Collegiate athletics is a multi-billion dollar industry that never seems to stray far from controversy. At heart of the controversy is always its governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and its relations with its student-athletes highlighted by the multiple disputes over its almost dicator-like rules and the timeless argument over receiving compensation. Recently a new a tactic has arisen by student-athletes, utilizing the ability to unionize under the guise of employment. Spearheaded by the Northwestern Football team and the newly formed National Collegiate Players Association, their aim was to contest for employee status under the law, allowing them to collectively bargain for many essential benefits such as health insurance and potentially even compensation. However, the benefits of unionization don’t come without a cost. For many small schools and non-revenue generating sports unionization would but a serious strain on their funds, especially if compensation ensues, that could cause the elimination of that program. It’s the prospect of those benefits however that outway the potential repercussions. Student-athletes should have the ability to unionize since collegiate athletics already resembles a business, to afford required medical and day to day expenses, and have more of a say in National Collegiate Athletics Association’s decisions.. 

The NCAA was created in 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt met with members from the universities of several prominent football teams and threatened to abolish the sport unless something was done about several major issues with the sport (Parasuraman, 731). However it wasn’t till 1948 that the organization began to rise to power coinciding with the increasing frequency of games being broadcasted. Around that time the NCAA began cracking down on its members, making sure the institutions were actually self reporting and enforcing the rules. Unsurprisingly many schools weren’t and a few were even referred to as businesses by local media, violating the NCAA’s main code of amateurism. The later prompted a serious response from the NCAA. After receiving reports that players on the University of Kentucky Basketball team were receiving prohibited financial aid, the NCAA implemented a one year abolishment of the program  (Parasuraman, 732). This was the first time it had successfully punished an institution to this severe of a degree and set a precedent for the NCAA’s authority and abilities. This essentially gave the NCAA unlimited power by forcing programs to comply to their rules or they would receive “the death penalty” or the elimination of their program. It continued to expand its stranglehold over college programs, the lives of their athletes, and the revenue generated for years with little resistance. That was until 2014 however. Dating back to 2003, the NCAA had been partnering with EA sports to manufacture and distribute the ever popular and successful NCAA football and basketball franchise video games. In 2014 former University of California Los Angeles basketball player Ed O’Bannon filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for warranting the use of his image in their basketball video games without paying him (Ncera). After O’Bannon reached a settlement with both EA sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company, the courts ruled in his favor saying that the NCAA had violated antitrust laws (Ncera). The NCAA subsequently discontinued their beloved video game franchises when faced with compensating players in an attempt to preserve the facade of student athlete amateurism. This was the first time a player was victorious in a case versus the NCAA. However the fight against NCAA had just begun as the most public attack challenging its power was secretly being prepped.

  The centerpiece of the issue is the Northwestern player case of 2014-2015. Their story began in the mid 1990’s when Ramogi Huma was player on the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) football team. When Huma was a freshman one of teammates revealed to a local radio station that he couldn’t afford to pay for food. This prompted an agent to give Huma’s teammate $150 worth of groceries (Ncera). Eventually the NCAA discovered the donated groceries and suspended Huma’s teammate for a game (Ncera). This frustrated Huma who noticed UCLA profiting off his teammates jersey while he was suspended for wanting to eat. This galvanized him to form the Collegiate Athletic Association during his sophomore year, an organization that would eventually become the National Collegiate Players Association (NCPA). Huma would foster his organization throughout the 2000’s expanding it to 150 schools (Ncera). However, it wasn’t till he found his organization’s face and driving force that his idealistic vision had a chance at becoming a real politically challenging force in the world of  collegiate athletics. That face would be Kain Colter quarterback of the Northwestern football team. Colters drive came from lack of health insurance provided for such a high intensity activity. While many have health policies for athletes, they are only subsets of their primary insurance, essentially stating if the athletes parents can’t afford health insurance the player receives nothing (Necera). In addition there is little coverage for injuries sustained on the field that lingering on into an athlete's post athletic career (Ncera). This situation happened to Colter’s uncle who is still bothered by an injury he sustained in college (Ncera). It was this fear and inspiration that drove him to Huma and the NCPA. Once Colter signed on the the movement accelerated. 

Working with Tim Waters, the director of the United Steelworkers Political Action Committee, Colter and Huma organized and united the Northwestern football and officially filed for unionization in January 2014 at the Chicago Branch of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  As expected the university and the NCAA rejected Colter’s movement after it gained national attention a few days later. By failing to recognize the team as employees, a hearing with the Chicago branch of the NLRB was required. Huma, Colter, and Water’s pitch was simple; the player’s already receive compensation in the form of a scholarship to perform a task. If they don’t perform the work to their coaches (equivalent to their bosses) liking they can lose their scholarship or essentially be fired (Ncera). For Colter the trial was detrimental to his destroying relations between him, the university, the coaches, and alumni who thought he was defacing the program’s name. However, Colter still walked away victorious as the Chicago branch of the NLRB ruled in favor of the player’s union. From there all hell broke lose as officials of many division one schools including Northwestern, panicked by the uncertainty of unionization, threaten to leave division one or substantially change their program in order to avoid unionization (Ncera). Before they even had a chance to vote internally whether or not to officially unionize, Northwestern appealed the decision to the NLRB headquarters. To make sure they would win regardless many alumni called players telling that their job prospects would be hurt or donations would dry up if the unionized (Ncera). Regardless it didn’t matter as the NLRB choose not to exert its jurisdiction over the Northwestern case, essentially reverting everything back to how it was initially. The NCPA lost without losing. While the Northwestern football player’s push may be over, the issue still has a heartbeat as the NLRB didn’t officially rule that student athletes aren’t employees.

