Doctrinaires who would liberate college athletes by defining them as “employees” would actually be turning them into ditch diggers. Imagine a scenario in which 19-year-old Arch Manning has to comply with an employment agreement with the University of Texas that could limit his paid sick leave if he is injured, subject him to termination and arbitration clauses, and classify his $90,000 scholarship. as subject to tax. labor income even if it has no cash value. How does that improve his position?
A chain of absurdities results from misclassifying college athletes as workers, which some well-intentioned people are trying to do through legislation or National Labor Relations Board cases. Calculate the real impact and this is the kind of irrationality you get. Let’s say Manning becomes a union activist-employee-athlete in Texas and fails a world literature exam. He files an unfair labor practice charge alleging the rating was retaliatory. Is the NLRB really the right body to decide whether Manning read his Cervantes?
The NLRB is the wrong tool to apply to college athletes, and the sure sign of that is that one job classification puts everyone in completely the wrong relationship with each other.
“Some relationships, just by their nature, don’t lend themselves to this,” says Marshall Babson, who was a Democratic appointee to the NLRB during the Reagan administration. “That is not a criticism of collective bargaining. It’s just a question of whether it’s appropriate or not. “There is serious doubt about its applicability in a university environment.”
In this case, it would create inappropriate, impractical and unwanted results. The simple fact is that designating employment in college sports would not create or protect economic opportunities for student-athletes. It would suffocate them. In practical application, it would result in a cloud of costs: There are more than 500,000 athletes in NCAA schools, for whom colleges and universities would now have to pay not only salaries or wages but also FICA, federal and state unemployment taxes. , workers’ rights. compensation, all basic payroll taxes required of large employers.
The new costs would not fall only on schools. Some would fall on the players. Right now, Manning gets his scholarship tax-free and a host of generous medical benefits (the NCAA requires schools to cover all of his out-of-pocket medical expenses) during his playing career, plus coverage for any injuries for at least two years. After graduation. And he doesn’t forget the host of other additional benefits he gets. All that free Texas logo clothing? Taxable. His living place? Taxable. Academic support services? Taxable. How about all those game tickets and suites for friends and family? Taxable. And all those free meals not directly associated with workdays, including catering ones? Taxable. What is the fair market value of all those extras in the eyes of the IRS?
To deal with their new employee status and tax obligations, athletes would likely unionize to negotiate contracts collectively. The result would be a salary scale, in which coveted talents like Manning would take the lion’s share of salaries. But college athletics is a matter of heavily mixed money, including donor donations, tax-exempt bonds, state funds, student fees, etc., and is ultimately non-profit, with the purpose of supporting as many scholarships as possible. possible. That will be impossible in the new model. The practical reality will be catastrophic cuts to Olympic and women’s sports as schools “repurpose the use of that revenue to a small subset of the athlete population,” according to a projection by the Drake Group, a think tank that studies university athletics.
In fact, collective bargaining at universities would result in the furthest thing from the “collective” good for athletes.
Additionally, Manning would likely have to give up some of his financial freedom in a contract. Currently, he can negotiate his own NIL sponsorship deals, transfer schools if he is not satisfied and promote himself however he wants on social media. You can bet that, in a work situation, universities would seek greater contractual control over him and endorsements from him, especially if one conflicts with the school’s interests.
So if Arch Manning is not and should not be an employee, what is he then? What does he do?
Money is deceptive. Don’t let it distract you. A small number of college football and basketball players generate enormous television revenues. That doesn’t define employment, any more than working at a company that loses money doesn’t make you an amateur. The question is whether the hours that an Arch Manning must dedicate to college football are “work” or study. Do they have inherent educational value? The answer is yes. College athletics exist to foster extraordinary student talents that have not yet been developed and require high-level instruction and long hours of practice.
You are training in leadership, commitment, strategic awareness, role playing, duties towards others, decision making under pressure, resilience. The institution that provides this training is not an industry that operates in an open market or a professional sports team that generates its own income. It is a non-profit educational organization with completely different funding and priorities.
It makes no sense to lump together half a million students of different talents and ambitions who are not in any similar situation and legally treat them all as restaurant workers. The most disheartening element in the legal dispute over college athletics is the reduction of the issue to nothing more than money. As if it were an auxiliary, menial job with no real educational meaning or value outside of the dollar. When in reality it teaches something incalculable and frankly impossible to buy. That is, how to manage yourself in a competitive world. Emphasize that and stop turning it into digging ditches.
Keynote USA
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