Labor win for players starts path to a union deal
By The Associated Press
A ruling that gives the Dartmouth basketball team the right to unionize has far-reaching implications for all of college sports — from the quaint, academically oriented Ivy League to the big-money football factories like Michigan and Alabama.
But it’s not time to cut down the nets just yet.
Although Monday’s ruling by a National Labor Relations Board official put the players on the path toward a union, they have a long way to go — years, maybe — before they would be able to sit down with the school and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.
Dartmouth has said it will appeal the regional official’s decision to the full NRLB; another loss for the school there could send
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UCLA:
USC: the case into the federal courts, where an outcome is unlikely before most of the current players have picked up their diplomas and moved on to jobs that are unlikely to include professional athlete.
Only then would the two sides sit down and decide what the players are worth.
And others watching.
“We are excited to see how this decision will impact college sports nationwide,” Dartmouth players Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil said in a statement on Monday after NLRB Regional Director Laura Sacks agreed that will be they are employees of the school. “We believe that other athletes will recognize the opportunities this ruling presents and will be inspired to follow suit.”
How did we get here?
The NCAA has long maintained that college players are “student-athletes” — a term designed to perpetrate the pretense that education comes first. But in Power 5 leagues like the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, football is a billion-dollar business that looks more like the NFL than the glee club or other extracurricular activities on campus.
The amateur model is under attack on several fronts, including a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that opened the door for athletes to be paid; in response, the NCAA loosened rules to allow players to profit from their celebrity. The NCAA is also facing at least six antitrust lawsuits, including one brought last week by attorneys general from Tennessee and Virginia that challenges how recruits can be compensated for their name, image and likeness.
In a different NLRB proceeding, football and basketball players at USC say they are employees of the school, the Pac-12 Conference in which they play and the NCAA. That hearing resumes later this month.
The men’s teams at UCLA and USC return to the court with road games today at Stanford and Cal, respectively. UCLA (11-11, 6-5) has won three in a row and five of six. USC (9-13, 3-8) is coming off a win over Oregon State that snapped a sixgame losing streak.
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