I agree, however, many schools will not be interested being on a level playing field installing a salary cap, what bonus can a school in Tuscaloosa or South Bend could offer compared to a school in L.A. or Chicago?
I'm afraid we'll end up with a complicated and fallible system like the UEFA Economic Fair Play where each team will be able to spend a percentage of their revenue plus money from donors on their players with a minimum guaranteed for 1st string players or a "franchise" tagged player. Problem with that is shady book keeping and the infinite amount of loopholes that are going to be exploited, as long as the NCAA never uses its teeth I don't see a point on placing any rule whatsoever.
I have this dream like visual. A packed stadium on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The opening kick off sails high into the air. At that moment both teams just freeze in a protest of solidarity. The ball bounces live around the goal line. Still, no player moves.
The illusion is broken.
There was an effort to do this several years back.
https://www.si.com/college/2016/02/24/northwestern-union-case-book-indentured
Good link Wendy, the narrative of health and safety caught my attention. It reminds me of the nightmare of the Purdue Wilton Speight episode. It was awful that he had to be transported just to get basic X-rays and medical care considering the potential risk & severity of the injury.
They should have a seat at the table when it comes to their own healthcare. Lots of issues after their playing careers are over. Assume they don't go pro. Who's going to pay for those issues? I can't imagine employers want their insurance companies to cover issues that arose during their playing time.
The problem wasn’t just that Speight had to be transported. It was that they transported him with (as it turned out) three broken vertebrae by having him ride in the front seat of a student-driven van. They took him to Purdue’s student health center instead of an actual hospital. Then, since they were unable to send the x-rays to Michigan’s doctors, Speight was transported to a hospital, this time by a volunteer rescue crew (no full-time EMS was available) that wouldn’t turn on the siren to get Speight there quicker until Michigan’s doctor yelled at them.
In all that time, Speight was never immobilized. No neck brace, no back brace, nothing. Only after he got to the hospital (his second stop after leaving the stadium) did doctors immobilize Speight: by calling EMTs at the stadium to bring a back board, because the hospital didn’t have one.
If Grant Newsome’s injury had happened at Purdue, the best medical care he would have gotten would be their engineering department designing his prosthetic leg.
Link below to the Speight story. sorry, phone is not letting me convert that to a clickable link.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/20…
This may actually bring more parity to college football and NIL and other incentives may become less important in the near future... but who knows...
Good luck with that. I don't see this going anywhere, especially with a judicial landscape not friendly towards unions, but let's see what happens.
I have a lot of respect for Sean Clifford after our DL repeatedly contort him last fall.
I didn't even realize he's still the QB there. Seems like he's been there forever but I think he's a legitimately good player.
6th year.
Try recruiting a guy who patiently sits for 2 years, good enough to start for 4, and yet too weak for any NFL consideration after 6.
Better medical care? Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't expect that to be an issue.
I believe it. Was it Wilton Speight who almost ran into some severe issues a few years back due to the shortcomings of Purdue's facilities?
Maybe this is what's needed to get some structure to NIL. It could benefit Michigan to get clear rules.
This is the first step to the rules and regs everyone seems to want - a legitimate body the conferences can bargain with.
Union buster Pat Fitzgerald must be furious!
If Clifford had a better offensive line, he might need better medical care!!!
Net: this is James Franklin's fault. 9 years in and still piss-poor offensive lines at PSU.
Can't argue with you on that one NF.
Do they receive bad medical care??
In West Lafayette they do.
Even if they receive top of the line medical care at the time of injury, many of these injuries require longer term follow up or have implications for additional problems down the line when the average player no longer has access to that care.
I could envision something akin to worker's comp or like the military where our injuries had to be documented upon separation for eligibility for care later.
Remember when this was tried at Northwestern? (just guessing it was in 2010 or 2011). It failed but the unionization thing has come back from the dead. Will it get legs this time is the question.
I imagine this can only help Michigan. With the amount of revenue we get from the BTN, we can out pay the SEC schools for top recruits. Might make up a bit for our lagging NIL.
huh! Every time one thinks this "might help/ could only help" Michigan, the parties involved look at it from a completely different angle. The status quo is quite strong with Michigan. Even the market Force can't move it.
I am picturing a scenario where revenue sharing is mandated across the entire NCAA. So Michigan won't have a choice to hold out, they will be forced to share a set percentage of revenue.
It seems that would be the only way. I just hope that Michigan doesn't get left behind.
