{"id":87694,"date":"2025-05-29T10:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/87694\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T10:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:10:10","slug":"collective-bargaining-in-college-sports-is-it-a-third-rail-or-an-inevitability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/87694\/","title":{"rendered":"Collective bargaining in college sports: Is it a third rail or an inevitability?"},"content":{"rendered":"

DESTIN, Fla. \u2014 Danny White knew what he was doing. A few days before SEC spring meetings, the Tennessee athletic director filmed a video interview with his boss, school president Donde Plowman, who also knew what she was doing when she asked White how he dealt with all the issues in college sports.<\/p>\n

About a minute into an otherwise unremarkable answer, White dropped what qualifies among school administrators as a bombshell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say it, we\u2019ve got a camera on us (but) I don\u2019t really care at this point: Collective bargaining is the only solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plowman nodded in agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the only way we\u2019re gonna get there,\u201d Plowman said.<\/p>\n

The two Tennessee administrators had just stepped on the third rail of college sports. That was noteworthy, as was what happened when White arrived this week at SEC meetings: nothing. It would have been the perfect time for White to expound on his thoughts with media members, but after initially saying he would, he changed his mind.<\/p>\n

Perhaps someone made a call. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, one of the many within college sports resistant to the idea of a collective bargaining arrangement with athletes, said it wasn\u2019t him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve opined about bargaining,\u201d Sankey said Wednesday. As for what he thought about White\u2019s comments: \u201cI\u2019m not going to jump into some public disagreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sankey and others are hoping for approval of the House v. NCAA settlement any minute<\/a>, which they hope will be followed by federal legislation, bringing a measure of stability that avoids any future need for collective bargaining. White and others think that approach is just delaying the inevitable.<\/p>\n

Collective bargaining is the reason pro sports leagues don\u2019t have incessant court challenges to their rules the way college sports does. Pro leagues negotiate the rules on salary caps, player movement and more with players unions. Many see that as the only surefire way college sports can enforce certain rules, especially when it comes to the transfer restrictions that courts have struck down in recent years, opening up an era of unlimited player movement. White and others believe a collectively bargained agreement with a players union would mean reasonable transfer rules that would stand up in court.<\/p>\n

Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin has been on that side for several years, and he reiterated his stance this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s probably got to be something like that eventually, because for a while now it\u2019s been very player-friendly, with the regulations and rules around it,\u201d Kiffin said. \u201cNow it\u2019s going to come back somewhere in the middle. But there probably needs to be (collective bargaining) because you\u2019re still going to have a lot of loophole issues and problems, for both sides, until there\u2019s real contracts that have years on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are various hurdles to collective bargaining at the college level: the turnover among athletes, fierce resistance among administrators to athletes becoming employees, state laws against public employee unions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a reality in our states around bargaining,\u201d Sankey said.<\/p>\n

But there are several models that could get around the issues. The Screen Actors Guild\u2019s members are contractors rather than employees because filming takes places all over the country, but the guild still negotiates work rules. Starbucks workers and Uber drivers in New York also have setups that could serve as models.<\/p>\n

As for those state laws and general hostility to unions, it bears noting that when California passed its precedent-setting name-image-and-likeness law in 2018, many other state legislatures, especially in the South, reacted with scorn. But they changed their mind when they realized schools on the West Coast might have an advantage as a result.<\/p>\n

Of course, another question is who would serve as head of such a players union, or whatever entity it ends up being. Several people have tried to step forward into those roles, but with the idea seeming far off, the urgency has been lacking.<\/p>\n

The feeling among many in college sports is that collective bargaining is a last resort, and they\u2019d prefer to let the House settlement take effect and see if federal legislation can help. Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, asked about White\u2019s comment, cited Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s 2021 opinion in the Alston v. NCAA case, which concerned the NCAA\u2019s ability to restrict the education-related benefits schools provided athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said there\u2019s really only three ways what college athletics is doing would not be antitrust: One is congressional action, two is through the courts, or three (is) through collective bargaining. I think that still holds true,\u201d Stricklin said. \u201cDanny obviously believes the other two are not a viable path. The fact of the matter is, if the settlement gets approved, it is an attempt to do it through the courts, which kind of goes along with what Kavanaugh suggested. So I think it has to be one of those three paths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, that\u2019s not saying no to collective bargaining. Stricklin spoke more strongly against athletes becoming employees, although the Johnson v. NCAA case<\/a>, which could go to trial next year, could still force that into reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s what anybody wants right now,\u201d Stricklin said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing a lot of things right now, though, that we never thought we\u2019d end up doing. So never say never.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danny White wouldn\u2019t talk this week, but his brother was also in Destin: Mike White, the men\u2019s basketball coach at Georgia. That sport deals with the transfer portal in such a way that the coach half-joked that when a player returns for a second year at the same program, \u201che\u2019s an outlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is collective bargaining the answer? If Mike White agrees with his brother, he wasn\u2019t saying. He also was careful not to get whatever phone call his brother got, saying he would let the administrators handle it. Then he summed up the sentiment of seemingly all college coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive us the rules and we\u2019ll follow them,\u201d White said. \u201cWe\u2019ll abide by whatever the framework is and do the best we can, year in and year out.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo: Caitie McMekin \/ News Sentinel \/ USA Today Network via Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DESTIN, Fla. \u2014 Danny White knew what he was doing. A few days before SEC spring meetings, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[331,7,49,48,156,1541],"class_list":{"0":"post-87694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-sports-business","13":"tag-tennessee-volunteers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114590582367627538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}