Guest AuthorMany people love college sports. No. Many people are obsessed with college sports.
They wear their colors, paint their cars college colors, names their dogs or even their children after their favorite coaches. They live and breathe their college!
Big-time college sports make big-time money.
The National Labor Relations Board ruled on March 26 that full-scholarship players at Northwestern University in Illinois are employees and therefore eligible to unionize. The university has appealed ahead of a vote by the athletes on April 25.
Northwestern athletes leading the effort say they simply want a seat at the table since they have so little say on injuries, insurance, finances, scheduling and other aspects of their sports.
This proposal will likely change college sports forever and will destroy non-revenue sports. That would include every sport except for men’s football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. Unionizing will help just the small percentage of athletes who play sports that make money.
Furthermore, it is likely to destroy the U.S. Olympic team since most of those athletes are college students who play on teams – swimming, track and field, weight-lifting — that don’t generate profit.
Is this a good deal for college athletes? Probably not. Forbes Magazine states that college athletes receive up to $125,000 in services per year. They include meals, board, tuition, books, professional training, etc.
So what happens to college athletics if football players unionize and athletes are paid? Because Title IX requires that women in sports be given the same opportunities as men, the short answer is “who knows?”
My guess is that because many of the smaller sports will be abandoned, the big-time sports and athletic departments will be more profitable, not less.
Colleges will have fewer professional staff members, scholarships, travel expenses for sports that aren’t producing a profit. The profitable sports will become more profitable even though they have to pay athletes because the non-revenue sports will no longer drag down the profits of athletic departments. That’s just the first of many unintended consequences.
What if a college now requires unionized athletes to pay for additional training on their own? That type of training costs $2,000 to $3,000 per week by trainers leading up to pro days. It seems that if the athletes unionize, they would either have to pay tuition or reimburse for tuition if they drop out early to go pro.
Unionizing college sports would destroy most sports on college campuses, deny thousands of athletes the ability to go to college because they are in non-revenue sports and will have unintended consequences that will have college kids wondering, “Wasn’t it better when we all played a game for free?”
Jamie Miller is a political consultant who lives in Sarasota, FL and is an avid sports fan. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
