch of idiots who don’t know what to do with the money.

98

I’m not sure you’re ever going to be able to demonstrate that your assumption that “there’s too much money” and “there’s a boatload leftover” are true. Athletic departments spend every single dime they’re given.

Or are you talking about university endowments, which are a different thing?

99

Then there’s this. It’s a Yahoo article, so take it for what it’s worth, but it points out how “educated” at least this one scholarship football player managed to get at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

From the article:

There is apparently a special coursework track especially for the scholarship footballers, and this lovely piece of literature is what passes for A- work.

It seems to me the whole scholarship deal is a ruse and these guys really are working as professional athletes. Pay them or dump the program. The economics and politics of that aren’t so simple, obviously, but huge change really is needed. Trying to pass these guys off as receiving an education is a joke. Getting this whole debacle into the court system and in the news is the smart thing that came out of the lawsuit, and I hope it’s the harbinger of enormous change.

100

I’m curious what would happen if you extended this argument to the GI Bill. Seems, at least on the surface, pretty similar.