The board decided that asserting jurisdiction would not promote labor stability, which NCAA executive vice president of regulatory affairs Oliver Luck reminded “is very important to the NLRB.”
Conversations erupted across the media about what the decision means for the future of player compensation—many around the sports world have been closely following the Northwestern case because of a belief that it could set a nationwide precedent that would open the door for paying players—but many in the know on the details say the decision doesn’t actually mean much in the bigger picture.
First, said Dr. Eddie Comeaux, an associate professor of education at the University of California, Riverside, and a national scholar on issues surrounding collegiate athletics, the case is likely to escalate further to a federal court.
“Given what we’ve seen happen and the traction that we’ve seen,” Comeaux said, “we are unlikely to see the case die here.”
Second, it is critical to note that the NLRB “did not determine if the players were statutory employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Instead, the Board exercised its discretion not to assert jurisdiction and dismissed the representation petition filed by the union,” as it was written in the decision document. This non-decision, so to speak, kicks the issue down the road to be debated by an entity under whose jurisdiction it actually would fall—like the courts.
The courts, Comeaux pointed out, have already begun to display a shift in “momentum [to be] clearly on the side of the athlete,” with recent victories, such as the O’Bannon ruling, clearing the way for a reconsideration of the definition of amateurism. (In O’Bannon v. NCAA, a district judge last year ruled against the NCAA in an antitrust suit that paved the way for players to be compensated for use of their names and likenesses.)
