Forever Saturday

Episode 9: Is It The End?

Episode Summary

Serena and Matt discuss the labor complaint filed by players in the Pac-12 in which they seek to be recognized as employees, which could reshape college sports as we know them. We also touch on the Juwan Howard situation and suspension.

Episode Notes

The Juwan thing is unfortunate
- Neither of us thinks he should have been fired, but it also wouldn't have been unreasonable for him to be fired
- The punishments mostly make sense and seem fair
- It can't happen again
The NLRB Labor Complaint
- This has the power to reshape college sports as we know them
- College players want to be regarded as employees entitled to wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act
- The inclusion of UCLA in the suit is a way of testing the waters on jurisdiction because the NLRB usually only has jurisdiction over private employers
- Discussing the feasibility of the joint-employer theory
- Neither one of us wants to see college sports become full of 24 year olds who flamed out of the NFL or NBA - there's something magical about knowing these kids are in your classes and "just like you"
- Do any of the benefits college athletes currently receive count as wages? There's a good argument that room and board do, but perhaps not tuition
- What happens if they win?
  - Nonrevenue sports could disappear or become club sports
  - Maybe not much changes? It might depend a lot on what the players bargain for
  - What of women's sports? There are some Title IX implications here
  - Could they adopt a grad student model?
  - Might Congress just change the law to exempt college athletes from the FLSA?
- We could talk about this for 1000000 years and not assess all of the possible outcomes, so we have to wait and see

WVU Law Review Article: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6307&context=wvlr