Would unionizing as state employees impact outside inducements like NIL?
Better medical care? I mean, aren't they taken care of pretty good? Purdue aside, obviously... Harbaugh and Warde campaigned for better care (or better facilities availability) across the B1G a few years back, so I guess that didn't really take hold like I thought it had. But seriously, don't the get diet/food/training/medical care completely taken care of? I really do wonder what they're looking for with that demand...
They're taken care of in the sense they're made available to play on Saturday. Over the years we've absolutely heard stories wherein the long-term health interests of players were treated of secondary importance compared to their ability to play football.
I assume they're looking for long-term care for players who are injured while playing for the university, the ability to appeal/seek a second opinion on medical matters beyond the team's doctors, maybe more of a say in how, say, a deadly pandemic is handled vis-a-vis availability to play.
the ability to appeal/seek a second opinion on medical matters beyond the team's doctors
Good points. The player's interest is definitely not always the same as the team interest. How many players are declared medically unfit to play just to open up an extra scholarship at some of the football factories? How many players are pressured to practice/play through a 'bell ringer' just to maintain their position on the team?
Not sure how much long-term care is provided though, which (especially with the exorbitantly high costs in the USA under the current system) is a pretty big deal.
Exactly, better care, much better care, than avg Joe in America today. Im about ready to boycott college football now too. Unbelievable, ... clown bizarro world.
So your issue isn't that "average Joe" has bad health care but that college athletes are seeking to make sure they get better care? That's quite a hill to die on but if that ends your college football (and I assume basketball and other college sports because unionization will continue with them) then good luck.
better care, much better care, than avg Joe in America today
So we should make sure that the Average Joe has access to better healthcare, not criticize college football players for trying to get the best healthcare they can get.
Edit: I just saw that bronxblue made the same point, but better stated, while I was typing.
The avg Joe doesn't get hit head on by a Mack Truck every Saturday
I see this as a critical, necessary step. When they say 'there is strength in union,' that's not just an empty slogan--people working together for agreed-upon goals, especially when they're at the bottom of the totem pole, tend to do better than we do when it's every person for themselves. And I have a hunch that schools might see that they're better served dealing with coherent representation than a million lawyers all trying to maximize earnings for a million players. A union might save these idiots from themselves, and could restore something like a level playing field rather than a million speed bumps in the locker room. My worry was that players would take too long to organize and the landscape would be so chaotic that there would be no turning back. Let's get everybody paid, insured, and educated, if we can, while there's still some hope of that. Ninety-five-plus percent of these young men are not the stars that everyone oohs and aahs over here, but still deserve not to be exploited (are indeed more exploited in essential ways) and to have a say in whether they're playing 15 games a year, etc.
Well it’s just another professional sport so you might as well get a union so more money can be thrown at athletes to play a game
Further reading suggests that formal unionization may very well be a product of what they are now doing, which is forming a collective of sorts to represent player interests, but as a member of a union myself, I completely support their efforts.
Kudos to PSU and the athletes for recognizing the power of a union to better advocate for their interests. I'm interested to see if this picks up steam across the conference and the country.
I wish this had happened first, on a national level. It would have brought more order, fairness, and sense to the NIL process and rules, transfer portal, and all the rest of it, not to mention help more student-athletes, not just the 4 and 5 stars.
Here we go again....
I believe northwestern football players tried this unsuccessfully a few years ago. With NIL you’re all independent contractors now
I'm looking forward to the signs and chants that we'll see the players holding when they go on strike.
"Stop the crap or we won't snap!"
This is inevitable because the existing powers will eventually recognize that collective bargaining is the only way the courts / government can legitimate their control. As such, it's an interesting question who else benefits and who suffers from such a move. It's beyond my ken in advance and may even prove to be too hard to sort out after the fact.
Hope it happens and I'd be interested to see whether FBS would operate under a master agreement/standard contract or if maybe the conferences would be treated as locals.
Just another step in the transition from "let's keep pretending this is amateur sport" to acknowledged professional.
I'm much more concerned with how this transition will affect the 99.9% of college athletes playing for teams in the non-revenue sports, which encompasses every sport outside of football and men's basketball, and every football team that won't be part of the split that's coming within the FBS and every non-Division I basketball team.
For the pros, not sure what form this will take. I think the language surrounding the "discussion" indicates an understanding that Pandora's Box is wide open and there's a danger that once the transition from student to employee is acknowledged, the sport will change.