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NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - Printable Version

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RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - M T - 02-13-2022

If many colleges are financially forced into not having sports, then the college athletic scholarships disappear.  Even if a few schools can afford to keep some programs alive for a while (suppose Stanford kept up its women's swim team), the number of opponents would shrink to where competitions become scarce.

If/when sports at the collegiate level dries up, wouldn't the dominoes fall at the high schools?  You can't give reasons of getting college scholarships as why time&money is being spent on sports.  Football is already under pressure from concussions & such. 

Dry up athletes being trained in HS and the colleges will have fewer, and then the pros have fewer.  The American training ground for Olympic sports would shrink dramatically.  (Side thought:  Some of us have been complaining that American universities have been training foreign athletes.  We would instead have a brawn drain with promising US athletes turning to foreign schools to continue their athletic training.  Perhaps donors that had been donating to athletic programs in the US would start sending their money to foreign schools.)

I'm surprised big name, non-revenue sporting figures (Katie Ledecky, for instance), aren't speaking up and pointing out the consequences to 90% of college athletic scholarships.

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If universities decided to drop the sports named in the suit, wouldn't the courts look at that with disfavor?  Kinda like a company dropping a line of business that was trying to unionize?

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Could the problem be resolved by dropping scholarships and only allowing participation if the student(and/or legal guardian) agrees to participate at the school voluntarily, waiving any claims to be a paid or unpaid employee and any rights due to employees?  (That seems to have land mines, but if something like this were allowed, it would work for most sports at most colleges.)

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Would another path be that the schools spin-off the revenue sports into a separate entity?   Suppose Stanford Revenue Sports was a spin off from Stanford.  SRS could include whatever sports for which the athletes say they should be employees.   Other sports (wrestling, lacrosse, swimming, ...) would still be with the school and the voluntary participation, sometimes for 'scholarship' payment, would continue.  SRS would be created with a continuing payout to the school (use of the name & other copyright issues, use of facilities,...), helping the school to pay for the other sports, at least until a new equilibrium is found.

Any students of Stanford that are employees of SRS would still be students like any other (meaning they have to pass classes).  Potentially, SRS would no longer require their playing employees to be students of Stanford.  A cooperative agreement between SRS & Stanford to allow all their employees to be students would not be allowed, but those individuals that both are enrolled as students and are employees of SRS may get some leeway.

If this spin-off happened today across all NCAA members named in the suit, wouldn't the lawsuit have to change to reflect the new organizations?

Many schools couldn't support a Revenue Sports spin-out.  Could it be possible that Duke Revenue Sports could field a MBB team, while Foothill Junior College (not Foothill Revenue Sports) also field a MBB team?   Would Foothill be allowed to give scholarships for MBB players?  (I don't know whether Foothill actually has a MBB team.  I doubt they give scholarships for participation.)

Then you get into the dilemma of where to draw the line.   Which side of the line is Alabama FB, Baylor MBB, Stanford WBB, Wisconsin WVB, or Foothill MBB?  Once a team is on one side of the line, under what conditions can/must it move to the other?

RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - OutsiderFan - 02-13-2022

I can't even imagine being an Athletic Director at any D1 school today. Nobody likes operating with nothing but uncertainty, yet that is the reality for anyone in that job today.

On another note, I'm curious if this topic is being discussed amongst other college fan bases around the country.  I mean even if you are an Alabama fan, you might have sisters or daughters who play sports and see how the dynamics at play could have cataclysmic impact on their sports playing futures that might spook you. IOW, I don't see this unfolding re-ordering of the college sports landscape making more people happy than unhappy.

RE: lex24 - Softball Fan - 02-13-2022

(02-12-2022, 10:53 AM)lex24 Wrote:  
(02-12-2022, 09:05 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote:  The schools have way, way more to lose than the athletes in terms of money, but the athletes have more to lose in terms of how many losers there will be.

As I have said here before, all the schools had to do was do something reasonable to throw the revenue sport athletes a bone, and the system would have generally stayed intact.  Instead, by operating with a plantation mentality, the schools created a situation where the only outcome is they must start sharing significantly more money with the labor, which sort of defeats the purpose of having resisted paying them more in the first place.

But, for some reason I don't understand, unlike the pro leagues, there are donors who line up to subsidize the operating costs of the sports, making the amount spent on sports greater than they generate. This has been in the form of coaching salaries, facilities, and staff to recruit. Now, it's laundering money through NIL deals. Given all this, it would be a whole heckuva lot more straightforward if that money went to the athletes as compensation in a free labor market. Like, everyone cuts their own deal to play for whatever they will take. Of course, when you open this Pandora's box, now you are dealing with working conditions. The NCAA may have its rules, but individual players may have their own demands that have to be individually negotiated, absent a union and CBA.

I'd like each school to be capped as to how much it can pay players, but the endemic booster system that created bag men will find ways around a salary cap.  I want to see more money going to players and less to coaches, staff and facilities, but...

Even if players get paid more and get classified as labor, the the whole situation is a total mess in terms of Title IX issues and broad based sports offerings. Again, the schools just had to give a little to avoid it, so some part of me is glad the NCAA did this to itself. It's just well deserved karma.

