Another step will occur this week which may lead to student-athletes having the right to negotiate with their schools, thereby becoming employees. This week the Dartmouth basketball team will vote to become a union with rights to negotiate the terms of their “employment” with Dartmouth. The vote was authorized by the National Labor Relations Board. NCAA lawsuits have been unsuccessful in reversing the NLRB ruling. The NCAA’s lawsuit is just one of several concurrent class action lawsuits challenging the principle of amateurism that the NCAA has long prided itself on maintaining.
Other class action lawsuits are headed to adjudication, aimed at the NCAA and schools themselves for violating federal antitrust statutes by restricting student-athletes’ compensation. The Athletic spoke to nearly a dozen sports law experts over the past month. Every single one considers athletes becoming professionals as inevitable. There is unanimity that the shift from amateurism to professionalism is now a matter of when, not if.
The NCAA itself has proposed a new division where athletes would be paid a minimum of $30,000 per year. The members of the new subdivision could create their own rules separate from the rest of Division I.
We’re entering a new world of professionalism in college sports. Who will solve the problems of uncontrolled student-athlete free agency? Or do we have to become accustomed to Pay-4-Play, finding the NIL money to pay for better athletes, then having your best players transfer to other schools who offer them even more money?
It’s doubtful the solution will come from the NCAA, which will be busy acting as a bankruptcy trustee. Will the new alliance between the Big Ten and SEC step in and create its own rules? Or will the schools and conferences stand aside and let the economics of unfettered free agency prove it to be an unsustainable.
How long will a system of a handful of “haves” and all the rest “have nots” be permitted to stand?
Ther Athletic Article
Other class action lawsuits are headed to adjudication, aimed at the NCAA and schools themselves for violating federal antitrust statutes by restricting student-athletes’ compensation. The Athletic spoke to nearly a dozen sports law experts over the past month. Every single one considers athletes becoming professionals as inevitable. There is unanimity that the shift from amateurism to professionalism is now a matter of when, not if.
The NCAA itself has proposed a new division where athletes would be paid a minimum of $30,000 per year. The members of the new subdivision could create their own rules separate from the rest of Division I.
We’re entering a new world of professionalism in college sports. Who will solve the problems of uncontrolled student-athlete free agency? Or do we have to become accustomed to Pay-4-Play, finding the NIL money to pay for better athletes, then having your best players transfer to other schools who offer them even more money?
It’s doubtful the solution will come from the NCAA, which will be busy acting as a bankruptcy trustee. Will the new alliance between the Big Ten and SEC step in and create its own rules? Or will the schools and conferences stand aside and let the economics of unfettered free agency prove it to be an unsustainable.
How long will a system of a handful of “haves” and all the rest “have nots” be permitted to stand?
Ther Athletic Article
