Legal efforts to unionize college athletes appear to be winding down this month as a new Republican-led administration prepares to take over the federal agency responsible for governing employment matters.
A player advocacy group that filed charges against the NCAA, the Pac-12 and USC that potentially opened the door for college players to form a union decided to withdraw its complaint Friday. His lawsuit — first filed in February 2022 — was one of two battles against the NCAA brought by the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Earlier this week, an administrative law judge dismissed the second case, filed by men’s basketball players at Dartmouth.
The National College Players Association, which filed its complaint on behalf of USC athletes, said recent changes in state law and NCAA rules that are on track this summer to allow schools to pay their athletes directly, causing them to reconsider their complaint.
“[T]”The NCPA believes it is best to give the college sports industry adequate time to transition into this new era before ruling on the employee status of football and basketball players,” said Ramogi, the organization’s founder. We wrote in the motion to withdraw the motion.
The NCAA and its four power conferences agreed to the terms of a legal settlement this summer that would allow schools to spend about $20.5 million on direct payments to their players starting next school year. The agreement will be finalized in April.
College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have remained steadfast in their belief that athletes should not be considered employees of their schools during a period when college sports have moved closer to a professional model.
Some industry stakeholders believe the richest schools in college sports will need to enter into collective bargaining with players to end the current onslaught of legal challenges facing the industry. Currently, any collective bargaining must be accompanied by a formal union to provide sufficient legal protection. Some members of Congress say they are discussing the possibility of creating a special status for college sports that would allow collective bargaining without employment. However, congressional aides familiar with the ongoing negotiations told ESPN that influential Republican leaders in Congress are strongly against the idea.
The NLRB’s national board previously declined to make a decision on whether college players should be employed in 2015 when a group of football players at Northwestern tried to unionize. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s leader during the Biden administration, signaled interest in the players’ fight for unity early in her tenure. Abruzzo is not expected to remain as the NLRB’s general counsel during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Under Abruzzo, the agency’s regional offices handled both the Dartmouth and USC cases last year. Dartmouth players won enough to vote to unionize in March 2024, but were still in the appeals process when they decided to end their efforts last month.
The only remaining legal battle over employee status in college sports is a federal lawsuit called Johnson v. NCAA. The case claims the association is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, which does not guarantee the right to unionize but instead gives players some basic employee rights, such as minimum wage and overtime pay. . That case is currently working its way through the legal process in the Third Circuit federal court.