Northwestern University football players are employees of the school and are therefore entitled to a union election, Peter Sung Ohr, the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, said in a ruling released Wednesday afternoon.
The stunning decision has the potential to alter dramatically the world of big-time college sports in which the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the universities strike the deals and set the rules, exerting control over the activities of the players known as "student athletes."
But now they are employees, too, according to the NLRB decision, which will be appealed.
In siding with the union, Ohr said the football players primarily have an economic relationship with the university, which controls and directs their daily activities and compensates them in the form of scholarships.
"The record makes clear that the Employer's scholarship players are identified and recruited in the first instance because of their football prowess and not because of their academic achievement in high school," Ohr wrote.
Football players, he said, are subject to special rules and policies that do got govern the general student population. For example, he said, freshmen and sophomore students on scholarships are required to live on campus. Upperclassmen, he added, can live off campus but are required to submit their lease for approval to their coach, Pat Fitzgerald.
"Even the players' academic lives are controlled as evidenced by the fact that they are required to attend study hall if they fail to maintain a certain grade point average (GPA) in their classes," Ohr wrote.
The decision is not the final word. Ohr's ruling is expected to be appealed to the NLRB in Washington. Labor experts say an election is unlikely to take place until the NLRB makes a decision. If Ohr's decision is upheld, the case would likely make its way through federal appellate court and could reach the Supreme Court.
Northwestern officials said in a statement they were disappointed in the decision.
"While we respect the NLRB process and the regional director's opinion, we disagree with it," the university said. "Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students. Unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student-athletes."
Northwestern confirmed that it plans to appeal to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. "We believe that participation in athletic events is part of the overall educational experience for those students, not a separate activity," Alan Cubbage, Vice President of University Relations, said.
The decision is "revolutionary for college sports," said Robert McCormick, a professor emeritus at Michigan State University College of Law who focuses on sports and labor law.
McCormick said Ohr's decision could influence other state and federal agencies. For example, if college players demand compensation for injuries sustained during training or a game, Ohr's opinion could come into play in the question of whether the players are employees under the state Workers' compensation Act.
Northwestern's football players are the first in college sports to seek union representation. Behind the effort is the College Athletes Players Association, or CAPA, a union funded by Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA linebacker who has become an advocate for players' rights. CAPA is backed by the United Steelworkers, which is covering the group's legal expenses.
Among its demands, CAPA is seeking financial coverage for former players with sports-related medical expenses, independent concussion experts to be placed on the sidelines during games and the creation of an educational trust fund to help former players graduate.
The public face of CAPA has been former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, who appeared at NLRB hearings in February. Colter and CAPA said the players' services and responsibilities amounted to a full-time job, but even if that job were to be considered part time, they could still organize. Furthermore, the career of a college football player typically lasts four years, which is longer than the average NFL career, it argued.
At the hearings, Colter described a grueling football schedule that led him to drop his pre-med course load and switch to a less-demanding major.
Kain Colter, who is in training camp in Florida, said he was getting ready for practice when he saw a message from the union's attorney.
"We won!" he yelled.
His coach and others around him congratulated him and he called family members, starting with his mom.
Colter said he's been through a roller coaster of emotions since the union filed an election petition in January.
"I knew there would be some criticism but people made it seem something that it wasn't," Colter said, adding that the story was portrayed as him vs. the coach.
Colter said he loves Northwestern and thinks coach Pat Fitzgerald is the "best coach in the nation," but that doesn't take away from the fact that college football players are employees of the university and have the right to unionize.
Colter said he is confident that if an election was to be held soon, the majority of Northwestern football players would vote to unionize. In January, he said, nearly 100 percent of players with scholarships signed union cards, and he believes they still feel the same way.