NLRB Rules College Athletes are EMPLOYEES

[SayUWantAreVOLution]

Who says the NCAA knows the players are under-compensated? You? I'm quite sure the NCAA doesn't know that and has never known it.

The NCAA devoted LOTS and LOTS of attention to catching programs which were paying players and they've been doing that for decades.

With a straight face you can STILL ask: Who says the NCAA knows the players are under compensated?

Of course they know, they were busy trying to keep teams from paying players. But.... but..... why would teams have been paying players for decades and decades if they were being compensated enough via the scholarship?

You're not stupid. You know the schools were paying players because they were more valuable than just the scholarship.

Why are you continually intellectually dishonest?

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I couldn’t care less about the NLRB’s definition of “work”. I know work when I see it and don’t need anybody to define it for me. College athletes work hard. End of discussion.

Delmar, I'm not trying to take anything away from your daughter's accomplishments. I'm sure she poured her heart and soul into the sport, because she felt like she could achieve something significant, something worth striving for. She was pushing herself to the limit, molding herself into the very best athlete she could be. I get that, because I've been there.

And I don't know if she was on scholarship or had some other financial or material incentive to keep pushing and striving. Maybe she did. But ask yourself this (or better yet, ask her): would she still have been on the team if she didn't?

I'll bet she would. Because it wasn't about the money, the scholarship or whatever. It was about her exploring the limits of her own ability. Seeing how far she could go.

That's what makes it sport. That's what, in my mind, makes it noble.

It wasn't a job to her, it was a passion. And that's why the NLRB is wrong. Athletes would do it even if there were no compensation in any form. So it is not--by their meaning of the term--work.

Go Vols!

 

[Mightyvol]

This is exactly where I knew this was going but the schools have too many problems dealing with these million dollar long term employees. The universities next step will be to franchise their football programs to a 3rd party organization, which guarantees them revenue. The new franchises will employ the football, basketball players, make revenue deals with TV/radio/vendors and pay all the bills. At this point college football will officially be dead.

Interesting that coaches, assistants etc are all employees of the university and compensated as such. They fall under the rules and discipline of the university as well. The players are under the same discipline, subject to university governance, contributors to the athletic programs revenue stream, but have absolutely no ability means of sharing in the revenue based on talents and abilities. The only was they share is by the Alabama method of under the table payments. The injuries they sustain while working, would be covered by workers compensation, but nothing for the these special class of workers. The amateurism of college football has been a lie for a very long time.

 

[MinisterofDef#92]

I think the NLRB over-reached. Specifically in this finding: "...that the players perform that work in exchange for compensation...."

Calling it "work" is disingenuous. It is play, not work.

The proof? "98% of college athletes go pro in something other than sports." What does that mean? It means the vast majority of college athletes don't see it as a job, they see it as play, as fun, as a pastime. Maybe a high-demand one, but still a voluntary activity that they do for some reason other than pay.

And if the 98% see it as fun, as sport and not a job, how many of the other 2% also see it as fun? Not a job?

I would guess most. Far more than half. The norm, in other words. They'd do it even if there were no chance to go pro.

But we can't know for sure.

What we do know is that it is not accurately called "work."

And so the NLRB over-reached with this description. And without this description, their finding does not wash.

This should be challenged in court. This is one the NCAA, or Dartmouth, or whoever, could win.

Go Vols!

How you arbitrarily assess the degree of "work" vs. "fun" is not the standard so it doesn't matter. The gauge is whether the players would otherwise earn more money if the NCAA didn't exist and, the clear answer to that is, yes they would.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

How you arbitrarily assess the degree of "work" vs. "fun" is not the standard so it doesn't matter. The gauge is whether the players would otherwise earn more money if the NCAA didn't exist and, the clear answer to that is, yes they would.

I think you miss the topic of this thread, which is not about whether the NCAA should exist. It is about the NLRB's ruling, what it means, and whether it was valid and will stand.

The NLRB ruled that the players at Dartmouth perform "work in exchange for compensation," and therefore are employees of the university and must be allowed to unionize if they wish.

The problem there is with the NLRB's definition of "work" (think work as in a job, not work as in effort, that's how the NLRB views it).

My position is, it's not a job. It's a sport. Something most college athletes would continue without any form of material compensation. A factory worker won't go to work without pay. An office worker, either. Nor a policeman. Nor a truck driver. Those are jobs. Those fit the NLRB's definition of "work." Sport doesn't fit, because the players usually/almost always play motivated in a variety of ways other than material compensation. The money/scholarships don't hurt, but that's not why they're doing it, as proven by the fact that they'd usually play anyway.

Go Vols!

 

[WoodsmanVol]

Flatlander hogwash.

I can think of a couple tyrannical coaches that shoulda been served a turd sammich but never was…View attachment 617980

Can't recall his name, but there was a toxic and biased women's basketball coach at one of the Illinois colleges/universities. I think they ended up releasing him. I didn't give it much attention at the time, labeling it as par for the course since it is underreported despite being more common than folks want to admit. 'Bout 2-3 years back, I think.

