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Notre Dame vs the NLRB
From ESPN:
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — An unfair labor complaint was filed Thursday against the University of Notre Dame for classifying college athletes as “student-athletes.”
The complaint was filed with the National Labor Relations Board by a California-based group calling itself the College Basketball Players Association. It said Notre Dame is engaging in unfair labor practices as defined by the National Labor Relations Act.
The complaint is similar to one filed against University of Southern California last May by the NLRB’s Los Angeles office alleging players on USC’s football and men’s and women’s basketball teams are employees and not “student-athletes” within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
Notre Dame cited its Statement for Principles for Intercollegiate Athletics in responding to a request for comment on the complaint, saying athletics is “an integrated participant in and contributor to the University’s education mission … .”
“Clearly, Notre Dame’s athletic programs are part of — not separate from — our broader educational mission,” the school said. “We will vigorously defend our approach to ensuring that being a ‘student-athlete” describes precisely the educational and developmental experience our students receive at Notre Dame.”
For all of you that thought that NIL, Conference jumping, and the Transfer Portal couldn’t get any worse, you were wrong.
This is a money grab for union bosses, the IRS, and states that have a state income tax. There will be infighting among any number of unions, such as the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Teamsters, and public employee unions across the US seeking to cash-in on college sports.
As an employee rather than a student athlete your athletic scholarship will be taxable. If you’re an athlete in a no income tax state, you will be taxed on an away game in a state income tax state, just like professional athletes are taxed.
State schools will have to navigate public employee retirement plans. The Olympic sports will disappear and women’s sports with the exception of basketball will disappear.
Conferences and Notre Dame might have to renegotiate their TV contracts in the event that there is a strike. No play, no pay.
Notre Dame and USC will not be the only schools that will face NLRB action. Dartmouth was the first and that is fitting as Ivy League schools are very good at screwing up the parade even though they are not very good on the field.
Everyone knows about Murphy’s Law. Murphy was an optimist.
Published in Sports
I have to remind myself once in a while that there is more than just sports at Notre Dame.
Wait a sec . . . are these STUDENT-ATHLETES unionized? If not, why is the NLRB getting involved?
My kids got out of D1 sports just in time.
Maybe every sport will have to be separate corporation to try to keep under federal exemption limits… The regulatory hijinks are probably just beginning… The nation’s dumbest state legislatures will need to worsen it.. Every state in the SEC may secede if football is messed with… and virgin ground for the legal profession to complicate the results.
I find it hard to defend my alma mater here (ND ’85). College athletics has long ago stopped being scholastic. These athletes bring in tons of money to universities and get nothing out of it except a degree that they often can barely earn, if at all, on their own and they don’t really need.
The NCAA is a cabal that sucks up money from the talents of young men and sometimes women and makes it nearly impossible for them to succeed as athletes without going through their system — while not paying them.
I like Notre Dame. I like Notre Dame football. But there needs to come a day when this system is put aright. College sports should return to being club sports played by real students.
I had never even heard of transfer portals until this past season. If that doesn’t highlight the meanlessness of school identity in sports, then nothing does.
One of the great things about being at Notre Dame is the liturgical music. I was in the concert band (and the jazz band/marching band/hockey band). Every year the concert band played in the graduation mass (with the choir) and the graduation ceremoney also. That was the most powerful music I ever had the opportunity to play. (Though this piece is unknown to me.)
A court or an NLRB judge has recently opened the door for student athletes to unionize. The matter isn’t settled, last I heard, but it’s moving along.
This approach could well lead to universities abandoning sports programs altogether. That would completely transform universities and “amateur” athletics. Perhaps for the better. A world without the NCAA could only be an improvement.
Just for fun I watched this Notre Dame freshman several times this year:
Anything unions touch soon turns to merde.
Unions are giving considerable effort to unionizing college athletes. This along with men competing against women will destroy college sports.
Agreed. But they should have been paying these athletes all along, or maybe profit sharing. The current system has been very abusive.
fify
I want this so badly.
In the case of the NCAA sports that mimic the professional big four (hockey, basketball, baseball, and football) I consider the term not very accurate.
But suing Notre Dame over it seems silly.
They like attacking the big name. Gives more publicity.
But Notre Dame could use a bit of refocusing. They’re slipping a bit.
Notre Dame estimated cost to students is about $83,000 a year. If a student scholarship athlete becomes an employee then that income becomes taxable. Athletes that have NIL income have to pay taxes on that income at the present time.
Notre Dame could make them an employee and offer an athlete a scholarship or pay them an hourly wage for practice and games. The problem then becomes housing, meals, and travel costs if provided by ND the athletes would have to pay income taxes on those items.
I know that some people resent student athletes, but ND is a private school. Their TV contract with NBC provides financial aid to the entire student body.
I don’t resent them. I just think they should be paid with money, not just a scholarship.
After I learned that ND’s quarterback was from a transfer portal, and I learned what a transfer portal was, I was completely turned off. He wasn’t really a part of the student body. He didn’t go through freshman year with the others. He was just a gun for hire. That’s fine, I guess, but the connection to my university and its history and traditions were emptied. I just didn’t much care about the game with him in it. I’m sure he’s a good guy, he certainly has good hair and pays a lot of attention to his hair (which I suppose I would too . . .) but he’s not one of us.
I wish him well, but he has removed any connection of football to the student body. They might as well stop the pretense and make the teams into minor league farm teams, and pay these guys what they’re worth without the burden of studying. There’s always time for that, if they want, after their football career ends.
post script: Also, this gun for hire quarterback “opted” to not play in the bowl game. I guess the theory is that it’s a risk to their future in the pros if they get hurt. I think that is pathetic, though I don’t fault the player since he’s not getting paid for it. It’s just another nail in the NCAA’s coffin. College football no longer can claim even the pretense that they are student athletes.