The argument of the Northwestern defense was that football players and their coaches resembled a company under law based on their scholarships, hours, and employee-employer structure. According to Senate and House of Representative bills an employee under the law is defined as “any individual employed by an employer under any contract of hire, oral or written, express or implied (including any contract entered into by any helper or assistant of such individual, whether paid by him or his employer, if such assistant or helper is employed with the knowledge, actual or constructive, of the employer,) or any individual formerly so employed whose work has ceased as a consequence of or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice: Provided, That the term “employee” shall not include an individual who has replaced a striking employee (Dannin, 10).” Let’s compare how this applies with the Northwestern argument. Their first claim was that the hours spent on school work and football equates to employee hours since they are substantial and required. According to the NLRB ruling in Chicago it was found that “The players spend 50 to 60 hours per week on their football duties during a one month training camp prior to the start of the academic year and an additional 40 to 50 hours per week on those duties during the three or four month football season (Ncera).” As an individual who grew up in the areas surrounding Evanston, Illinois I discovered the max amount of work hours allotted to many individuals in the 18-22 age bracket is 40. Northwestern athletes are already exceeding the threshold for other employees without the burden of an additional 17.5 hours spent attempting to keep their grades up to maintain eligibility. If they fail to meet the grade point average (GPA) required or refuse to attend practice they may subsequently lose their scholarship or essentially be fired. This leads to the next part, their scholarship and how in essence it is compensation since it is a reward for completing a specific task. While it is not direct compensation, it still is “to make due return to for services rendered or property delivered. (Merriam-Webster).” The scholarship is also established in a contractual agreement, satisfying requirement number one in the legal definition of employment. Finally, the relationship between coaches and players is identical to that of a boss to employees. The coaches decide everything and the players have to execute those wishes or they may be suspended or kicked off the team. In fact in his testimony Kain Colter said “We get an input, but at the end of the day he’s the boss man (Ncera)." By exceeding the hours required for many local jobs, having contractual compensation for their labor, and having a coach-player interaction that parallels an employee-employer structure, Northwestern has shown that they are employees under the law.

However, not everyone agrees that student athletes should be able to collectively bargain. The main arguments against permitting unionization, excluding employee status, are it would create a rift between the coaching staff and the team, it would ruin the integrity of amateur athletics, and that it would cause the elimination of small programs and non-revenue generating sports. One of the most prominent responses from coaches is that a third party would destroy the relationship between them and their players. However, it has been show evidence from the Northwestern case proves the opposite. Colter, who was the team captain and had the best relationship with Coach Pat Fitzgerald, was made into a pariah and many of his coaches refused to speak to him after his role in the unionization attempt. Adding a third party to represent the players could eliminate this phase of the player-coach interaction and actually improve relations. By having major issues worked out by the NCPA and the NCAA, or even local representatives and schools officials, it would prevent negative interactions between players and coaches over controversial topics that could lead to player benchings or coach firings. Conversely, it would allow them to instead solely focus on their craft thus improving relations. 

NCAA officials favorite phrase regarding unionization is that it would “ruin the integrity of amatuer athletics (Face the Nation).”  This statement from NCAA president Mark Emmert when he appeared on Face the Nation to talk about the the Northwestern players union, has been repeated time and time again by those who oppose collective bargaining. This claim has two parts, referring to both compensation and rule imposing. For compensation, the NCAA is afraid that unionization will lead to athletes receiving payments from either their university or the television stations who broadcast their games, which would infringe on their first tenet of amateurism. While the fight for wages is inevitable after unionization is permitted, these are two very separate issues. Currently, the argument is that athletic scholarships are the athlete’s compensation so no additional funds would be allotted to them in the form of cash. Providing health insurance for injuries sustained while playing for an institution would not constitute as a form of athletes receiving payment since it would be a direct transaction to the player’s insurance company and they would never directly have the funds. The second part of Emmert’s statement is that by legalizing student athlete unionization, the NCAA will lose its ability to adequately and identically enforce the rules between unionized and nonunionized schools. This would not be the case as the goal of the NCPA and the proposed Northwestern player’s union was to have a say in ratification of newly proposed rules and providing sufficient subsidized healthcare to those who were injured participating in program activities. Modelled after all professional sports the major governing body, the NCAA, would still have complete control over the punishments handed out to to violators. However, the player’s union would allow both the NCAA and the athletes it represents, to make sure the infraction is dealt with fairly and that the rule is reasonable. 

The last claim is that collective bargaining will lead to the demise of small programs and non-revenue generating sports. However, the only part of the currently proposed plan from the Northwestern case that would cost them funds would be by providing long term health care. This can be achieved by allocating earnings from high revenue generating programs. For example Northwestern, a school that is not very prominent in football, makes on average $235 million per year in revenue off it alone (Ncera). By spending 2% of that on non-revenue generating athletes who require long term health care from their playing days, Northwestern could save those programs and provide adequate medical care.

The attempted Northwestern player’s union brought the possibility of collegiate athlete unions to the national spotlight. While it had been speculated for years, it was the first real attempt at anything on that scale. The union was driven by those who had seen enough of the NCAA making billions off them while they were hampered by the burdens of long term injuries suffered in the process. Their scholarships as payment, hours, and employee-employer structure already mimics that of business. Since their scholarships already resembles compensation, it wouldn’t ruin the integrity of amateurism, while providing a different avenue to handle controversial issues without ruining player-coach relations. Overall, unionization would revolutionize collegiate athletics and give players adequate representation and medical compensation.     