I’m not going to put college sports in a traditional labor category.  Nor use catchy but irrelevant terms like “plantation mentality “. There will be major legal issues. If I’m Stanford and it goes this route, I end the programs.  And because these sports essentially fund  the non revenue sports, I’d end those too.  Just go the club sport route.

Stanford’s reputation won’t be hurt one bit by dropping sports.  Applications will not drop.  And money isn’t an issue. I suspect that is true at most schools.  So just end college sports.  Then let’s see where all the HS football and basketball players go to get their paycheck….

Why bother with the headache.

I agree.   Accusations or inferences of racism toward colleges administrators is unfair.  Students voluntarily playing football, attending classes, and getting college expenses paid does not constitute a plantation.

If college football players become paid union employees, I favor eliminating varsity sports.  I'm old school and think first and foremost colleges should be primarily for academics.  The NFL can create farm teams or minor leagues if they want to develop professional football players.

FWIW I saw on some message boards the opinion the NLRB under this administration will pro-actively extend the employee model to all sports.

If athletes become employees will they have state and federal taxes along with all the other typical deductions taken out of their "paychecks"? When I was 19 the last thing I cared about was saving for retirement.  Will athletic scholarships be deemed to be payment to employees with the government taking out their share?  Football players might come to regret this.

RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - M T - 02-13-2022

If the argument is  "If a football student-athlete is an employee, then so is a field hockey student-athlete", then isn't is also, "If a Division I field hockey student-athlete is an employee, then so is a Division III field hockey student-athlete."?


What is a ballpark of the minimum a college would have to spend for an athlete as an employee?  It depends upon the hours worked, weeks worked, minimum wage, legally required other benefits, and administrative costs (more HR staff, payroll, lawyers).

I think minimum wage is around $15/hour.  I'd guess between 2 and 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, 6 months a year. Call it 150 days, so 300-600 hours.  So ballpark $5K-10K in benefits&administrative.  For a 100-person football team, that's $0.5M - $1M + benefits.  For a 10-person small team, that's $50K - $100K.

I imagine that some of the players in the law suit are thinking of 6 or 7 figure salaries and signing bonuses, rather than minimum wage.

A deep-pocket school might be able to absorb/redistribute that additional expense.  Some/many schools probably can't.

It would seem unfair to charge more tuition to the paying students to cover the cost of wages & benefits to their non-paying classmates (but schools already do that for the lost tuition of the non-paying classmates).  If the schools reduced expenses elsewhere (say, benefits to teachers, campus improvements, reduced research efforts), the effect would be an overall reduction in the value of the education for all students.  Perhaps the most equitable cost reduction would be to reduce benefits to the athletes, such as the quantity/quality of meals or hotels.  Indeed, I can imagine that the amount spent per week for the football team's food would require most of their wages to pay for it.


While I was looking for the number of athletes, or scholarship athletes at Stanford, I ran across this fact.
Quote:During the past year [2020-2021], some 68 students were given football scholarship offers to study at Stanford. Sixteen of the students chose Stanford. Of the 52 who did not, 27 began their college careers in January at another school.

Presumably 68 offers didn't go out at the same time!

College Football Players Association - TooMuchTV - 07-22-2022

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1550540576977694721

RE: College Football Players Association - OutsiderFan - 07-22-2022

(07-22-2022, 11:41 AM)TooMuchTV Wrote:  https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1550540576977694721

No. Way.

Georgia might regret giving Kirby Smart that brobdingnagian contract when the school must start paying the players, and cash brings them in, not fancy coaches and this antiquated "recruiting" model. No way the SEC won't follow the Big Ten with this, or they will find themselves in the same position as when they were holdouts to allowing black athletes, and the Big Ten did.

My only question is when do these pimped out schools stop the pretense and just not even bother with offering scholarships or having academic requirements for the players.

RE: College Football Players Association - TooMuchTV - 07-22-2022

(07-22-2022, 12:29 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote:  
(07-22-2022, 11:41 AM)TooMuchTV Wrote:  https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1550540576977694721

No. Way.

Georgia might regret giving Kirby Smart that of immense proportions contract when the school must start paying the players, and cash brings them in, not fancy coaches and this antiquated "recruiting" model. No way the SEC won't follow the Big Ten with this, or they will find themselves in the same position as when they were holdouts to allowing black athletes, and the Big Ten did.

My only question is when do these pimped out schools stop the pretense and just not even bother with offering scholarships or having academic requirements for the players.
Story from Dan Murphy at ESPN forthcoming. He corrects that the players have not taken steps to form a union but did meet with Kevin Warren.
https://twitter.com/DanMurphyESPN/status/1550540607739031552

RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - lex24 - 07-22-2022

College sports are over if athletes are classified as employees.

RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - jonnyss - 07-22-2022

not sure what to do now, but reminder that this all started in the 50's when the ncaa invented the term student athlete to get out of paying a widow workmen's comp death benefits after her husband died of an on-field football head injury.

i believe (not sure) that there still is no requirement for schools to fund long-term medical care for paralyzing football injuries. 

lastly, this press by players seems the shadow side of the exorbitant salaries for coaches and the humongous growth of athletic admin staff. 

link

RE: NCPA Takes Next Step Toward College Athletes Being Classified As Employees - TooMuchTV - 07-22-2022

Penn State QB Sean Clifford, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren discuss improving benefits (espn.com)