Jim Harbaugh expresses concern about prospect of NCAA players unionizing
"The one thing they probably need to look at is, if they are paid something and they become employees, there would be a real chance that they would be taxed, that their scholarship would be taxed as a taxable benefit," Harbaugh told reporters on the weekly Big Ten coaches conference call.
"I don't know if they've really looked at that and wondered if they might not be better off in a situation that they have (now). That's my question. The youngsters might be in a worse position if they're paid something, some amount of money and they become employees of the university."
October 7th, 2015 at 10:30 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:48 PM ^
The graduate student union is called the "Graduate Employees' Organization." And Michigan acknowledges that they are employees in the collective bargaining agreement (LINK here)
October 7th, 2015 at 10:53 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:54 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 11:46 AM ^
Because then the student/employee thing gets even weider.
October 7th, 2015 at 10:52 PM ^
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October 7th, 2015 at 10:53 PM ^
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October 7th, 2015 at 10:49 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:51 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:55 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:18 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:29 PM ^
Yes. This is not a football issue at all (nor any other sport), it's a labor law issue. The only relevant question for a coach on this matter would be how he would describe or classify his relationship with his student athletes vs. that of a head coach on an NFL team whose athletes are considered employees. I'd actually like to hear him answer that.
October 7th, 2015 at 10:45 PM ^
October 7th, 2015 at 10:46 PM ^
I am one that does not agree with the players being paid to play regardless of the money they bring in for the university. I believe that the education, experience, network, etc. is payment enough. I wish I could have used football as payment for my college education.
October 7th, 2015 at 11:19 PM ^
When I am at a podium in an official capacity representing my firm at a federal or state agency, I don't expect nor would I answer questions way outside my duties and expertise, for example questions relating to my staff members' legal employment status within my firm. It's just not appropriate and I would have little to offer, as Harbaugh does. He's the football coach, a university employee with $5M+ in W-2 compensation for his role in the game. Again, I would like to hear him answer the question I posed above.
October 7th, 2015 at 11:13 PM ^
Yes agreed completely. This is not Harbaugh's brightest moment. That's for sure.
And people take Dabo Swinney seriously? Every other word out of that dude's mouth is either god, lord or entitlement.
Just perfect for the looney tunes in South Carolina.
October 7th, 2015 at 10:37 PM ^
The tax issue always strikes me as misguided; you can absolutely have a scholarship that covers room and board be one thing, then some additional income or stipend treated as taxable income. My wife had a scholarship for part of her grad school, then a stipend for the rest. She paid taxes on the latter, and nothing blew up.
This issue has been debated forever, and neither side is going to give in voluntarily, so my guess is that it will come down to a court order. Players will keep filing for opportunities to profit from their efforts and the NCAA/schools will keep fighting it. But based on my reading of the tea leaves from some of the lower court decisions, it feels like an inevitability that at some point we will have a different model for college athletes. And that's probably for the best, as the current one sure feels broken.
October 7th, 2015 at 10:51 PM ^
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October 7th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 5:38 AM ^
You're wrong go16blue. The only thing that solves is allowing the tiny percentage of superstars to make money. It doesn't solve any of the other legal, medical, financial or ethical issues that face the other 99.5% of players & the sport as a whole.
Of course even that doesn't really solve even the likeness issue. Our system is made up of seemingly infinite layers of ripoff, of lies and injustice.
If players were getting a cut of merchandise it would be a pitifully unjust fraction of the profits from the producers & sellers, who have already gotten rich from exploiting and ripping off every facet of the spectrum of people involved.
They have unjustly profited from all the players in history who were never compensated for use of likeness, to the hordes of underpaid US employees, to the literal or virtual slaves doing the manufacturing labor, to the unemployed Americans whose jobs were outsourced to the slaves, or were never insourced in the first place, to the customers who pay about 200 times the cost of production on each item.
October 8th, 2015 at 10:51 AM ^
Agree. it will destroy college football, but at least it won't have any new rules or anything.
Personally, while I agree that destroying college football would be easier than saving it, it would be even easier to simply get rid of it. If players want to play for money, let them. If they want to play for fun, we have intramural sports. If bag men want to pay players for playing intramural sports, they can do so under the pretense of "paying for likenesses."
October 7th, 2015 at 11:57 PM ^
...the players unionize, and universities respond by basically negotiating with union standard 4 or 5 year contracts for all recruits. That included a stipend, scholarship, and some sort of insurance for future lost earnings in case of injury.
[I believe Harbaugh is right, technically the IRS could declare the value of a scholarship as a taxable benefit at any time, though they may have chosen not to do so, thus far.]
