Northwestern football team Unionizes (files)

[sactoking]

So your answer is yes, anyone should be exploited by the universities. You're a sick fuck.

That was a moronic thing to say.

 

[Nintendesert]

That was a moronic thing to say.

Slavery is more moronic, but you're for that too.

 

[Miramonti]

Only a Game

79 Head coaches make over a million while only 22 of the top 120 Football programs make a profit.

College athletics produces revenue. But very few programs produce revenue in excess of their costs. That is, they are net money losers.

Still, if 79 schools can afford to pay their coaches a million plus, I don't see why spreading that wealth around to the student athletes should be a problem. (Other than, the NCAA and the coaches don't want anything to impede their own gravy trains...)

Uno

In other words, 22/120 made so much money, they simply had a hard time hiding it in fuzzy accounting like the other 98.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Team may decide you didn't work hard enough or are not gifted enough to play, and there goes that scholarship next year.

Here, I think you dropped this, let me polish that off for you.

Professor may decide you didn't work hard enough or are not smart enough to get an A, and there goes that academic scholarship next year.

FTFY. People lose scholarships all the time. The winnowing process.

Personally, I think it sucks - being less good football doesn't have anything to do with your ability to be a doctor any more than bombing a history class. But that's the way scholarships work.

The key for a successful union is bargaining position. They have none. If the current crop of athletes boycott the NCAA, the second stringers will trip over themselves to play.

 

[sactoking]

Slavery is more moronic, but you're for that too.

That's a gigantic, unfounded leap of logic to take.

 

[Miramonti]

UPDATE 3/26/14:

Chicago district of the National Labor Relations Board rules Northwestern football players are "Employees" by commonlaw def., win bid to unionize

NLRB regional director Peter Sung Ohr cited the players' time commitment to their sport and the fact that their scholarships were tied directly to their performance as reasons for granting them union rights.

Ohr wrote in his ruling that the players "fall squarely within the [National Labor Relations] Act's broad definition of 'employee' when one considers the common law definition of 'employee.'"

Ohr ruled that the players can hold a vote on whether they want to be represented by the College Athletes Players Association, which brought the case to the NLRB along with former Wildcats quarterback Kain Colter and the United Steelworkers union...

Ruling PDF

IT'S ON!

(Appeals to follow?)

 

[Wreckem]

UPDATE 3/26/14:

Chicago district of the National Labor Relations Board rules Northwestern football players are "Employees" by commonlaw def., win bid to unionize



IT'S ON!

(Appeals to follow?)

The school is already appealing to the full NLRB in DC. Its going to be a protracted case now. Nice to see the NCAA get some egg on its face.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

So everyone here thinks the money NCAA pulls in from bowl games, TV deals and colleges from boosters aren't enough to fund AD's of other colleges if they shared this?

Edit I guess sharing booster money wouldn't make sense. But from the games, ticket sales and TV deals there is a HUGE pot that could be split up.

The NCAA doesn't run the bowl games or the FBS college football championship series -- those are run independently.

 

[smackababy]

The school is already appealing to the full NLRB in DC. Its going to be a protracted case now. Nice to see the NCAA get some egg on its face.

I really don't get why the NCAA is fighting the players on this. A players union would help standardize the treatment of players and help negotiate their rights. Has the NCAA actually come out with any reasons other than "we won't control everything anymore!"?

 

[norseamd]

this is a good start

 

[SunnyD]

I really don't get why the NCAA is fighting the players on this. A players union would help standardize the treatment of players and help negotiate their rights. Has the NCAA actually come out with any reasons other than "we won't control everything anymore!"?

Because $$$.

The NCAA doesn't want to share any of it's billions of revenue it's generating more than it has to with the players.

College athletes (at least NCAA football) can't get a full athletic scholarship to the school of their choice, but a school can give someone an academic scholarship covering full tuition, room and board for four years. Meanwhile the NCAA and the schools themselves are signing advertising and broadcasting deals worth billions.

 

[ElFenix]

I really don't get why the NCAA is fighting the players on this. A players union would help standardize the treatment of players and help negotiate their rights. Has the NCAA actually come out with any reasons other than "we won't control everything anymore!"?

because the NCAA hates students.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Because $$$.

The NCAA doesn't want to share any of it's billions of revenue it's generating more than it has to with the players.

