Northwestern players get union vote

[eagle9903]

The universities brought this on themselves by over paying coaches, selling player jerseys and massive fund raising. I can't see any university paying the players or running a minor league system. The women would have to get equal pay and the result would be no scholarships, just grant in aids.

BC didn't bring anything on itself. They underpay for coaches and NEVER sell jerseys of current players. They also have an athletic department that has never turned a profit.

They lose money from an accounting perspective because they have to account for tuition scholarships at 45K dollars per person.
If you ignore these "costs", then the department is very profitable.

wrong. the department is providing a service that has a recognized market value of $45k so the department incurs expenses of $45k for each of these services that are offered.

if you want cash flow accounting, move to russia

Wait, are you H & R block management?

[gallopingghost]

I'm more on the players's side here -- this is what happens when schools -- driven by money -- kill the golden goose. There was a kid in Colorado who was excellent at skiing as well as football (i think the was the latter sport) and the NCAA told him he couldn't do any sponsorship with skiing even though he was going to get a scholarship for football and wasn't going to ski at Colorado. You just can't take advantage of people to no end and expect to get away with it. Why does;t that kid own his own image, his own rights outside of football?
And BTW, I also gotta say a union made sure I had health insurance when I was a kid and gave me scholies to BC and now instead of lower middle class I'm upper middle class and paying more taxes. People who hate unions really just can't stand poor people playing capitalism halfway decently, IMO.

Saying union and capitalism in the same sentence make your wooden nose grow?

If they are employees shouldnt they pay taxes on the cost of the scholarship.

Should they have to pay taxes here’s a thumbnail sketch of how their finances will change. At NU the tuition is about $65,000 per year. If the student athletes receive this as pay, then they will have to pay Federal income tax, state income tax, local income taxes, and payroll taxes; which include social security and Medicare. These are taxes paid by other residents of Evanston, Illinois where Northwestern U. is located.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/03/ ... ation.html

[hansen]

The universities brought this on themselves by over paying coaches, selling player jerseys and massive fund raising. I can't see any university paying the players or running a minor league system. The women would have to get equal pay and the result would be no scholarships, just grant in aids.

BC didn't bring anything on itself. They underpay for coaches and NEVER sell jerseys of current players. They also have an athletic department that has never turned a profit.

They lose money from an accounting perspective because they have to account for tuition scholarships at 45K dollars per person.
If you ignore these "costs", then the department is very profitable.

wrong. the department is providing a service that has a recognized market value of $45k so the department incurs expenses of $45k for each of these services that are offered.

if you want cash flow accounting, move to russia

shouldn't you be busy preparing tax returns?

[rktbrkr]

Room and board is taxable regardless

tuition aid is tax exempt of the student is pursuing a dehree which is lauhhable in m.many situations

they arent being taxed because they are in a union, its becaise theyre afmitting theyre being paid to perform not study

[DuchesneEast]

Lets go back to me calling CT lawmakers assholes:

Connecticut proposals would aim to clarify the relationship between the state and student-athletes at public universities. In Connecticut, state Rep. Patricia Dillon is researching whether it would be possible to define those athletes as employees of the state, with access to all the attendant labor rights that go along with that.

Dillon said conditions within college sports had “really deteroriated” over the past twenty years, IS SHE FUCKING INSANE?!??! in large part because the seasons for various sports have gotten longer. She decided to legislate the issue, she said, because she doesn’t want young athletes to be “treated like raw material and tossed aside.”

“If the working conditions are good, you want young people to be involved in organized sports,” she said. “For parts of the cities I represent in the legislature, team sports are seen as redemptive. It’s seen as an opportunity to get out, an opportunity to get an education. I don’t want them to be exploited.”

[dtwalrus]

Just had a thought, and I'm sure I'm not the first person, but I haven't seen it discussed here. Even assuming that somehow the players can convince a court that they're employees and not students or to disregard the precedent that declares students ineligible for unionization -- even assuming all that: if the Northwestern players declare themselves employees and not amateurs, isn't the entire team immediately ineligible to participate in NCAA athletics?

[DuchesneEast]

ESPN article on Cost of Scholarships. I figured it could go here, but it links on how I rail against the Athletic Department when they complain about not making money while putting $55g schollies as an expense.

http://regressing.deadspin.com/how-athletic-departments-and-the-media-fudge-the-cost-1570827027

[twballgame9]

"The rest is just fancy self-canceling accounting."

