National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Case Study

The National Collegiate Athletic Association or whats more commonly referred to as the NCAA, they are the governing body in charge of regulating the athletes of the 1,117 institutions that fall under their control (NCAA.com). They are a nonprofit organization that in the 2016-2017 fiscal year had $1.06 billion in revenue.

The NCAA has for years taken a strong stand that providing college athletes with anything more then an education is against what college athletics is about. However many former athletes and even the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ague that college athletes are being exploited to profit the the schools they play for and the NCAA directly and have got to court to settle it.

In January of 2014 the players of the Northwestern university football team presented the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with almost all of the teams union cards. The Northwestern football player on athletic scholarship were trying to file petition with the NLRB to organize a union. Kain Colter, the teams starting quarterback and team captain believed it was important to

change college sports because of the corners of the long term health benefits of the sport. His argument to unionize was that “The current model (of college athletics) resembles a dictatorship, where the NCAA places these rules and regulations on these students without their input or without their negotiation” (AFL-CIO).
In May of 2014, Chicago director of the NLRB ruled inn favor of the Northwestern football players. They ruled that 85 members of the 122 player team should be considered employees with the collective bargaining rights of unionizing. In Chicagos NLRB ruling they noted that they found that the players spend 40 to 50 hours per week playing football and they are solely at the school for the purpose to play football. All bringing $235 million to the school through the football program alone.
According to the IRS on their web site, a full time employee is “For purposes of the employer shared responsibility provisions, a full-time employee is, for a calendar month, an employee employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week, or 130 hours of service per month.” They also have two other methods for determining the status for a full time employee or not, the first is the monthly measurement method and the second is the look-back method. The first method of monthly measurement, an employer determines on a month to month basis if an employee is classified as full time or not. They can look at whether or not the employee has at least 130 hours of work or not. The second, look-back method, the employer determines the full time status of an employee by looking at the what they refer to the stability period, or based upon the hours of work the employee does in a “preceding period.”
Under NCAA rules and regulations, any college athlete may not participate in more than 20 hours of what the NCAA “countable athletically related activities” while in season and eight hours while out of season.
If the NCAA limits the number of hours a week teams can practice to 20 and there is an average of 4.35 weeks in a month, then a typical college athlete only participates in about 87 hours of “countable athletically related activities” a month.

This is well below the IRS’s 130 hours a month required to be classified as a full-time athlete. There is a debate that college athletes well exceed the 20 hour rule of countable athletically related activities. In a 2011 business insider released two NCAA “Student athlete self-report survey”, where college athletes reported that they participate in at least 30 hours a week on average, with baseball and football reporting the have weekly practice commitments of more than 40 hours. This follows a previous separate 2006 survey which also found that college athletes spent on average 45 hours a week participating in countable athletically related

