Americans protest when institutions fail to meet their needs. It’s a tradition. Now college football players are taking on the NCAA asking for health and other benefits in exchange for play.
These aren’t any football players, either. They’re gridders at a leading U.S. university, Northwestern, and they’re led by Wildcat starting quarterback, Kain Colter.
Courtesy: ESPN.com
It’s the latest chapter in a much longer book. This chapter is an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board requesting that college athletes unionize. At issue is an interpretation of existing labor laws.
The players claim that “student-athlete” (the NCAA’s label of choice) has instrumental value: it enables the Association to skirt labor laws. The designation was coined by the Association decades ago, in part, to inhibit injured players from filing workers’ compensation claims. But the players say they’re really university employees. NCAA attorneys say they aren’t, and with that, shouldn’t be permitted to unionize.
Push is coming to shove. Last season players from NU, Georgia, and Georgia Tech wore A.P.U. emblems—All Players United—during a game-day Saturday. On New Year’s Day a plane flew over The Rose Bowl carrying this banner: “Wake Up, NCAA!” And in September 2013 Electronic Arts (EA) Sports agreed to pay former college players $40 million dollars. It was a court settlement associated with the unauthorized use of players’ likenesses in EA’s electronic college football game.
It’s odd that any of this would be happening at colleges, places that take pride in optimizing the student experience. But universities are many things. They are also corporations, its presidents CEOs, and big-time sports an industry where business- and PR-savvy ADs oversee large and multifaceted sports programs.
In 2012 the athletic revenues for the top 5 revenue-producing schools were $163 million (Texas), $142 million (Ohio State), $140 million (Michigan), $125 million (Alabama), and $121 million (Florida). Fifty schools had revenues of $50 million dollars or more (source: USA TODAY). It’s BIG business indeed.
The possibility of offering additional benefits to football players is no small matter. Balancing revenues with expenses is a tight squeeze at most schools—even without offering players additional compensation. So it makes dollars and sense for the NCAA to protect big-time sports—football in particular—from incurring additional costs. Yet, the current situation is imposing: front-line workers (the players) in this multi-billion dollar business receive intern-level compensation.
Institutional self-interest aside, there’s the overarching matter of doing what’s right. That’s how Peter Drucker, the late organizational guru, defined leadership—doing the right thing, at least trying. It’s not easy, though. It often requires shaking up the system—if not the culture—to change the status quo.
That’s exactly what Pope Francis is doing in The Catholic Church; and his approach represents a template the NCAA might emulate.
Courtesy: static.guim.co.uk.com
Francis launched his tenure by talking publicly about issues that matter to everyday people. He didn’t take the traditional approach of gathering with fellow executives behind closed doors and then announcing outcomes to the public. Lesson #1 NCAA.
Rather than defend Church’s practices the Pontiff critiques the Church, admitting its shortcomings. He also raises questions, opens up dialogue, and enables consideration of alternatives. Lesson #2 NCAA.
The Pope has a populist philosophy. People come first. He focuses attention on people living in disadvantaged circumstances, not rich and powerful people who are in the best position to donate money and render influence. Lesson #3 NCAA.
Francis doesn’t protect existing Church systems and protocol. He seeks to sustain the core while modernizing the way things are done. That way, traditional features and contemporary realities can connect meaningfully and responsibly. Lesson #4 NCAA.
The Pontiff is changing the Church’s power structure. He’s making leadership changes, replacing the old guard with colleagues who share his philosophy and are open in style. Lesson #5 NCAA.
It’s an institutional overhaul, plain and simple, and Francis is giving the world a short course in change.
He’s a role model, too. He didn’t inherit an atypical situation; it’s just an extreme case of a common organizational disease. All institutions are founded to serve the public good, but institutions tend to calcify over time. It’s the institutional version of hardening of the arteries in human beings. When that happens, attention shifts to internal matters and that puts more emphasis on management and less on leadership.
Leadership is clearly the Pontiff’s focus. He’s accomplishing it by opening up a conversation about doing the right thing. Answers to controversial questions are neither automatic nor obvious, but critical questions are being raised and, then, considered—more openly and more inclusively—than at any other time in recent memory. Lesson #6 NCAA.
The NCAA needs to do all of this, but it’s not happening, at least not yet. Instead we find players organizing, attorneys functioning as spokespersons, and the legal system involved.
Why? The NCAA earns a grade of A+ in making money and overseeing a major college system that mimics professional leagues. It gets much lower grades for giving meaningful attention to issues surrounding college sports. For example, with so many minority players on the field, why don’t we have more minority head coaches?
Courtesy: Atlantic.com
The system is full of problems—cross-cutting the country and at particular schools—so much so that college sports have become front-page press fodder. Consider the title of Nathanial Popper’s piece that appeared in The New York Times a few days ago (January 26): “Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade.” Or take this Fox News report on January 29: “UNC chancellor admits ‘failure in academic oversight’ in fake classes scandal.”
Despite the gobs of money earned and spent on college sports the system sorely needs change.
So the sign that hovered over The Rose Bowl on January 1 makes sense: “Wake up, NCAA!” The implications are clear: Reach out, engage, and do what’s right before it’s too late. If you don’t, what comes later may be more onerous than today’s challenges.
One reason is that football—the sport that generates the most revenue—also carries the most financial risk. The risk is associated with the degenerative brain disease, CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), and the implications the disease has for players in later life.
Who’s going to be responsible—and bear financial obligations—when former college players need medical and related health care? With that in mind it’s not surprising that guaranteed, long-term health care is a matter of player concern, a motivator for the unionizing effort.
The NFL tried to get ahead of the issue (and the lawsuits that could follow) by settling with the NFL Players Association in a $765 million payout over twenty years. But the matter is now back in the court system, concern expressed by a judge that $800 million may not be enough to cover the needs of all players.
In a New York Times article (January 31) Alan Schwartz reports that total bill may end up being as much as $1 billion. That estimate is based on what’s known about the health conditions of retired players and the rates they’re experiencing CTE, dementia, and other neurological and related disorders.
What might happen to major college football—and all non-revenue sports it supports—if former players file a class-action suit against the NCAA and its member institutions…and win a significant settlement? There’s a larger question, too: What’s the NCAA doing to reduce the occurrence of head injuries?
To address this and other matters the NCAA needs to follow Pope Francis’ lead. But it won’t be able to do that without leadership and an organizational culture change—to be less like Wall Street and Madison Avenue and more like Main Street.
These are your students, after all, members of your family.
For the players’ part, unionization may not be the best option, but at least it would give them a seat at the table, an opportunity to influence matters that affect them directly. As Joe Nocera put it in The New York Times recently (February 1): “What college athletes need, more than money, is an organization that will push back against the all-powerful NCAA.”
Nobody knows where all of this will end up. For the good of the game and the players let’s hope for a reasonable solution.
Hope is a virtue, you know.
ENDNOTE: This column is dedicated to my colleague and friend, Terry Link. In life and writing Terry blends soul, vision, and critique. He’s an inspiration to me and many others.