But then the universities would own each conract. NFL teams interested in a player would have to buy the rights to negotiate, and buy up the contract at any time, they could. Then the NFL could decide if they wanted "call the player up"- pending succeful negotiations with the player- or allow the player to continue until graduation.
For all the hate lopped on the NCAA and member universities, it is the NFL that benefits the most from the diminished amount of risk it has under the current system.
Meanwhile, the potentially NFL-bound player is putting his future at risk by playing in college in what is basically and extended audition paid for by somebody else- the schools.
The schools meanwhile give out scholarships and other costs to a large number of athletes who arguably will never bring a return on investment (while only a few will).
October 8th, 2015 at 5:45 AM ^
It's not the schools that pay for the extended auditions, it's the fans, it's the donors, it's the other students who pay with their tuition. The school then skims off 100 percent of it and uses it to pay coaches and other staff and to build shit.
October 7th, 2015 at 11:49 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 6:02 AM ^
Always Blue, the very point of the attitude you display is to deprive the players of their rights, their livelihood, and the lifelong medical care they deserve. Why do you pretend you love the players when you only love them as slaves?
You are making up worst case scenarios in order to scare/threaten people into accepting unjust bullshit that shouldn't exist. Why?
Why not think up best case or good scenarios as solutions if you care about players and care about what's right?
Why would it have to be either, or? Instead of funding a minor league from scratch, figure out a way to let pro teams use the existing college system as a minor league.
The NFL teams pay half, or some reasonable percentage, of the player salaries, and half the the lifetime football related medical care, and the NCAA/conferences/schools, would pay the other half out of radio and TV contract money, gate money and their share of merchandise money.
If that somehow ends up meaning less money for coach's and administrators, tough shit, and good!
October 8th, 2015 at 12:06 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 1:40 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 1:40 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 5:38 AM ^
Also,no one considers how the offensive line is going to feel when they are eating ramen and the QB is hanging out at the chop house, with that idiotic they should be able to market their own name idea.
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October 8th, 2015 at 6:29 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 8:34 AM ^
The government came after our stipends as taxable income. Even though my assistantship was non-academic, I was able to stay tax free because I tought courses on Microsoft Office Products, which technically made it a "teaching" position. A few friends of mine lost a little over a hundred bucks a month because they simply did network troubleshooting and didn't teach a thing.
October 8th, 2015 at 8:41 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 9:14 AM ^
I like the current system for reasons both selfish and (I think) unselfish. Shifting huge amounts of money towards a tiny fraction of the top athletes and away from the vast majority of other athletes who don't play football or men's basketball is unhealthy.
First of all, you shouldn't have to limit yourself to football or basketball to have any opportunity. Sorry you're athletically gifted but not 6'5", screw you buddy.
Second, incentivizing people away from sports like soccer or tennis or swimming ultimately is going to hurt the US's ability to compete on a worldwide stage in those sports.
Third, there are only so many opportunities in football and basketball to begin with and way more athletes than can fit in those opportunities. Incentivizing people to try and win those limited chances because you took away their chance elsewhere only hurts them. When some kid who would've been a swimming star chooses basketball instead because you took away all the swimming scholarships, but he's kind of a D-III quality hoops player, that never shows up in any whiny Dan Wetzel columns about unfairness.
The current system offers a HUGE reason to participate in a very wide variety of sports. So football subsidizes them and a very, very small handful of people have to very temporarily put their aspirations of making huge sums of money on hold. I do NOT care. The benefits gained from that far, far, FAR outweigh the costs of "unfairness" currently in the system.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:35 AM ^
Might also lead to some discrimination issues between men's and women's sports, too (example, men's basketball versus women's).
October 8th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
Wahoo, would you rather your post be called poppycock, balderdash, or bullshit? Take your pick.
If any or most of those concerns were legitimate and if you actually gave a shit about them then you'd call for equality of resources right now among all sports. All the luxury and extra expenses and facilities and gear etc., that football and basketball teams and players get should be redistributed among all the sports according to what your objections are. That, or upgrade everything the other sports have.
If you haven't already been calling for that then you're objections are made up bullshit, right?
If there were any principals or integrity involved in your position it would have to include the elimination of profit everywhere in the system.
No advertising or sponsorship allowed on any broadcasts or in stadiums. No uniform contracts. No visible logos on uniforms or equipment. No visible brand names or logos on food or drink containers at concession stands and no brands/logos on signs.
No merchandising of anything.
No charging for tickets or parking.
No paid coaching positions, no paid positions in the entire athletic department. Only volunteers or students who will get scholarships as compensation.