 

[WoodsmanVol]

Wow, college sports are leading basically pro farm teams similar MLB farm teams?

https://www.chronicle.com/article/dartmouth-mens-basketball-players-can-vote-to-unionize-what-does-that-mean-for-everyone-else

 

[CAVPUT]

Wow, college sports are leading basically pro farm teams similar MLB farm teams?

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[WoodsmanVol]

My bad. Got distracted by the wife.

 

[Volfan2012]

I am fine with being able to negotiate NIL deals with recruits and players. Not that happy about Athletes being employees that could turn into disaster.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

SIAP, but am I wrong in assuming that the Universities don't actually "pay" the Athletes? I thought the players were paid through the cooperative.

Funny I thought they were paid via their free education, room and board and other freebies they get which are in the hundreds of thousands for out of state students but I must be wrong.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

Are high-school students who run track "employees"?

Football players are getting a free college education in exchange for playing football. That's always been the deal, and for 100 years that's always been deemed a very good and fair deal. The only REAL beneficiary of college football is the athletic department as a whole--and the athletic department as a whole comprises 20 sports with hundreds of student-athletes. It's not a private business--it's a public college.

Now a few players seem to think that they're doing the schools a favor. It's all part and parcel of the nonsense of today's youth who want to fancy themselves as "brands"--see YouTube "influencers and all the rest. If student-athletes end up be legally considered employees, then schools should not be shy about ending scholarships and treating them truly as real employees would be treated in the private world.

The best thing the players have going for them, with respect to football, is that there is too much money in the sport and the fans are stupid-crazy. And so my bet is that the majors, instead of fighting some of this nonsense as they should, will cave on some or a lot of the changes. The football schools will indulge football and do whatever is necessary to keep their place. That's why whenever one school stupidly started offering NIL deals to high-schoolers, everybody else HAD to do the same. I'm quite sure they all didn't WANT top do it.

It's all the non-revenue sports and their players who could be hurt by all of this in the end.

Your key part was the “majors” will give in. They are the select few making money. They will give in and cut most of the other sports. The “minors” won’t be able to compete at D1 anymore and will move down in football and get rid of a bunch of sports.

This will not end well.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

You believe "It's all part and parcel of the nonsense of today's youth who want to fancy themselves as "brands"--see YouTube "influencers and all the rest" is a fact?

As in, that is the reason (or at least a major reason) this is all happening? That is just 'kids these days'?

I don't believe that. I believe its intellectually dishonest to act as if major college athletics is what it was 40-50 years ago. Hell, Plowman said that. Its a business producing billions of dollars based off of extremely cheap borderline free labor. It was never going to last that way, and frankly, it shouldn't.

I don't know how it sorts out, and if its going to turn out great or a disaster...but I don't for a second believe its just because of some of the reasons I'm seeing in this thread.

Football and basketball are division of the larger company College Athletics which are making the majority of the revenue for the larger business College Athletics. Take football and basketball out of the business and the business folds.

Some want to revenue share just the money from the Revenue positive sports but fail to see that revenue sharing in just those divisions kill the whole business.

Don’t forget a large portion of D1 athletic departments don’t even make money with football and basketball included as it is.

 

[CAVPUT]

My bad. Got distracted by the wife.

Just havin' some fun. No worries. Got me one of those, too.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

That’s the eventual outcome. Then the consequences hit for the ‘employee’ and the employer. Which programs get cut? In most universities, only one sport provides a product in the black, football. A few have mens basketball.Will those teams make money now? Depends on the % shared. Overwhelming, most athletic departments run in the red NOW.

UT has 698 student athletes, most of which will lose their scholly. Title IX will figure into the equation thus eliminating more men sports than womens. Not only programs getting cuts, but all those departments that help those athletes. The only way to not have Title IX not include football is break off and form it’s own entity but then you are left without a profit for the rest of the sports. I would hate being an AD in the next few years.

If you move men’s football into a separate business not part of athletic program that licensing UT name for games then Title IX no longer uses football in the equation and a crap load of women lose Ability to play college athletics and get a scholarshi.

So sad.

 

[VolatileVol]

I've long suggested players would soon be considered employees. However, I don't think this is actually a good thing. The many things that come along with having employees are not necessarily advantageous for the University. Heck, I'm not even sure it's advantageous to the student athletes, either. What a time to be alive!

 

[volfan4evr]

Funny I thought they were paid via their free education, room and board and other freebies they get which are in the hundreds of thousands for out of state students but I must be wrong.

Talking about money they can spend, not benefits.

 

[Hairy Vols]

Does this mean that all kids playing sports, all the way down to the elementary school level, are to be considered employees? Child labor laws about to be enforced within the sports arena?

Are elementary school children bringing in billions of dollars because of their talent for said elementary schools?

 

[S.C. OrangeMan]

I think you miss the topic of this thread, which is not about whether the NCAA should exist. It is about the NLRB's ruling, what it means, and whether it was valid and will stand.

The NLRB ruled that the players at Dartmouth perform "work in exchange for compensation," and therefore are employees of the university and must be allowed to unionize if they wish.

The problem there is with the NLRB's definition of "work" (think work as in a job, not work as in effort, that's how the NLRB views it).

