Now This Spells the End for College Sports as We Know It

[The Miami Ute]

A National Labor Relations Board regional official ruled on Monday that Dartmouth basketball players are employees of the school, clearing the way for an election that would create the first labor union for NCAA athletes.

All 15 members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team signed a petition in September asking to join Local 560 of the Service Employees International Union, which already represents some other employees at the Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Unionizing would allow the players to negotiate not only over salary but working conditions, including practice hours and travel.

Read the entire story here: Labor board regional official clears way for Dartmouth hoops union

My take? I’ve been saying for a couple a years that when this happened, that a court ruled that athletes were employees of a school, then you’d see a large number of schools says goodbye to college athletics and focus strictly on education. Why? Because for probably the majority of schools, sports is a money losing proposition and now they’re going to be expected to pay athletes that lose money? No thanks. That’s the point of diminishing returns. Even in bigtime programs, all sports with the exception of football and MBB are money losers.

[MDUte]

Dennis Dodd argues the same thing in his latest article.

Dodd: Dawn of a new age of college athletics

[The Miami Ute]

At the end of the day, it’s all about money. If there’s so much money available that, after paying off athletes, the universities have a nice profit, then I think that college athletics are likely to go on full speed ahead.

But that’s not the likeliest scenario. In my mind, the likeliest scenario is that, after crunching numbers, most universities find that college athletics is a massive burden to their budget and decide to pull the plug on the whole enterprise. The only other real option is raising tuition or state taxes to support athletics and I guarantee that you’re not going to find too many people in support of that.

[UtahMan17]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Good find Miami. Too much money involved to just turn the tap off. Loop holes or new laws always follow the money.

[The Miami Ute]

Jim, you ever hear of the “Golden Rule”? When I was growing up in Miami that was interpreted as “thems that’s got the gold make the rules.” No doubt that there’s a lot of money associated with college football and basketball. The problem is that all of that money is concentrated, relatively speaking, in a few handfuls of programs.

Look at it this way, if college athletes are deemed employees of schools nationwide, and we know that the vast majority of college sports programs do not make money in the current, more equitable system. where’s the money going to come for the Weber States or Idahos or UVUs of the world to both maintain an athletic infrastructure AND play college athletes?

[CityCreekUte]

As long as football pays for football and basketball for basketball I’m just fine with it.

When football pays for tennis and volleyball and has to pay football salaries that’s nuts to me.

[The Miami Ute]

Two words, Title IX…absolutely guaranteed that most bigtime universities would get rid of all non-revenue producing (read football and, except for a handful of universities, MBB) sports but for the fact that Title IX legally compels them to provide athletic opportunities for female athletes.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

All valid points Miami. Not sure where this will end up. NIL ESPN Fox NBC streaming are all ruled by subscriptions and advertising dollars. Maybe the fans should boycott cable, streaming and products that advertise during games. We have the power but not the will power. Ultimately we pay the price. My season tickets and cable bill go up every year. Then donate to the collective so we can steal a good player from a team that can’t pay them as much. Sorry to vent. Money talks bulls**t walks. Maybe it’s time to call bulls**t.

[The Miami Ute]

You’re absolutely right. Fans have all of the power but none of the will. If fans were unionized, they could call the tune like nobody’s business. Because let’s be real…no athlete gets paid because of how fast they are or how well they shoot a basketball…they get paid because large numbers of people watch them compete.