activities.
When we look at these two independent student athlete self-report surveys they portray a completely different side, they show that the NCAA regulations are not working and that athletes are still participating well above the 20 hours the weak. If college athletes actually are participating in 40 hours or more hour a week the this would qualify them as full time employees under the IRS guidelines.
After the Northwestern football players case, a lot of controversy began to arise in college athletics on whether or not they were employees or students first. One side of the argument was the labor relations side. The actually AFL-CIO recently released an article titled The Eight Reasons College Athletes need a Union. The first reason was simply, sports can kill you. Over the year there are numerous of players dying because of on field or practice related problems, primarily concussions. Many people say that the NCAA only cares about the money and does not do enough for the the protection of the players from concussions. “NCAA is on record saying that it has no legal obligation to protect players from head injuries” said the AFL-CIO in its article.
Next the cost of a sports related injury are not covered by the college. In the NCAA, they do not require universities to pay for the costs of the injuries that athletes incur in their sport. Third, an injury can end a players education. When a player gets injury with a college career ending injury they can lose their scholarships and no longer can afford going to school with out them. Many universities do the right thing and continue to honor a players scholarship but under NCAA it is not required. Fourth, the national average graduation rate of football players is about 50 percent. The reason behind this is that schools do not prioritize graduation for these players, only to keep them eligible. Fifth, Athletic scholarship do not cover all of the cost that players face while attending college. A recent study in college athletics has found that athletic scholarship fail to cover about $3,200 in additional costs each year that players can face. With no way to work an additional job to cover these costs it can become a large financial burden on a player. Number six on their list, Players that fail to live up to expectations can be cast aside. When players sign with a school to play but then fail to live up to expectations can be dropped from the team and lose their scholarship and ending their education. Seventh, The colleges and universities that these players play for make billions of dollars off off the talents of these players, yet the players get a very small piece of that pie. The final item on the AFL-CIO list was that ultimately these players do not control their own destiny. Players are controlled in almost every aspect of their college lives either by the university team they play for or the NCAA. Most of the time the players have no say in the decisions that are being made for them.
Plenty of parties have come forward standing behind the decision that college athletics should not classify athletes as employees first and allow them to unionize and perform in collective bargaining. The NCAA argues that allowing players to be able to unionize would ultimately hurt college athletics. Their largest concern is that if they allow college athletes players to unionize then the amateurism of college sports would be ruined. The true amateurism that NCAA says creates a fair and level playing field for athletes with out the endorsement deals and unfair advantage that money can bring to sports. They also say that the “pay to play” method would take away from they equality of all sports. Saying that less popular college sports are at an unfair advantage because they would produce no revenue for the schools or NCAA, so intern would not receive equal funds. Finally according to National Public Radio (NPR), “traditionalists also argue that college sports exist not so athletes could gain profit, but to foster the true meaning of sportsmanship between colleges.”
These are all valid reasons why defining college athletes as employees first rather then students first and allowing them to unionize would devalue what NCAA says college sports stands for. In professional sports each professional sport has a Players Association that are the representing unions that bargain with teams and the leagues for the players. The National Football League Players Association on its website says that its responsibility is “NFLPA has a long history of assuring proper recognition and representation of players’ interests. The NFLPA has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to assure that the rights of players are protected. NFLPA is officially recognized as the union representing the players, and negotiated a landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL.” (nflpa.com). Right no there is a National College Players Association (NCPA) for The National Collage Players association was formed by collage athletes to provide t college athletes to voice their concerns and change the NCAA rules. However the NCPA is not a union. What is can do is help the players on their concerns and challenges with the NCAA when it comes to new rules that it may affect the players and it hurt the athletes. Unlike a union the NCPA they do not have the legal right to engage in collective bargaining with an employer in this case the universities, and the universities are not legally obligated to bargain with them.
The main goals of the NCPA are:
Establish mandatory health and safety standards to minimize college athletes’ risk of serious injury and death from brain trauma, heat illness, and other serious conditions.
Increase scholarship money to cover all costs.
Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses.
Increase graduation rates with an educational trust fund
They are not looking to get the players huge endorsement deals or contracts rather improve the main reasons of playing college athletics. College athletes are young 18 year olds and have their entire lives ahead of them when they first start playing college level sports, so why should an easily preventable injury suffered in college affect the rest of their lives. “The NCAA says it has no duty to protect college athletes and therefore does not enforce health and safety standards. The NCAA says it would not punish a coach for knowingly returning a player with a concussion to the same game. If a player receives a few dollars for signing an autograph, the NCAA would investigate and punish that athlete. If the same athlete dies in a hazardous workout, the NCAA looks the other way. The NCPA has sponsored legislation to establish a commission to do what the NCAA refuses to do – adopt and enforce critical safety mandates” (ncpanow.com). Just like professional player’s associations have done in their respected sports as the role of a union, the NCPA would be able to negotiate with the university and NCAA to better improve the health and safety of the player so they can go on the live healthy lives after college.
Finally I believe the benefits of unionizing far out way to negatives. If college athletics and their individual sports were able to unionize, like the professional player’s associations in professional sports, the could greatly improve player safety, academic achievements and overall personal development of the athletes. Not only would