Dartmouth College basketball players are not just athletes, but university employees able to negotiate salaries, practice schedules and travel schedules. That’s what a National Labor Relations Board regional official ruled on Monday, Feb. 5, clearing the path for a union vote.
Dartmouth can still appeal the decision in a case that could wind up at the Supreme Court. The players, meanwhile, are already planning their next steps, including forming an Ivy League Players Association for basketball players across the conference.
The NLRB ruling marks the first time college athletes have successfully won approval to unionize, though not the first attempt. Ten years ago, Northwestern University football players appealed to the NLRB for similar rights and were eventually shot down.
“It was always a house of cards that was doomed to crumble and 10 years later, we’re miles ahead of where we were, but the Northwestern case was certainly one of those things that took a few cards out of the base and started the whole thing tumbling down,” said David Ridpath, sports business professor at Ohio University.
Some of what Northwestern players fought for — and were denied — one decade ago is now common practice in college sports, specifically compensation around name, image and likeness, known as NIL.
How Dartmouth players’ case is different
The premise behind the NLRB denying Northwestern players does not apply to Dartmouth. At the time, the NLRB declined to take on the case because while Northwestern University is a private university, it is part of the Big Ten, which is full of public universities. The board kicked the issue to schools and the NCAA, saying allowing one school to unionize while others could not would only complicate matters.
For Dartmouth, that issue does not exist. The college is not only private but part of the Ivy League conference, which only consists of other private schools.
“This can have far-reaching implications for all the Ivy League schools and certainly something that other schools could follow,” Ridpath said. “I just look at it as a possible template and a pathway forward for all schools, public and private.”
NCAA’s many athlete-employee battles
Since losing NCAA v. Alston, a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, the NCAA has faced several antitrust violation cases that continue to play out in court. While the NCAA has historically fought back against compensating college athletes, maintaining compensation would harm their amateur status, courts are increasingly ruling in the other direction.
“You can’t say that somebody is a student and treat them as an employee without giving them all the rights that employees have, including collective bargaining as a union,” Ridpath said. “It simply doesn’t work. You can’t hide behind the student-athlete moniker and claim that they are just students doing extracurricular activities.”
Ridpath said he could see Dartmouth’s case getting appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
Watch the full interview in the video above.