On March 5, 2024, in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Dartmouth College’s men's basketball team overwhelmingly voted to unionize. This could mean that, if successful, this would be the first labor union for collegiate athletes, forever changing college sports. At the heart of the issue is the question of whether collegiate athletes are scholars or athletes first, and if they are the latter, are college athletes employees?
The NCAA, whose president is former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, says its players are “student-athletes.” But with some college sports generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, some question whether students are anything but athletes. The multi-billion dollar industry of college sports up until recently brought in money to schools and coaches, but athletes did not financially benefit. College athletes were not able to make any money until 2021, when the NCAA standardized a practice following the successful passage of a California law in 2019 that allowed college athletes to make money off of their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). This change allowed athletes to have corporate sponsorships, endorsements, and receive money from boosters.
Still, for the vast majority of NCAA athletes, NIL has meant no change at all. It is estimated that about 519,000 out of the 520,000 active college athletes make no money, as most of the endorsements and money flows into two sports: mens basketball and football. Treating college athletes as labor would mean that, in theory at least, athletes would be seen as employees and should therefore receive monetary compensation for their job as an athlete for their college.
To some, it may be surprising that the push to unionize is coming from a mediocre basketball team in the Ivy League. Dartmouth recently ended their season with a 5-21 record (1-12 in the Ivy League), and their last winning record was in the 1998-99 season. They also hold the record for the longest active streak of not appearing in the NCAA tournament (the team last made it to the tournament in 1959). Perhaps a Power Five football team like Georgia or Michigan is where one might expect unionization efforts to be successful, as their programs are often characterized no differently than professional football. But when the Big Ten’s Northwestern football team attempted to unionize back in 2014, it was unsuccessful because public universities are part of the Big Ten and thus do not fall under the control of the National Labor Relations Board.
Treating intercollegiate athletes as employees raises many questions and the issue is certainly complex. For instance, will a field hockey player at Colgate and a wrestler at Davidson benefit in the same way as a cornerback at Alabama or a point guard at UConn? How will some sports and teams fare if they do not generate any revenue at all? Some say colleges may choose to change some varsity teams into club teams or cut some teams altogether. Will men and women playing the same sport at the same school benefit in the same way? Will Boston College’s women’s ice hockey team benefit and negotiate in the same way as its men’s counterpart, currently ranked #1 in the country in men’s hockey? What about a college/university’s status as a 501(3)c if student-athletes are designated employees? And can a student-athlete be fired if they are not performing well and if so, would they get to remain on campus as a student if they are primarily an employee?
If the Darmouth’s men’s basketball team is successful in unionizing, there is no question that we will see a trend of unionization across the NCAA. Certainly, there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue on whether college athletes ought to be designated as employees, but one thing is clear, the cat’s out of the bag and the 13-2 vote to unionize by Dartmouth's basketball team in early March has already changed the future of college sports.