The 5 biggest threats to the NCAA’s existence

3. Unionization

Let’s start by saying that a player’s union isn’t going to destroy the NCAA. One may form, one may not, but the simple existence of a union in college football or basketball or in any NCAA sport is not really why unionization is so threatening. If anything the simple utterance of the word “union” evokes a visceral enough response from enough people that the whole concept is as productive to the anti-NCAA cause as it is detrimental.

No, a union forming isn’t all that dangerous to the NCAA in the greater scheme of things. What is dangerous is the legal blow the NCAA was dealt by the National Labor Relations Board when they ruled on the case. When the NLRB ruled that players at Northwestern had a right to form a union it essentially said that all the talk about players being students first, and education being the main mission is a bunch of self-serving hooey — players are de facto employees of the university and as such they can unionize.

The ruling shines a light on some of the more staggering hypocrisies inherent in the NCAA’s current business practices. It got congress to start fact-finding. It made national headlines. It got fans and media personalities all over the country to stop and consider the question of paying athletes.

For an organization that is looking to preserve the status quo, that can be exceedingly dangerous.

Especially when you consider that the NCAA and its members are essentially doing what they’ve been accused of. Granted, the NCAA gets an assist from the National Football League and the National Basketball Association here, but it — and its members — are colluding to fix the market value of its athletes.

A few years ago, when the NBA still allowed players to jump from high school to the pros you could actually make the other argument — nothing was holding a talented 18 year-old back from earning what he was worth. But with restrictions on how many seasons must pass between high school graduation and being allowed to sign a pro contract, the NCAA’s members can effectively set market value.

Now, it’s really not worth splitting hairs over whether any high school senior could make an NFL jump or countering that a college athlete is given a valuable academic scholarship for his labor. Both of those fail to address the fact that in a truly free market the labor of some of these college athletes is indeed far more valuable than any level of compensation that athlete is being given — or is even allowed to be given.

All idealism aside, the way things are right now, college athletics are a commercial enterprise for everyone but the athletes who make it all possible. The coaches, the administrators, the universities, the NCAA officials and directors, along with thousands of others — myself included — make a living on college athletics. That doesn’t mean getting to take classes, or getting a meal card or getting to live in a dorm — it means money. Dollars and cents.

Regardless of how you feel about unions or paying athletes, the fact all of this is getting discussed and brought to the forefront is not good news for the NCAA’s long-term interests — that is, continuing to maintain the status quo under the guise of “amateurism.”

As Mark Emmert said in July: An end to amateurism “would be the end of college sports as we know it.”

To which, the anti-NCAA camp would reply: Isn’t that the point?