The best solution to the current chaos in college football could be a nationwide union. It’s a big job, like eating an elephant.
And the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Via Amanda Christovich of Front Office Sports, Stanford’s football team has formed a “fraternity chapter.” The move comes in partnership with the College Football Players Association.
The CFBPA has been trying to get college players to organize for several years. Stanford’s chapter could be the first of many throughout the country.
Stanford senior Fisher Anderson told Christovich that the ultimate goal is to “do what the NFLPA does for college football.”
There are legal impediments to creating a college version of the NFLPA. Public universities wouldn’t fall within the purview of federal labor law. One potential workaround would be to make the players joint employees of their schools and their conferences, which are private entities.
A political hurdle exists as well. The current administration is staunchly pro-business; the push to unionize would be better timed to occur under an administration that is more favorable to employee rights.
Here’s the overriding question that the players should consider before unionizing. Why do it? The current chaos is good for them, both as to money and as to flexibility to transfer.
Of course, a union is better for players than a Congressional antitrust exemption that would allow the schools to restrict both money and mobility.
For the programs, having a multi-employer bargaining unit would create an antitrust exemption, allowing the universities to create rules regarding pay, transfers, etc. The downside (and the main reason why the powers-that-be resist unionization) is that it would give the players real power at the bargaining table.
Coaches who in some college towns answer to no one would be subject to union rules regarding practices and offseason workouts. And the coaches don’t want to give up their control over the players.
Still, the problems in big-money college sports trace to decades of rampant antitrust violations. Those who made the mess should have to clean it up. And the cleanest solution comes from embracing, not shunning, a players union that would encompass all players in all conferences.
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