Monthly Archive: March 2014

So the Chicago regional office of the NLRB ruled that Northwestern is an employer and that its football players are employees who may elect to form a union. The decision however did not directly address the NCAA. At first glance the NCAA may not be bound by this decision since it is not labeled as the “employer.” However, what is to stop the NCAA from deploying its nuclear option and simply creating a bylaw stating that any player in a union or any player who is an “employee” is ineligible for competition. Well, there are two main obstacles, one from a practical perspective, and another from the legal side. Let’s begin with the legal element.

The National Labor Relations Board decided in favor of Northwestern football players’ right to unionize by saying scholarship players are “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act. While this has been considered a Midway-esque victory in what could be a shift in the landscape of college athletics under the NCAA banner, we are still far off from realizing a college athlete union.

Standing in the way of scholarship athletes and “complete victory” are: (1) State-labor laws, (2) an appeal by Northwestern (3) Title IX, (4) the U.S. Tax Code, and of course, (5) the NCAA itself. Before you celebrate the demise of the current NCAA model, consider the difficult road ahead and the possibility that the Board’s decision will be overturned or severely limited.