Figure 1: NCAA Logo from NCAA.org
In recent years, it’s come to light that the athletic programs and departments of numerous universities have been making tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in revenue off of their NCAA athletes. Although, the catch here is that the only ones profiting are the colleges and departments themselves. The actual players who are the main reason all this revenue is generated see no real payment in almost every single case. Therefore, would it be right under the Fair Labor Standards Act of the United States that these NCAA athletes be considered employees and paid for their work?
Before getting into everything, what exactly is the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA in the first place? The FLSA was established in 1938 and states all of the basic workplace regulations for employees in the United States in terms of legislation. It’s mainly enforced by the Department of Labor. In regards to this topic on the NCAA, it is explicitly stated by the Department of Labor that student-athletes are excluded from being considered employees. This essentially provides justification for athletic departments to not pay their athletes or follow the FLSA’s regulations for those athletes.
Despite the explicit statement from the Department of Labor, the law’s morality and existence itself are still debated by members of society because of the massive magnitude some of the athletes generate. Should the law be changed to include athletes or should it stay as it is now?
These deliberations and debates have even extended into numerous court cases in the past couple of years, but the main points of contentions can be broken down into the following points for each side of the argument.
Figure 3: Image from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/college-athletes-getting-paid-here-are-some-pros-cons_b_58cfcee0e4b07112b6472f9a
In support of considering athletes as employees under the FLSA:
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Most student-athletes are economically dependent on the sports they play, therefore it must be considered as work.
According to the US Department of Labor, workers who are economically dependent on the business of the employer, regardless of skill level, are considered to be employees under the FLSA.
Peter Jacobs from Business Insider states student-athletes work more than 40 hours a week which prevents them from getting another job since sports take up so much of their time. This places them at an economic disadvantage to begin with since they have more difficulty earning money compared to normal students. According to Ramogi Hanuma, President of the National College Players Association, 86% of the athletes are in poverty as a result of this. He additionally states, “While about 80% of these players received scholarships that left them living below the federal poverty and with an average scholarship shortfall of $3098 in 2010-11, their coaches were paid an average of over $2.5 million in 2010 (excluding bonuses)” This additionally highlights the enormous disparity that exists between impoverished athletes and students as a result of the status quo.
Student-athletes are working and putting in a tremendous amount of effort into their sports because they understand that those sports are their only path to any income that can sustain them through the form of scholarships, yet some of those scholarships aren’t even enough most of the time. It’s clearly evident that most of these student-athletes are economically dependent on their sport; therefore, their labor must be considered work according to the FLSA itself.
- Employee status would officially allow students to unionize and fight for better rights and conditions in their work.
Phillip Litchfield states that universities have been immune from judgments that other employers would typically have to pay since they don’t consider their athletes as employees. For this reason, worker’s compensation and tort claims for students have not held up in court cases. With the consideration of student-athletes as employees, this would give them large leverage for securing their own safety and rights.
For example, in the case of the UWUA, workers and employees are given the ability to collectively bargain, secure workplace rights/safety, better employee benefits, which has greatly improved their quality of life for them
Having the right to unionize would be greatly beneficial for student athletes, as it would allow them to confront the university on important issues, such as not being able to eat, or being over-worked. Employee status will provide student-athletes with numerous rights and powers that current worker unions tremendously benefit from and allow them to do the same.
Figure 2: Gif from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opinion/pay-college-athletes.html
Against considering athletes as employees under the FLSA:
- Recognizing athletes as employees would be creating serious inequality with other non-athlete college students or even other athletes themselves.
Bridget Shanley 2014, (Examiner at Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) examines that classifying the student-athletes as employees puts further emphasis on them to focus on athletics only by stating upfront that their employment is for athletic, not scholastic, performance. Further, this classification would only apply to student-athletes receiving scholarships which would deter non-scholarship student-athletes from playing entirely.
If the FLSA ends up making a student’s worth and work base upon their athletic performance and not their urge to learn, colleges will have the opportunity to completely disregard scholastics itself and refute the importance of education. In fact, they might even be encouraged to implicitly due to the potential to generate massive revenue. This would have major impacts in the sense that the students will struggle later on in life with jobs and quality of life if they aren’t able to get a strong education while attending a university.
- Economic stress would be caused for ALL students in college, not just athletes.
According to Cork Gains, Title IX requires equal treatment across the athletic spectrum, which means even athletes in programs that don’t generate revenue would be paid. This might rack up costs quickly for smaller D2 or D3 schools that aren’t able to generate enough revenue from their popular sports to cover all the other expenses.
Matt Krupnick of Washington Monthly states that as a result, athletes’ pay could come out of student fees in order to compensate for the lack of money for paying the less popular sports at universities. This would lead to tuition rates that are even higher than the massive ones in place now. Concurrently, this would generate another massive negative impact by increasing student-debt as well across the nation for ALL students, not just 2.2% of students that are athletes.
Conclusion:
Both sides of this issue present valuable arguments and points to consider. Most student-athletes are indeed economically dependent on the sport they play for scholarships and would greatly benefit from unionization, but would that all come at the cost of increased polarization between sports and higher tuition for all students across the board? The concept remains heavily debated, and more and more information is brought to light by the day. Therefore, this US Domestic Policy issue might be in deliberation for a long time before any certain conclusion is reached. Leave a comment below about what you think should be done if you’d like to share!