Northwestern Players Can Become First College Union, NLRB Rules

Bloomberg News

Northwestern University's football team has the right to form the first labor union in college sports, the National Labor Relations Board ruled.

'We had both the facts and the law on our side,' Gary Kohlman, the attorney representing the players, said in a telephone interview.

NLRB Regional Director Peter Ohr didn't immediately return a message left at his office. Northwestern plans to appeal to the full NLRB in Washington, the school said in a statement.

'It's a very significant move,' James Quinn, a senior partner at New York-based Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, said in a telephone interview. 'Given all of the other pressures on the NCAA and member institutions, things are going to change.'

The NLRB governs the rights of private-sector employees, meaning that the ruling only affects athletes who compete at private schools. Public-school players seeking to unionize would have to gain approval from state-run labor boards.

The Northwestern players formed and submitted a petition to the NLRB in late January, seeking to give 85 scholarship players the right to vote on representation and stating that National Collegiate Athletic Association rules were unjust.

The group is trying to secure guaranteed coverage of sports-related medical expenses for current and former athletes, as well as compensation for sponsorships. The players also are seeking to create a trust fund to help former players finish their degrees and push for an increase in athletic scholarships.

Hearing officer Joyce Hofstra heard five days of testimony last month from individuals called by the players and the Evanston, Illinois, school.

Football Time

Quarterback Kain Colter, a cofounder of the players association who compared the NCAA system to a dictatorship before the hearings, testified that players spent 40 to 50 hours a week on football and had to sacrifice their bodies to do so. He also said that the time commitment kept him from pursuing a plan to enter the school's pre-med program.

Among people Northwestern called to testify were football coach Pat Fitzgerald, school administrators and three former players who said that football didn't keep them from succeeding as students.

College athletes, who can receive scholarships but are not paid, help generate more than $16 billion in television contracts, as well as revenue from sponsorships, ticket and merchandise sales, and payouts for championships.

The NCAA and five top conferences were sued twice this month by college players seeking to improve their financial standing.

NCAA Cartel

A group of football and basketball players filed an antitrust suit that called the organizations a 'cartel' that generates billions of dollars while illegally capping the pay of student athletes. The suit is seeking to bar the NCAA and the conferences from stopping schools that want to compensate players.

Also this month, the NCAA and five conferences were sued in San Francisco by Shawne Alston, a former West Virginia University player who claims they conspired to limit the value of scholarships to less than the actual cost of attendance.

The NCAA also is a defendant in a case brought by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon and other athletes, who seek to profit over the use of their likeness in video games.

The United Steelworkers Union backed the players' NLRB petition and is paying their legal fees.

The case is Northwestern University, 13-RC-121359, National Labor Relations Board, Region 13 (Chicago).

To contact the reporter on this story: Mason Levinson in New York at mlevinson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net Dex McLuskey