NCAA overhaul coming: Unions, lawsuits, reforms and more

The National Labor Relations Board announced Monday that it will not uphold its Chicago office’s 2014 ruling that Northwestern’s football players are employees of their university. That means athletes in private schools will not be able to unionize. The board punted on deciding whether athletes are employees, but will not let Northwestern players unionize.

The main issue in the board’s eyes? Deciding on the difference between public and private schools, since public schools would not be covered under this ruling:

Simon Cvijanovic, a former offensive lineman at Illinois, took to Twitter to accuse head coach Tim Beckman and the program of abuse.

Cvijanovic suffered a season-ending knee injury against Ohio State last November. He alleges that Beckman mistreated him after the injury, and did not allow Cvijanovic to attend the team’s bowl game or end-of-season banquet. (Beckman has since responded, saying in part, “we have continued to support him with medical care, an academic scholarship and academic advising.”)

Scholarships

The president mentions scholarships almost immediately, saying schools should have a greater responsibility to athletes.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive has come out against any proposed rule regarding freshman ineligibility, the first of the five power conference commissioners to do so.

At this point, it’s important to remember that nothing is scheduled to change in terms of freshman eligibility, but the head of the SEC coming out publicly against changes would probably make them less likely to occur. A major NCAA rules change like freshman ineligibility wouldn’t happen unless everyone is on board.

Four power conferences are looking into the idea of freshman ineligibility for football and men’s basketball. The Big Ten claims 80 percent of academic violations come from the two sports, and that freshmen athletes in those two sports could use a year to focus solely on academics.

The merits of such proposals are debatable, but one thing seems clear: it should wait at least a few years, until the new freshman academic eligibility standards taking effect for the 2016 freshmen can be evaluated.

The ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 have been kicking around the idea of reviving the ban on first-year players competing in, specifically, college football and men’s basketball. Sure, most pre-1972 rules about broad groups of people being barred from select activities would work great in modern settings. The Big Ten is also reportedly interested in the conversation.

No, this has nothing to do with Kentucky basketball being favored to win its second title in four years thanks to mastering the art of one-and-dones. The fact that the four conferences most interested in the idea are the power conferences Kentucky isn’t a part of? Happenstance. The fact that these four conferences also annually trail the fifth in freshmen who are ready to play college football is another coincidence.

In response to CBS Sports’ report that power-conference commissioners might consider reinstating the pre-1972 ban on freshmen eligibility, Mississippi State athletic director Scott Stricklin introduced an alternate. At first, it was just a suggestion on Twitter, but it might be one of the most athlete-friendly proposals in a long time.

The proposal to restrict freshman eligibility was born out of a desire to cure the one-and-done basketball phenomenon at places like Kentucky. Granted, the Stricklin idea wouldn’t solve that, but it would create a more accommodating environment for players to mature athletically and better balance the demands of sports and attaining an undergraduate degree.

In 1972, the NCAA finally reversed course on a rule that made freshmen ineligible to compete in football and men’s basketball. If a few commissioners of Power 5 conferences get their way, the era of freshmen ineligibility will soon return to address the perceived “one-and-done” problem across college hoops.

It might sound ridiculous, but it’s true. Led by Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, there’s a growing sentiment that college basketball could look to bar freshmen from competing in men’s basketball. Scott presented the idea last May, and it has growing support from other leaders of major conferences, such as Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

The day after National Signing Day is customarily the day when a number of college football assistants take jobs at other teams. Coaches tend to put off these moves in order to wait until recruits sign their letters of intent, which bind players and keep them from changing schools based on coaching changes.

This is devious, and it’s not in the best interest of the high school seniors who get duped.

After months of lobbying and tweaking, the NCAA’s new autonomy proposal has passed. The new set of rules represents the most substantive change of rules in the history of the organization. Basically, the bigger schools will have more power than ever to determine how they operate, which will at some point mean increased benefits for players.

Here’s a look at the biggest autonomy questions and what it means for your team and the future of the sport.

West Virginia University athletic director Oliver Luck is leaving for an NCAA job, according to the Charleston Daily Mail’s Mike Casazza. Casazza reports Luck will be “something of second-in-charge there to oversee NCAA reform.”

[Update: The NCAA has confirmed, saying Luck will be the organization’s vice president of regulatory affairs and tasked with “developing stronger integration among regulatory staffs, improving efficiency and strengthening relationships with NCAA colleges and universities.” Its full release is below.]

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Lawsuits and questionable oversight continue to drag down the NCAA’s reputation. College sports will face a day of reckoning, experts say, but first the games need a tough new supervisor -- a “benevolent dictator,” maybe.

“I’m all for big-time college sports, but the money needs to be handled differently,” said Tom McMillen, retired NBA player and former U.S. congressman.

Reports out of Northwestern are that the unionization movement at the school might be coming to a close. While the NLRB is likely to uphold the regional ruling that players are considered employees, it looks doubtful that the players will vote to actually form a union.

But the union movement may still have a future. According to an ESPN.com survey of 300 top football recruits, 60 percent of the 2015 recruiting class is in favor of unionization for college athletes, and more than 86 percent are in favor of athletes receiving some sort of stipend.

