Five football players from Northwestern recently petitioned the National Labour Relations Board to let the wildcats form a union. The NCAA has recently been under a lot of scrutiny because of the unfair treatment they give Athletes. They have been known as being like a dictatorship and this is the case for a lot of non-profit organizations. The Northwestern players are petitioning for health and safety. They say that players who suffer incapacitating injuries can lose their scholarships and face huge medical bills. In order to win this petition the NLRB must see the students as university employees. The most recent case like this denied Brown University graduate students to unionize even though they were paid for their teaching duties in 2004.
Another hot topic regarding college athletes is if these players should get paid more than just the scholarship they receive. College football and basketball generated 4.7 billion in revenue in 2012-13 and these athletes didn't see any of that money, while the head of the NCAA makes 1.7 million. They can't even sign autographs for money without it being a violation and they could be ruled ineligible. The Coaches of these teams are typically the highest paid employees at their institutions and still student-athletes don't see any of that. Many people think that a full athletic scholarship is more than enough, but for some of the big name athletes I just don't think that is the case. This topic isn't going anywhere and college athletes petitioning to Unionize is just another step in the direction of reducing the NCAA's power.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595967-why-college-football-players-want-unionise-wildcat-formation
5 comments:
Interesting article. I think the NCAA needs a bit of a power reduction. They have maintained a monopoly on college athletics for too long. However, would paying players multimillion contracts encourage the players to take academics seriously? Or would paying players merely encourage them to completely forgo doing school work? I do believe that the players should receive some type of reimbursement greater than a scholarship. But the question is: what is fair, yet also reasonable?
Students should be going to school for the education and not the athletics. The scholarships that the athletes receive, helps pay for the education. They are receiving some sort of payment for being an athlete. If an athlete is injured because of training or competition, then they should receive help with their medical bills. Although they may lose their scholarship for not being able to compete anymore, they should at least not have to pay for medical services and their education.
This is a really interesting topic. These athletes generate a substantial amount of money for the university and do not see anything more than a scholarship. As far as being able to unionize and receive benefits, I do not think that it would be a bad idea, especially in sports where they could be severely injured. As far as payment goes, there is starting to be a movement to allow premier college athletes to receive payments, but as for now, I do not see any changes being made anytime soon, even if they are worth more to the university than just a scholarship.
Unionizing and receiving benefits is a serious precedent to set and could turn college sports into professional sports rather than a supplement to a more important education. I believe that this would caught on quickly and the college athletes union would grow to be very big and make it unprofitable for universities to even have those Big Time college programs. Receiving free education along with all the other perks that the players receive through the loopholes and sometimes under the table should be more than enough of an incentive to go to the university and play for that program. I am not very familiar with NSAA but it is certainly a monopoly and has too much power over the programs and individual players.
The NCAA is consistently abusing their power and making huge profits from these college athletes. While kids are meant to go to college for an education many division one athletics have become just another step before going pro. There are many loop holes for these athletes to get paid, scholarships, being able to sell texts books they got for free and many other under the table deals are being made anyway. The NCAA just needs some form of checks and balances so a Student-athlete union might just be the way to do that.
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