Well and it would undo any sort of parity. The top 20 programs that could afford the best players would thrive, and everyone else might as well play flag football.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Fine, treat the players as employees. Remove ALL scholarships for football and let the players pay their own way for tuition, room & board, books, fees, etc. Then give them profit sharing. See how greedy they are for their slice of the pie when they find out there is no pie. Those free rides will start looking REALLY good.

From Northwestern's site:

Total undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board at Northwestern will increase 4 percent to $59,389 in 2013-2014 from the current year’s $57,108.

A football scholarship is worth a freaking quarter of a million dollars. Take it and shut up or pay your own way.

 

[preslove]

"They make a bunch of money on scholarships" is such a stupid fucking idiotic argument.

Yes, college football and basketball players do get compensated. The problem is that the NCAA is a corrupt cartel that forces the players to work for lower than the market rate. The NCAA stealing their potential wages.

Also, instead of being paid in cash, most of their compensation is in tuition, which they don't value.

 

[Miramonti]

Fine, treat the players as employees. Remove ALL scholarships for football and let the players pay their own way for tuition, room & board, books, fees, etc. Then give them profit sharing. See how greedy they are for their slice of the pie when they find out there is no pie. Those free rides will start looking REALLY good.

From Northwestern's site:

Total undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board at Northwestern will increase 4 percent to $59,389 in 2013-2014 from the current year’s $57,108.

A football scholarship is worth a freaking quarter of a million dollars. Take it and shut up or pay your own way.

I don't think this will gut the whole free ride system, but allow for negotiations between stipends and medical coverage, as well as guaranteed scholarships so that when players are injured in sports, they don't have to leave the school, and other issues etc. These things may be called different things when it's all said and done, but I believe much of the structure will still remain, only be better for the athletes.

 

[MetalMat]

College Football is the third most popular sport in the USA right behind MLB and the NCAA still wants to pretend that it is on the same level as something like water polo while they continue to rake in tons of cash.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

"They make a bunch of money on scholarships" is such a stupid fucking idiotic argument.

Yes, college football and basketball players do get compensated. The problem is that the NCAA is a corrupt cartel that forces the players to work for lower than the market rate. The NCAA stealing their potential wages.

Okay, what is the market value for an amateur football player? Who is willing to pay them to play? For the overwhelming majority of them the NFL and CFL wouldn't pay them a dime, so their market value is ZERO. And how are they being FORCED to do anything? Most guys try out and work their asses off to be ALLOWED to play.

 

[preslove]

College Football is the third most popular sport in the USA right behind MLB and the NCAA still wants to pretend that it is on the same level as something like water polo while they continue to rake in tons of cash.

Yup, they're "scholar athletes" playing a game that causes brain damage...

Utter hypocrisy.

 

[momeNt]

I wonder if this can help pave the way for minor league NBA and NFL systems. Alumni and school spirit is what really drives the NCAA machine though.

 

[preslove]

Okay, what is the market value for an amateur football player? Who is willing to pay them to play? For the overwhelming majority of them the NFL and CFL wouldn't pay them a dime, so their market value is ZERO.

"Amateur football player." 🙄 I thought they were already being paid enough? Doesn't that make them professionals?

All those one and done basketball players certainly would be making millions of dollars instead of tuition if the NBA and the NCAA didn't collude together and ban high school players from entering after high school. Are you really this much of a fucking idiot?

If there wasn't a corrupt cartel called NCAA football, someone would gladly fill that vacuum. The NCAA is a huge parasite that steals the wages of players.

 

[momeNt]

"They make a bunch of money on scholarships" is such a stupid fucking idiotic argument.

Yes, college football and basketball players do get compensated. The problem is that the NCAA is a corrupt cartel that forces the players to work for lower than the market rate. The NCAA stealing their potential wages.

Also, instead of being paid in cash, most of their compensation is in tuition, which they don't value.

Forcing? Do tell.....

All the money is in the school name and the alumni that are devoted to the school. The athletes on the field don't make the product like the NFL or the NBA, it's the school name.

 

[Bateluer]

Aren't these college students? They're priority should be on their studies, not football. Education first, games second. A very, very distant second. Probably 3rd or 4th.

 

[momeNt]

Aren't these college students? They're priority should be on their studies, not football. Education first, games second. A very, very distant second. Probably 3rd or 4th.

Go tell that to any SEC program.

 

[Miramonti]

Aren't these college students? They're priority should be on their studies, not football. Education first, games second. A very, very distant second. Probably 3rd or 4th.

5 words you'll probably never heard in a top D1 football or basketball program: "Sorry coach, I had to study."