October 8th, 2015 at 10:58 AM ^
I agree with almost all of this. I disagree that football players "have to very temporarily put their aspirations of making huge sums of money on hold." They need do no such thing. They can make as much money playing football straight out of high school as anyone will pay them. No one is forcing them to forgo that for college football; they are choosing to do so.
October 8th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 12:10 PM ^
The problem is that actual people, individuals, are having their rights to earn curtailed.
Not really.
They are free to play professional football straight out of high school, and get payed for it... just not in the NFL.
They have the CHOICE to either go to college and all that entails, or becoming a professional straight out of high school.
They CHOOSE college over becoming a professional straight out of school because they believe it provides more benefits. If they feel that college is exploiting them - they are free to go pro.
October 8th, 2015 at 12:52 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 3:33 PM ^
The players contract into this deal, but a union is meant to give them some bargaining power to change the contract, even out the power dynamics.
...but it will do nothing of the sort. That is the problem with the idea.
And just as the players can opt out and go play elsewhere, they can also get up, en masse, and go on strike. Which would put the take it or leave it decision to the schools. Do they want the labor or not? If so, do things X, Y, and Z. If not, we will see how the market responds to the decision.
Every university in the USA could replace every athlete with willing participants in minutes, and the market reponse would be to go watch the games same as now. The athletes have no real leverage.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:13 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 10:42 PM ^
I think they'd have folks to play by week 2. Thats the long term.
The product wouldn't be great - but they'd get an amazing level of support.
The average person in this country would see it pretty much like they see pro sports stikes. They'll be thinking: That guy getting compensated 2x what my family makes a year is lucky and shouldn't be complaining.
October 8th, 2015 at 10:54 AM ^
"Why couldn't a union demand enough compensation to not only "put some extra money in their pockets", but also enough to cover whatever taxes might be assessed on the value of the scholarship? Or negotiate for a system without scholarships at all, but a salary that would comfortably allow them to pay for their own schooling?"
They could ...but the money largely doesn't exist - anf ro most sports they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
If it happens we'll see:
1) Massive numbers of schools dropping divisions.
2) Loss of almost all men's sports except football and basketball plus enough womens sports to make the scholarship numbers Title IX kosher.
Half the folks in that union making demands would just see their opportunity to get anything at all disappear.
October 8th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
There is no system whereby the players unionize and the great majority of them don't get screwed.
They're already getting renumerated at a rate well above 50% of the HOUSEHOLDS in the USA, most athletic departments lose significant amounts of money and are subsidised by student fees, and even at schools which make money - the majority of the players even on the money making teams have a negative dollar value.
October 8th, 2015 at 12:40 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
Most athletic departments run in the red, but no football/basketball programs do.
Almost half of FBS Football programs lose money according to NCAA data compiled 2004-2010. The rate swings from about 43% to about 47% losing money over the time period.
The median football program makes about $3 million per year.
The median basketball program makes about $750,000 per year.
I'm not arguing for unionization of every student-athlete, and I don't believe anyone has. So the non-union, non-revenue athletes will be screwed. But that isn't the union's responsibility, which is to its members.
There may be some significant labor law issues disallowing that, and Title IX absolutely won't allow it.
And the larger point is that the athletes are unhappy with the status quo.
I'd say that is an assertion not in evidence. Some male athletes in a couple revenue sports are unhappy with status quo would be more accurate.
October 8th, 2015 at 7:23 PM ^
October 8th, 2015 at 10:35 PM ^
Point 1: Are the programs that make money all of the power 5? To be honest, those are the only programs that matter, those are the only athletes that have a claim.
Unlikely. I don't have the data, so I can't be sure - but I would be very surprised if at least a few P5 schools aren't losing money.
Point 2: Title IX has implications for the schools, but not for the athletes.
It does if they decide Title IX means shutting down the football program... but labor law won't let it happen anyway.
October 8th, 2015 at 6:07 PM ^
I'm not arguing for unionization of every student-athlete, and I don't believe anyone has.
Unfortunately, you have to. It's all or nothing. You can't make the claim that football players are employees while swimmers are not. The fact that people pay a lot more money for the football than the swimming makes no difference. Categorizing someone as an employee has always been about the work they do, not the revenue they bring to the organization. And any union leader would laugh in your face if you suggested that workers who build the Ford Fiesta should make less than the Ford F-150. In fact that's one of the things that chaps their ass the most.
By the way, unions have a legal responsibility called duty of fair representation, which is an obligation to represent non-members.
At any rate, either they're all employees, or none of them are, but you can't split it or draw a line based on "revenue" or "non-revenue." If the football players are employees, so are the swimmers. Oh, and if the football players at Michigan are employees, so are the football players at Mount Union....which in a world where football players get paid what they negotiate, would probably put an end to Division III, because you can't pay employees zero.