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The answer is a college Collective Bargaining Agreement
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:45 am
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:45 am
We need a CBA.
This is not just a short term 5 for 5 issue.
As long as there are lawyers, and no collective bargaining agreement with college players, there will continue to be new legal challenges for things we used to take for granted.
E.g., an NFL player who left college after 3 years and then had a short NFL stint (3 years, for example) will sue for the right to go play for Bama or Utah State or somebody.
And what gives the NCAA the authority to cap eligibility at 5 years arbitrarily?
The Answer to this quandary is a CBA. The challenge with that is getting the college players to the table. Right now they are enjoying the benefits of the Wild Wild West.
The CBA needs to accomplish the following:
1. Bind the college players to the rules of the game, 5 years max, no getting paid by a professional league and then returning, 1 year max transfer during college. Whatever the P4/NCAA want to attempt to settle.
2. Give college players something in return to get them to the table. (This is the hard part.) Employment status? Lifetime health insurance? 401k? Pension? I dunno, but there has to be a really nice carrot being dangled (call down, aggies).
Part of a HS player signing a LOI is that they also would sign this CBA.
This is not just a short term 5 for 5 issue.
As long as there are lawyers, and no collective bargaining agreement with college players, there will continue to be new legal challenges for things we used to take for granted.
E.g., an NFL player who left college after 3 years and then had a short NFL stint (3 years, for example) will sue for the right to go play for Bama or Utah State or somebody.
And what gives the NCAA the authority to cap eligibility at 5 years arbitrarily?
The Answer to this quandary is a CBA. The challenge with that is getting the college players to the table. Right now they are enjoying the benefits of the Wild Wild West.
The CBA needs to accomplish the following:
1. Bind the college players to the rules of the game, 5 years max, no getting paid by a professional league and then returning, 1 year max transfer during college. Whatever the P4/NCAA want to attempt to settle.
2. Give college players something in return to get them to the table. (This is the hard part.) Employment status? Lifetime health insurance? 401k? Pension? I dunno, but there has to be a really nice carrot being dangled (call down, aggies).
Part of a HS player signing a LOI is that they also would sign this CBA.
This post was edited on 8/28/26 at 8:47 am
2
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:50 am to clamdip
I'm not sure that you can do a collective bargaining agreement with the players becoming employees, and that opens up a real can of worms that everyone (players included) has been reluctant to get into.
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:50 am to clamdip
True but colleges want their cake and to eat it too
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:56 am to thelawnwranglers
quote:Keep in mind that this would affect the athletes in every other NCAA sport. Having kids on the golf and tennis team declared employees would be a big setback for them, as now they would have to report their scholarships as income and pay taxes on that. It would even have an impact on football, as not every player is making multiples of their scholarship benefit in NIL and/or revenue sharing.
True but colleges want their cake and to eat it too
Posted on 8/28/26 at 8:58 am to twk
quote:
they would have to report their scholarships as income and pay taxes on that.
Isn't that already the case for their parents? I get a 1098-T for my daughter's no pics scholarship.
Posted on 8/28/26 at 9:12 am to twk
quote:
I'm not sure that you can do a collective bargaining agreement with the players becoming employees, and that opens up a real can of worms that everyone (players included) has been reluctant to get into.
Also, I kind of think that the current student athletes (not former ones and a judge who don't have live with consequences, but current) have to be the driver for that process on a national scale. There are some very good reasons why they don't want to do anything like that.
And at a federal level, a CBA, limited by long standing federal laws, wouldn't address a lot of issues. You can't cap pay with a nation-wide union, which is what I'm pretty sure a lot of people here are complaining about (I'm not, it's none of my business, but that's me I guess). You couldn't cap transfers either.
This post was edited on 8/28/26 at 9:34 am
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