This is just a little bit too trite and simplistic for my taste, but all power to the author for glossing over the details, as I would have stopped reading had he not.

[HJS]

"The rest is just fancy self-canceling accounting."

This is just a little bit too trite and simplistic for my taste, but all power to the author for glossing over the details, as I would have stopped reading had he not.

His argument centers on this:

Instead, it represents a list price that almost no one pays, because most people who attend a college receive institutional financial aid of one kind or another. The list price is the starting point and almost everyone gets a discount off of the list.

Perhaps things changed since prenerdification, but the sticker price was what I and pretty much every non-athlete I knew in college paid. Two adjustments to that sentence: (1) my year was the first of Presidential Scholars (they got a full ride) and (2) some got schollie money from grants from their school (but that still meant BC received their full freight).

Also, isn't it defrauding the govt. if you claim costs that are greatly exaggerated for the purposes of getting more aid?

[angrychicken]

Also, isn't it defrauding the govt. if you claim costs that are greatly exaggerated for the purposes of getting more aid?

Maybe that's what happened to Civil.

[Bryn Mawr Eagle]

His argument centers on this:

Instead, it represents a list price that almost no one pays, because most people who attend a college receive institutional financial aid of one kind or another. The list price is the starting point and almost everyone gets a discount off of the list.

Perhaps things changed since prenerdification, but the sticker price was what I and pretty much every non-athlete I knew in college paid. Two adjustments to that sentence: (1) my year was the first of Presidential Scholars (they got a full ride) and (2) some got schollie money from grants from their school (but that still meant BC received their full freight).

As someone who will be paying three college tuitions over the next 15 years, I hope pray that the author is correct.

[Bryn Mawr Eagle]

The National Labor Relations Board says: "Um, nevermind."

The petition for a union vote by Northwestern Scholarship football players was desmithed. While the NLRB decided not to assert jurisdiction here, they leave the door open to doing it in the future on a different set of facts.

Good decision; if they'd gone the other way it would have been chaos.

[Bryn Mawr Eagle]

Reviewing this thread, I am going to pull a Teddy and note how uncannily accurate I was in predicting how this would turn out.

[twballgame9]

Reviewing this thread, I am going to pull a Teddy and note how uncannily accurate I was in predicting how this would turn out.

I applaud both your prediction and your noting it. I'm really only a protege of HJS, however. Tune in next week to Mr. Robot though, to see how correct I was about that show.

[HJS]

Reviewing this thread, I am going to pull a Teddy and note how uncannily accurate I was in predicting how this would turn out.

I applaud both your prediction and your noting it. I'm really only a protege of HJS, however. Tune in next week to Mr. Robot though, to see how correct I was about that show.

Bryn Mawr gets dinged for not quoting the post he was accurate about.

I still predict that either the NLRB or whichever appellate court gets the case (the only one that gives me pause is the 9th Circuit), reverses this and it all comes to nothing. The ramifications are immediate and too ridiculous for this to be allowed to stand.

Stating the obvious here, but if indeed they are "emloyees" then under federal law they are also entitled to be paid minimum wage and overtime. So it is not too far a stretch to say that Northwestern should start paying its players. Like now. Of course, that's nuts and would directly violate NCAA rules.

Congress will fix this if the Board and courts screw it up.

Agreed. I don't believe this is a result that will stand. Ohr just made himself a part of Labor history. He's secured himself a spot on conference panels and a cushy gig in some law firm. Kudos. He took his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and milked it for all it's worth. If he denied it, no one ever discusses it or discusses him. Heck, he likely knows he'll be reversed and did it to further the national conversation regarding the alleged-exploitation of athletes.

At the end of the day, I'm not so sure we should care. I don't care if nag sports goes the way of wrestling. And, a collective bargained system could result in some very interesting ramifications for BC. For instance, players could go to the highest bidder (which means that everyone is now on par with the SEC). It also means that players are highly unlikely to go to Bama when other schools are offering to pay them more (and Bama could only offer the minimum after breaking their cap on another player). For a school like BC, who can't compete with Ohio St. and the SEC, it could level the playing field (unless the state schools includes cost of tuition into the calculation of salary).

[Bryn Mawr Eagle]

HJS' response was entirely predictable.