NLRB Decision a Huge Step towards Fairness in College Sports
On March 26, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 13 director Peter Sung ruled that Northwestern football players had the right to unionize, finding that the players are employees of the university. The ruling comes in the midst of the holy grail of college sports, March Madness
The effect of this ruling is currently unforeseeable, but it has the power to eliminate amateurism in college athletics and facilitate change in the college sports world. The decision is an important step towards justice for college athletes everywhere.
The NCAA, a “non-profit organization,” has taken advantage of loopholes in the current system to make billions of dollars. For example, according to a PBS Frontline interview with sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, college athletes sign away the right for the NCAA and their college to use their image to promote their University or the NCAA. They don’t sign away the right to have their image commercialized for the profit of their schools or the NCAA.
“In other words, if the NCAA wants to run an advertisement on television that says, “Starting next week, March Madness will be on,” and they have a picture of the UCLA center dunking a basketball, that’s what he has signed away,” said Zimbalist. “But that … advertisement itself doesn’t bring the NCAA money. What brings the NCAA money is if they then take that and they sell that image to EA Sports. EA Sports goes out and they sell that, and then they give the NCAA or UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles] or both some royalty for having sold that.”
Meanwhile, the NCAA has restricted its athletes from receiving any of the money they generate by insisting that amateurism must be maintained in college sports. The NCAA merely uses the idea of amateurism as cover up for its greed and its selfish motivations.
Those who strongly oppose athletes being paid need to realize just how unfair the current system. It can’t get any worse. By giving athletes the power to unionize and negotiate, the NCAA will be forced to share its profits, and some level of justice will be restored in college sports.