As I’ve transitioned from an athletic life to a professional one, I feel no anger toward the NCAA. My scholarship and the benefits I received as an athlete allowed me to get a great education and move on to a post-track life. But I understand why athletes in lucrative sports like football and men’s basketball -- who bring in lots of money for their universities and even more marketing clout -- feel exploited and frustrated. I think this is the biggest problem the NCAA must face: the discrepancies between the experiences of athletes who play big-money sports and those who participate in non-revenue ones. This is a divide the NCAA will have to bridge in order to tackle any of its proposed reforms.

A key takeaway was the extent of Emmert’s powerlessness as an administrator in the face of university presidents. This came across clearly during Sen. Claire McCaskill’s questioning. The senior Democrat from Missouri brought up a survey of her own making that concluded 20 percent of all NCAA member schools leave the handling of allegations of sexual assault involving athletes to the athletic departments.

One of the biggest points of contention at Wednesday’s Senate hearing on college sports was Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) admonishing NCAA president Mark Emmert for not publicizing which schools tried to ban their peers from giving out four-year scholarships (or scholarships that couldn’t be revoked after a season just for athletic reasons).

That vote, taken in 2012, saw 62.12 percent of schools — just short of the 62.5 percent needed — attempt to override legislation to allow four-year scholarships. McCaskill’s point: Emmert keeps saying mandatory four-year scholarships are coming, but why should we believe that if so many schools tried to veto them from even being a possibility?

It -- or some iteration of it -- was said over and over again at Wednesday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing: “Let’s not forget that the NCAA has provided so many athletes the chance to get their degrees.”

That was NCAA president Mark Emmert’s justification for the continuance of the collegiate model as we know it, a refrain echoed by Senators scared by a world in which athletes are allowed to receive compensation for what they do.

Last week, nearly every private university in the top level of college football sent a letter to the National Labor Relations Board, urging it to overturn the decision that made Northwestern football players employees of the university.

For now, the board’s decision only applies to private universities, meaning that if it’s upheld, it would be considerably easier for football players at private schools to also become employees and collectively bargain with their respective universities.

Texas administrators can’t stop talking about the potential compensation of college athletes, but the NCAA probably hopes they do soon. Previously, we fact-checked Texas athletic director Steve Patterson after his comments about the Northwestern unionization effort, and we showed why Longhorns women’s athletic director Chris Plonsky actually hurt the NCAA with her testimony in the O’Bannon lawsuit.

Now, Patterson is back in the news again, having given a forceful interview about the NCAA’s critics to the Sports Business Journal. Make sure to read the full interview — go for the hilarity, stay for the Jay Bilas attack — but here are Patterson’s five most ridiculous quotes and what makes them so wrong.

The NCAA continued its commitment to improving the welfare of student-athletes on Friday, hiring a major lobbying firm to keep those very athletes from profiting off their athletic accomplishments. A humble non-profit that brings in nearly a billion dollars in revenue per year, the organization is reportedly spending the big bucks to make sure its revenue isn’t threatened by its student-athletes, according to Politico.

Politico has the entire lobbying registration document.

In the past few months, the NCAA and its member schools have figured out that their transfer rules make scholarship offers look a lot like employment contracts. So much so, in fact, that Northwestern football players were deemed employees by a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.

So in order to fix the NCAA’s transfer problems, Young threw out a proposal that universities treat their unpaid employees like paid professionals in the NFL and force them to stay at schools they don’t want to be at. Can’t imagine any lawsuits coming from that!

It’s a good bet that when you compare a trivial current event to a tragic historical event, you’re going to get some backlash, but that didn’t stop Central Florida football coach George O’Leary from giving it a shot.

The current event? SEC commissioner Mike Slive’s threat to leave the NCAA’s Division I. His historical comparison? Southern secession in the Civil War!

The NCAA’s autonomy proposal is back in the news. The consensus is nobody really has any idea what’s going on. At the SEC’s annual meetings, Florida president Bernie Machen is “pessimistic“ the proposal will pass, while conference commissioner Mike Slive is ”optimistic.”

That’s par for the course with college sports. Everyone argues, nobody can get anything done, and everyone just gives up. Out of fear that will continue to happen, Mike Slive decided to drop an ultimatum:

While support for NCAA change has been fairly apolitical so far, support for change in the courts, especially via a player union, has garnered far less universal support.

A February poll by HBO Real Sports and Marist College showed 75 percent of respondents against a college football union. In an ESPN poll, 51 percent replied, “Players should get more, but not form a union.” And a Washington Post poll found the public split down the middle on a union that would allow players “to negotiate their rights and working conditions,” but strongly opposed to “paying salaries to college athletes” (it should be noted that the union movement’s stated initial goals align more closely with improving working conditions).

When it comes to the NCAA’s preservation of amateurism, the two sides of the debate have come to common ground on only one conclusion: the O’Bannon and Kessler lawsuits have the potential to blow the whole system up.

Of course, people have varying opinions on whether that’s a good thing, but as is typical any time there is major change, it’s an exaggeration. College sports will not cease to exist. There’s too much money at stake, and there are too many people with vested interests. Successful markets don’t just disappear.

Thursday, the House of Representatives’ Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing to debate the Northwestern unionization ruling. Much of the discussion centered on the NCAA.

Baylor president Ken Starr and Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir were in attendance, but the most interesting testimony came from economist Andy Schwarz, a sports economist active in writing about the O’Bannon and Northwestern cases.