My position is, it's not a job. It's a sport. Something most college athletes would continue without any form of material compensation. A factory worker won't go to work without pay. An office worker, either. Nor a policeman. Nor a truck driver. Those are jobs. Those fit the NLRB's definition of "work." Sport doesn't fit, because the players usually/almost always play motivated in a variety of ways other than material compensation. The money/scholarships don't hurt, but that's not why they're doing it, as proven by the fact that they'd usually play anyway.

Go Vols!

So you think that MLB, NHL, NFL, and other sports the NBA and other sports leagues are not "jobs". That's a non starter. Obviously those sports are employment. Their athletes are paid fair market compensation. College athletes are not.

Funny I thought they were paid via their free education, room and board and other freebies they get which are in the hundreds of thousands for out of state students but I must be wrong.

It's not fair market value, especially given the NCAA's limits on the athletes not being able to accept a free cheeseburger. The NCAA and the schools have made billions of dollars in the athletes' backs for decades. It's past time for the athletes to be fairly compensated. The NLRB decision is the first step toward that.

 

[S.C. OrangeMan]

Players as employees, I think, is a way to get a handle and throttle back on NIL and Transfer Portal issues.
BUT, having them unionized I think presents a whole new can of worms to eat though.

College athletes as employees will not do anything to NIL. NIL exists outside of any potential employment. NIL restrictions s are a violation of the federal Sherman Antitrust Act.

 

[GoVols64]

College athletics just died; it’s basically saying they are professionals now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If you don’t have a scholarship are you working for free and thereby not an employee?

Next will be a players unions and CBAs. Good luck with that. Will they all be operated by sport or all athletes under the school combined? Do these unions go beyond the school?

How does this affect Title IX?

I’m all for players benefiting from their NIL but but this has become untenable for all but the largest revenue sports.

 

[S.C. OrangeMan]

Let's not confuse terms. In the NLRB's terminology, "work" doesn't just mean "hard" or "challenging" or "demanding." It means labor performed in exchange for financial compensation. It means "a job."

To see what I mean, let's look at the service academies. They have athletes competing to be on the rosters of all the sports, from football to basketball to golf to tennis to boxing to water polo to team handball.

Not a single one of them is paid to do the sport.

Not a single one of them will go pro as anything but a military officer.

They're all on the equivalent of 100% scholarship, whether they join a sports team or not.

Every student feels a duty to the school (or more accurately, to the nation behind that school's identity).

So there is no way on this planet that the sport(s) they pursue are "work." Hard, challenging, demanding ... but not work.

They're doing it for fun. They're busting their butts, getting up before dawn for two-a-days, suffering through ice baths and treatment for injuries, and embracing all the other non-fun aspects of the sport, because they want to, because it's what they think of as fun, satisfying, enriching.

That's not "work," not using the NLRB's definition.

Roger Staubach, Pete Dawkins, David Robinson and Napoleon McCallum send their regards.

 

[S.C. OrangeMan]

In my framework, that is not work. But after a while, arguing semantics becomes a losing game for everyone involved.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly believe student athletes should have the right to seek compensation for their NIL. And even beyond that, I think they should benefit financially from the revenue generated by their sport for the university.

If you think I was attempting to deny the lads that in my argument that sport =/= work, I should have been clearer.

In fact, here's how I feel about how college athletes should be compensated:

Transfer Portal is a disaster (read posts #477 and #489).

I believe the "booty" system could do both for us: compensate the athletes as they should be, while still keeping them STUDENTS at the universities rather than EMPLOYEES.

At the end of the day, we're each going to define "work" in our own way.

As long as we share the goals of (1) getting the athletes appropriate compensation for the value they bring, and (2) preventing the college athletics system from falling to pieces or devolving into an unsatisfying marriage of professional and academic.

Go Vols!

What matters is NOT how any of us define "work". It's how the NLRB defines it.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

So you think that MLB, NHL, NFL, and other sports the NBA and other sports leagues are not "jobs". That's a non starter. Obviously those sports are employment. Their athletes are paid fair market compensation. College athletes are not.

Not what I said. I think professional sports like the NFL are jobs. Because pro players would not go to work if the front office stopped paying them. It's a job. They work in exchange for compensation, to use the NLRB's phrase.

In contrast, the vast majority of college athletes would play their sports without any material gain. They do it all the time, at universities all around the world, including in the money sports of football and basketball.

Inherently a different animal than the pros. I hope you can see that.

What matters is NOT how any of us define "work". It's how the NLRB defines it.

Precisely. And using their own definition, college sports are demonstrably not a job, not "work in exchange for compensation." The NLRB over-reached.

Go Vols!

 

[tango]

Unlike pro, the jersey's sold by the university doesn't have the name of the player on them. Using number 8 as an example - there have been many UT players wearing that number and unless Nico does something at the Manning level, many more will after he has moved on. Using the argument above they would have to give a "cut" to any player that has ever worn that number.

And then you have the issue where there have been two players on the team, one on offense and one on defense, that have the same number.

Now, if the university sold jerseys with the name of the player on them - that would be different - but they don't.

thanks for that clarification..