College football players can no longer unionize, says NLRB

The historic 2014 ruling allowing Northwestern football players to unionized has been dismissed.

Remember back in March 2014 when a regional National Labor Relations board director in Chicago ruled that football players at Northwestern University would be able to form a union? Remember how revolutionary that ruling was going to be for college sports and what could it eventually lead to? As it turns out, what it actually led to was a Federal NLRB decision on Monday morning to overturn the initial ruling.

All five members of the NLRB voted unanimously on Monday to dismiss the March 2014 ruling regarding Northwestern. As reported by ABC 7 in Chicago, the ruling came as the board decided that allowing Northwestern football players to form the country’s first college athletes’ union could create competitive imbalance while also citing that the initial ruling does not “promote the ‘uniformity’ and stability between workers and management” that the NLRB strives to achieve.

The board’s reasoning as to how a college athletes’ union at Northwestern could lead to competitive imbalance isn’t unsound. The NLRB says that the initial ruling could lead to “different standards at different schools.” This could trickle down to practice time, money players receive, and so on. If one school offers a better package simply because of how their respective union negotiated, that could help them on the field.

What’s interesting about the ruling is that, among the 16-page ruling that was handed down on Monday, there was no mention on the burning question about whether or not college football players are considered employees by law. Though this ruling is significant, that issue is at the heart of the entire matter and the NLRB did nothing to address it.

Also important to note in this ruling is that the initial decision and this dismissal have only ever applied to private universities. Public universities do not fall under the NLRB’s jurisdiction and have therefore not been affected by any of this. However, those in support of the NLRB’s initial ruling have encouraged athletes at state schools to push for unions.

In the end, this is a huge step back for those in favor of college football players and athletes alike being compensated and treated as employees creating a great deal of revenue for the university. What’s next for those in support of that plight remains to be seen. All that we know now is that the foot that they had in the door has now been pushed out.

The NCAA has also released a statement on the ruling:

The NLRB's decision to reject jurisdiction and dismiss the union petition in the Northwestern case is appropriate. pic.twitter.com/5Ar0ZqMPnt
— NCAA (@NCAA) August 17, 2015

The historic 2014 ruling allowing Northwestern football players to unionized has been dismissed.

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