Pac-12 football players threatening to hold out unless safety demands are met

More than 50 athletes plan to boycott the 2020 season if the Pac-12 does not comply with their ideas for a safe season and future.

College athletic departments are in disarray as more and more leagues make the difficult decision to cancel or postpone fall sports, and the Pac-12 is now facing opposition from within its own ranks.

Rudy Carpenter, who played quarterback at Arizona State University and now hosts a college football podcast, posted a Twitter thread that laid out several demands made by a group of student-athletes at Pac-12 schools. The players plan to sit out the 2020 season unless their requests are implemented.

According to Carpenter, the demands are being spearheaded by a group of athletes at the University of California, but there is support for the plan across every football program in the conference. The demands aren’t small either. They include a 50 percent share in season revenue, expanded COVID-19 testing and safety protocols and six years of health insurance after graduation. Players had apparently hoped to form a union prior to the season but settled on a boycott due to a lack of organizational time.

While bold, the demands are certainly not unreasonable. Sharing in revenue would act as hazard pay for athletes putting their health and lives in far more danger than any other season. Athletes certainly deserve more than their standard scholarship money if they need to put themselves at risk to make their school money. Without knowing the possible long-term effects and complications of COVID-19, health insurance is an incredibly relevant ask as well.

The Pac-12 has yet to make a statement on the players’ demands, but if this keeps gaining traction, they won’t be able to avoid it for much longer. The conference joined the Big Ten in restricting its football teams’ schedules to only in-conference games, and all institutions will honor athletic scholarships if the season is canceled or players choose to sit out the season. That makes these demands more likely to be taken seriously since players can opt-out this year and maintain their scholarships.

With name, image and likeness legislation being widely considered and the unprecedented conditions of this season, this does seem like the perfect time for college athletes to finally make a push for what they feel they’re owed. They’re raking in millions of dollars a year for their universities, so providing them with healthcare during a pandemic seems like the least the Pac-12 could do.

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