In my 2012 Wisconsin Law Review article (click here for details) I predicted that the NCAA would co-opt the nascent player labor movement as employers did in the 1930s, when they were confronted with the prospect of becoming unionized. At the 2016 NCAA Annual Convention— about five months after the NLRB dismissed the union organizing petition by Northwestern football players— the recently augmented Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (read: company union) proposed to re-balance time demands on players by legislating a ban on athletically related activities, other than competition, for a continuous eight-hour period between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. The proposal was tabled at the last minute, meaning it cannot be acted on until next year.
A good development? Student-athletes were able to speak freely and critically at the convention. Consider this report from Inside Higher Ed (here):
“Who’s to say we won’t be in this exact same boat next year,
where after a year of work we come here and people say they support the
principle of these time demand proposals but there are too many logistical
challenges and, for that reason, they won’t vote for them,” Nandi Mehta, a
soccer player at Northwestern University, said. “There’s no guarantee that
won’t happen. Eventually we have to take the plunge.”
Ty Darlington, a football player for the University of
Oklahoma, went further, blasting the association’s members for what he said was
a lack of urgency. Darlington said he worried the Power Five conferences, after
using a new autonomous governance structure to approve a number of big changes
last year, had already grown complacent. “I
feel like there should be more significant legislation on the table,”
Darlington said in an interview after the vote. “When we’re talking about the
hot topics, what student athletes really care about, we didn’t hit any of them.
I’m thinking about time demands, transfer eligibility. I’m thinking about name,
image and likeness restrictions.”
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