Collective Bargaining For Student Athletes: Yes or No

Recently here in Illinois a local university (Northwestern) lost a court case concerning whether or not student athletes should be considered employees of the school. And the student athletes won! I was very surprised at some of the reactions I received from  people that I know. The majority of the people I talked to disagree with the outcome.

I am not in that group.

I think they should be considered employees and I think they should get paid! Let me enlighten the unenlightened, the following is a article I found concerning the agreement, to me it says it all:

........Northwestern's scholarship football players should be eligible to form a union based on a number of factors, including the time they devote to football (as many as 50 hours some weeks), the control exerted by coaches and their scholarships, which Mr. Ohr deemed a contract for compensation.

"It cannot be said that the employer's scholarship players are "primarily students,'" the decision said.

the ruling comes at a time when the NCAA and its largest conferences are generating billions of dollars, primarily from football and men's basketball.  The television contract for the new college football playoff system is worth $7.3 billion over 10 years, and the current deal to broadcast the men's basketball tournament is worth $10.8 billion over 14 years.

If you want to read more the following is the link to the entire aticle:
                                                       

College Players Granted Right to Form Union In-Depth-New York Times-Mar 26, 2014

To me it's ridiculous how schools have the nerve to want to make this public. They should just be quiet about it and do what's right. I guess I am a little biased by this, having been a former student athlete.

 I'm not even going to put my argument in this post about why I agree with the decision made in favor of the student athlete, because if I did I would never end this post. Schools and coaches have been making money off of student athletes for a very long time. 

I will mention one argument that was presented to me. It was "the athletes are getting a free education". I mentioned Dexter Manley a former NFL football player who could not read yet he went to Oklahoma State University. How did he even get in the school and couldn't read, I'll tell you why because most of the schools out here want revenue, money, it's called greed and they don't want to share it with the athletes who are getting it for them. 

So don't give me that crap of getting a free education, there are probably more student athletes that got pushed through and given a pass than the ones who actually went to class and busted their rear ends to get out. 

So now the schools are appealing the decision. I hope they lose and I hope that this will set off a domino effect for all the student athletes to come together and say to these big time universities...PAY UP!!!